COMM 2P26 – Course Tasks

Week 1:
* Create your personal blog at Blogger or WordPress
o Personalize your blog with pictures, media, news/media feeds etc. You’ll be spending some time on it so spend some time and play with it.
o Blog Post #1: Introduce yourself! Who are you? What things interest you? What do you want to do with yourself after university? (note: you don’t have to provide your last name on your blog & please don’t put your student # on it).
* Create an account on Twitter & start tweeting
o You can also link your Twitter and Facebook (so when you do an update on twitter, it updates your facebook status as well) if you want (there’s an application for it).

Links posted:
RSS Feeds – Wikipedia’s explanation of RSS
Bloglines: Blog reader. I showed this one in class. You add blog addresses so you can see when there are new posts and what’s been written. Handy for organizing a lot of blogs.

Tweeted Links:
howard rheingold’s blog post about twitter: http://is.gd/1k1I
retweetradar – tracks retweets – http://www.retweetradar.com/ (when you tweet someone else’s tweet to share the info)

Week 2:
Over the next couple of days, I want you to pay attention to your ICTs use in your daily lives;
* Monitor and think about your personal (entertainment, leisure, social), work or school use of email, IM, internet in general, cell phones etc…
* How often did you find yourself using ICTS?
* What were you using them for?
* Could you have used a traditional means to do you tasks? (ie face to face, go to library etc).
* What role do ICTs play in your life?
* What do your daily experiences tell us about the information society?

Course Blog Comment:
In class we talked about techno-landscapes and examples of where technology has replaced ‘human service’ (like ATMs, automated registers at grocery stores, big screens on campus and in retail stores and so forth), and the potential implications of this. Often technology in the workplace leaves people with jobs, media technologies incite purchasing behaviours in the consumer and more.
What other tid-bits can you find online that’s related to our conversation about this in class?

Week 3:
Your Social Network
You have three pieces of paper: circles, very close & somewhat close tables:
-List your very close ties
-List their role (immediate family, relative, friend, work, school, neighbour, other)
-List ICT you use most often to connect with them (email, IM, F2F, phone, cell phone etc)
-Note whether they are your friend on Facebook (Y/N)
-Do the same for Somewhat close ties
-Using the numbers assigned for VC – Plot your network on the circles based on their ‘closeness’ to you
-Do the same for Somewhat close ties (using alphabet)

Comments on your social network:
-What type of network do you have? (large, medium, small)
-What roles come up most often?
-What ICT are you using most to stay in touch with your VC & SC ties?
-Are your network members on Facebook? Why/not?
-What does ‘very close’ & ‘somewhat close’ mean to you?
-Other critical commentary….

Links Tweeted:
How Online Social Networks Benefit Organizations http://is.gd/gt7t
here’s a YouTube video about RSS http://is.gd/gzVt

Nexus
“Nexus shows you how your friends are connected, plus all the interests and groups they share”
http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?api_key=f2261222eff4abb0d124d2ae86e66ec5

-Add the Nexus Application in Facebook (you can remove it later if you want)
-Generate the graph (you can choose light or dark)
-You can choose which graph type to use: radial or spring (I like the spring – easier to see the clusters of networks)
-Play around with it. Hover over any node above to view friend connections. Click a node to view similarities with other friends. Drag the image to pan it. Friends with lighter connection lines have more interests and groups in common.
-Save a picture of it (without names) and post it to your blog.
-Comment on the friends who share your profile keywords and groups.
-What did you learn about your social network from this application?
-Why might social network sites be important to people living in the information society?
-In what ways are they important in YOUR life (if at all)?

Links posted:
16 Awesome Data Visualization Tools
Social Media & Marketing: Evolution or Revolution – nice slide deck on slideshare
What is social media – another slide deck on slideshare
Social Media Will Change Your Business
Social Media’s Good, Bad, Ugly and Unexpected
Check out this wicked presentation called “Learning from social media“ from Sarah Robbins, a friend of mine in Indiana. The prezi software looks really cool!

Course Blog Comment:
What other interesting things – information – can you find regarding social media & business and marketing?

Tweeted Links:