Week 12 Blog

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/the-future-of-social-media-121 Before class on Wednesday I read this article on the future of social media. I found it a very nice way to finish off the module as it shows the power of social media - something that has come up and registered with me very strongly time and time again over the course of the module.

The article shows the massive shift from when social medias first began to the way that they are and how they are used in society today. I am again torn between whether or not they are as positive as people make them out to be or whether I should keep reminding myself of their dangers. I think it is a mixture of both and this module has helped me to come to that conclusion.

Reflecting back on the module I have learned many things that I had no idea existed in terms of computing and social media. Things such as screencast-o-matic and Diigolet and also social media outlets such as YikYak which I had never heard of before. This module has opened my eyes to the power of social media today and also its many uses. Early on in the module when we had to test ourselves and see if we could go a day without using social media was a true test of just how powerful it is. I found it extremely difficult as I felt I was out of touch with people even though I was surrounded by people in college. Simple things like not knowing when to meet my friends for lunch because I could not Watssap them made me realize just how much my friends and I depend on social medias. 

I really enjoyed certain parts of the module such as the lectures and readings. I found that I was tested in certain areas especially in terms of creating the app. It was completely out of my comfort zone as I had never done something like that before. I really enjoyed working in the group setting as I felt that we could help each other out on certain areas and it also lowered the workload as we were all working together. I was very lucky to have a great group of people to work with. 

I found that the coordinators of this module were very helpful and responded quickly to any query that I had over the module. The module in my opinion is very well laid out with a balanced workload. I liked the fact that separate things got marked separately such as the blog, the wikis, the quiz and the app. It takes the pressure off! 

My favorite aspect of the module assessment is the blogs. I really enjoyed having create leeway in what I could write. Of course there was an element of structure but it was nice to be able to write about personal experiences instead of answering constant questions. 

All in all I thouroughly enjoyed the Social Computing and Media module. 

Week 11 Blog

In week 11 we had our class quiz. It was grading our progress over the module. The quiz was not as difficult as I expected. I met with my group to discuss the quiz and we studied together.
In this weeks lecture we discussed trends in social media. I looked into google trends which was something we had to do before class. I had never come across Google trends before. I found it very useful and spend alot of time looking into films and music through Google trends. I found that YouTube is very prominent on Google trends. I found it fun to go through all of the trending videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO61IiaoE-s I also watched the video attached to this link which was in our required reading for week 11. It is about trending on Twitter. I am a huge twitter fan however I had never heard of the advanced search for trends where you can change region so as to find what is trending in certain areas rather than worldwide! As a Twitter user I don't know how I have not come across this feature before but I will use it in future!
After watching this video on YouTube I went on to watch more videos about trending in the recommended video section on YouTube.

My group used Google trends to see if we could find anything interesting on the Paleo diet.
We had one of our final group meetings on our app. We have overcome all of our problems and the app is running well.

Week Ten Blog

This week we had a guest lecturer, Lucie Bohmove from the University of Economics Prague. The topic of discussion that she was teaching was how social media can be and is being used in business. When talking about this topic Lucie showed how social media can be an extremely cost effective method of advertising. She went on to prove how social media holds high promotional power in terms of advertising. 

Lucie discussed the 4C's which are: Creation, Community, Connected and Creative. We learned how the 4C's can be used as types of sub sets for businesess social medias strategies. She explained the importance of getting people to know and understand your business and social media is a perfect medium to spread, share and find information on your business. Online interaction fuels advertising for businesses. For example, liking, sharing or retweeting can aid in the advertising process. It was interesting to gain an insight into real situations of business and how social media can aid a business in such a powerful way. An interesting fact that Lucie pointed out is that there are peek times on social media for business - for example the peak times for business of Facebook and Twitter is Sunday at 11pm!

This week we also had to choose a group member to present the ideas and progress of our app in front of the class. Debra, a member of my group decided she would present our app. We had a serious group meeting as we wanted to try to get alot of work on our app completed as we all have a heavy workload at the moment. It was an interesting meeting as one of our team members had altered the app slightly and the presentation was much better. During the meeting we assigned separate roles for each member so that we did not waste any time as we knew we did not have a long time scale. We all helped Debra in her preparations for her presentation in the lecture. 

Week Nine Blog

https://www.flickr.com/photos/131341029@N06/

By following the above link one can find my Flickr pictures. Before doing the ELab I had not used Flickr before. I found it interesting to use tags to find other pictures on Flickr. I have a strong interest in photography but never thought to use Flickr before as I do not usually share my images through many social media outlets, just Instagram. My favorite part of using Flickr was looking into the different groups that I am able to join. Each group have different kinds of picture for example, night pictures, people, rural and urban pictures or foods or animals. I like looking at other people photography but personally I do not see myself as being an active using of Flickr in terms of sharing my own images. However I do think that I will use the site to browse through images etc.
We have talked a lot about images online in class. After discussing the amount of content that one can find out about you online through pictures and posts on Facebook for example, I found it would be a good idea to review the amount of personal posts I have posted. I found that from a younger age my friends and I would post more personal content. Since we have become aware of the dangers of posting personal information online my friends and I have become cautious.

We used Flickr to get ideas for the presentation of our app as we have included pictures of Paleo foods in our EasyPal App.

Week Seven Blog

The following link can be followed to view my Google My Maps map: <iframe src="https://mapsengine.google.com/map/u/0/embed?mid=zSf5XkHZTAHY.kOjHJscZQ4Ec" width="640" height="480"></iframe>


 I found the Google My Maps an interesting experience. The instructions were very easy to follow and it was easy to share and embed the map once I had finished it.
When my groups met this week we discussed using a Google My Map in our App on Paleo diets. We looked into trying to pinpoint areas around UCD that were best for buying Paleo foods. We discussed trying to Map restaurants and shops so that people who used our app had places to go and buy foods that were suitable.

Week Six Blog

 This is the link to my first Screencast-O-Matic upload http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/coelI5eKoz . Although it is very rusty I found that Screencast-O-Matic can be a very useful tool! Because you are able to upload and share the data you create it is easy to watch and learn from other people's uploads.

This is my second Screencast-O-Matic attempt. http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/coelIMeKod In this attempt I followed the instructions provided to me my Mr McLoughlin and recorded myself doing an action online. In this instance I simply went to the Google search bar and looked up the top social media sites online. It was fun to watch back over what I had just done and see it as a recording.

This is my third Screencast-O-Matic attempt. http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/coel2VeKo8 In this instance I was creating a Google image search on UCD. I found an image of the lake in UCD. We then had to publish this recording to YouTube where it was available to edit.

Week Four Blog

My Diigo website link is as follows: https://www.diigo.com/user/lilymayaustin
Diigo was a great resource which I found extremely useful within the social computing module and outside of the module. As it Diigo is located in my browser it is easy to access when I need it. Diigo can be seen as a knowledge sharing tool as well as a tool for book marking and note keeping on a personal level. It provides tools on all major web browsers to collect and find information. Diigo uses outliner to organise the information that one collects. This information can be in the form of messages, pictures, images, videos, notes and personal thoughts.

I found the highlighter useful as it can highlight sentences on websites which I previously did not know one could do. I found my self using it a lot when it came to online readings found on blackboard. It was useful in relation to key words as through highlighting the key words, when I came back to the page I could remember the overall feel of the piece of work or webpage.

The sticky notes gave me the opportunity to add information or reminders to certain pages which benefited me greatly. The sticky notes were also very useful in terms of readings again as I could leave notes and information on certain topics that I needed to come back to or read up on more. It also gave me the opportunity to take note of the things I found important on webpages and in readings.

Through the discover tab on Diigo I could different people's bookmarks and what other people found interesting. I was able to search using the search bar. There is also a whole list of key words that when simply clicked on will bring you to another long list of bookmarks through the key words. For example I typed in screenshots and I was brought to an interesting site called Screenr. (https://www.screenr.com/) Screenr is a site where one can create screencasts. I showed my other group members the Screenr website and we all thought it would be a great site to try to use in the creation of our app for out project.

Through the use of groups on Diigo I found that collaborating and sharing was linked on the Diigo site. Diigo groups is a clever way of collecting ones data and pooling it together with a group of people with whom one wants to share information and finding with. There are many different groups on Diigo such as agricultural, musical, computer, health, political, travel and scientific groups. Information on the groups main topics can be collected and then shared within the groups. I found that when I looked through some of the groups I found interesting sources of information which I could then use for my own information findings. Groups on Diigo can be extremely useful in terms of studying and resource gathering for assignments. However it is important to check that the information is of a high standard before use. One can share their information on different media outlets from Diigo such as Twitter and Facebook.

I met with my group and we finalized an idea for our app. We have decided to work to our strengths and create an app to do with diet and exercise. We came up with 'EasyPal' which is an app on the paleo diet. We are now discussing ways in which we want to create the app using the tools we have learned so far in both face to face and online tutorials.

Week Three Blog

The lecture topic for week three was User Generated Content. We asked each other questions in class about reviews. I have never posted a review but I do find them helpful. I found myself looking at different kinds of reviews online. Following on from that I started to look at blogs online and how people document all kinds of things in their lives through blogs and some have become quite successful. I found some extremely interesting blogs online which such as headstuff (http://www.headstuff.org/) It gave me a new insight into how interesting blogging can be! I looked up how to be a blogger and what a blog should entail and through WikiHow I came across insightful instructions about the ins and outs of blogging. It can be found by following this link: http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Good-Blogger 

During week three we had a face-to-face tutorial. In this tutorial we were adding to our MIT App inventors. I made a new project called Magic8Ball. We were given a set of instructions from Mr McLoughlin and also hwad to follow the instructions on the MIT App Inventor website so as to create the Magic8Ball project. I found the instructions easy to follow even though they were more advanced than the previous HelloPurr instructions. Having a face-to-face tutorial helped greatly in the process as help could be found from the tutor and from fellow classmates. The tutorials also provide an opportunity to discuss with group members as it is sometimes difficult to all meet at the same time.

I met with some of the other group members of my project group after the tutorial and we tried to help eachother as the new Magic8Ball was a difficult to grasp. I discussed with another group member what we could take from the MIT App Inventor to build on our own app. We learned how to use sound blocks through the app inventor. It was through the use of the app inventor that got me started about ideas on my groups project. We met and discussed certain ideas and came up with the idea of some kind of healthy eating app for students. We talked about healthy eating and exercise and discussed how both subjects have a profound influence on students today. We discussed how all of the group members tried to excercise regularly and eat a balanced healthy diet. We also talked about how being a student can effect ones ability to do this. Study time and part time jobs can effect ones ability to take time out of the day to exercise. We also looked at money as a factor and how that could effect ones choice of food products that they choose when shopping. Although we did not finalize on an idea it was good to brainstorm.

During the week I also met with one group member and we discussed the idea of creating an App for students where information on what was going on in UCD could be accessed quickly and easily on a daily basis. We found that as students of UCD it was sometimes difficult to know and find out information about what was going on in UCD every evening. I thought that by creating an App where all this information could be accessed in one place on some kind of calender it would be easier for students to become more involved in college life. 

Week Two Blog

In week two we started to look at communication online in more depth. We looked at traditional communication e.g. face-to-face, written or telephone, and semi-traditional methods of communication e.g. email, online chat or mobile phones. Linked to communication online is the question of who has the control of the information communicated online and which information of trustworthy. In week two I gained an understanding of the term gatekeeper. This interested me as I too can become a gatekeeper through blogging.

By looking at communication in class it made me think about how we communicate online and the effect that that has on the individual. In another module I looked at one's presentation of self online and how it may be different to ones presentation of self in 'real life'. I saw a strong link between the two modules during the week two lecture. In lecture two we were challenged to go without social media for a day. I took this challenge. I thought that it would be a simple exercise as I see myself as strong willed. However the realization of just how much power social media has over my daily life was clear. I did not miss scrolling through Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, however I had the constant thought and worry on my mind that people would be trying to contact me and I could not be reached even though I was alive and well. I found it difficult to believe that technology's such as social media had such a strong level of control over my life.

In our face-to-face tutorial I had to create an App called HelloPur. I did not realize that there were certain websites available to internet users for the creation of personal apps. We used the MIT App inventor which can be found through following this link: http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/.  I found the it difficult at first to get a grasp of the concept of app making. Although I use apps everyday the thought of creating one was daunting. However through using the MIT App Inventor in the face-to-face tutorial my team mates and I were able to tease out a few simple ideas for an app that we could work on and use as our group project. I found that the instructions available on the website were very straightforward therefore making it easy to invent the app.

An example of the work the MIT App Inventor can do can be seen by following this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJWIaSyV6-Q

Week One Blog

In week one we were given a brief overview of the issues and topics we would be learning about throughout the semester. At first I did not understand what the module would entail. I found that I would be interested in some parts of the module more so than others. In the first lecture I learned about three web concepts. Before this lecture I had not grasped the depth of the online world. The interaction and sharing of information which is present in my social media life was only a fraction of the ability of the internet however for me social media is a dominant present in my life. Because it is so dominant in my life I was interested to learn the workings of not only social media but the whole web in general.

I learned that this module would be interactive. I learned that I would have to partake in a weekly note taking exercise which for me was a new concept. I took it as the opportunity to gain more understanding of the lectures as you see many points of views from the other students in the class. As we only need to write roughly 50 words I found that the note taking was a good exercise when trying to be factual and descriptive in a short format. We are given the opportunity to read other students notes which is helpful in viewing different perspectives or gaining information that may have slipped past my attention.

Another dimension to the interactive module is blogging. As part of the module I had to create a blog so that I could keep a private diary my experience of the module. I found the opportunity express my own views on the module interesting and a good method of expression. I used a website called Blogger (www.blogger.com) to create our my personal blogs so as to document my progress throughout the module.

Week Five Blog

During the week seven we had a face-to-face tutorial.In this tutorial I made a Prezi account. A Prezi can be seen as a type of virtual canvas on which one can paint their ideas. For my own benefit I used it as a tool so as to lay out my own Personal ideas about my group project. It gave me the opportunity to separate ideas about healthy eating and exercise to see if that was really the best idea for our group project. I was sitting beside one of the members of my group and he was making a Prezi on the healthy eating side of our overall topic of Health. He was looking at certain supplements that can be taken as part of a balanced diet to boost overall physical performance. Through my Prezi I talked about my group project that I will be making which is on the subject of Health, Nutrition and Sport and how the three topics interlink. It was a helpful exercise as all my ideas were spread out clearly and it gave me a better insight into my project.

I found the Prezi to be a very useful tool in the creation of apps. As a beginner, I had no experience in creating things online such as apps. I didn't have a good understanding of how app creation worked or even what ideas were suitable for apps. By using a Prezi I was able to lay out my ideas in an easy to read format which made certain ideas stand out more so than others. It also gave me the opportunity to see the ideas of the other group members more clearly and they were also easier to explain and understand in a Prezi format. Communication was easier as our ideas were easy to follow.

Another brilliant side to Prezi is that on the website one can browse through millions of Prezis. By browsing through the Prezis you can get a better idea of how many different kinds of Prezis there are. I didnt browse through the Prezis until after I had created my own in the face-to-face tutorial, however I did find it useful to know that there are so many different kinds of Prezis out there.

<iframe frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen="" width="550" height="400" src="https://prezi.com/embed/zquzisbugrt-/?bgcolor=ffffff&amp;lock_to_path=0&amp;autoplay=0&amp;autohide_ctrls=0#"></iframe>

We have started to make our app using the MIT App inventor. We have come across few difficulties so far but we are trying to figure out how to use the emulator.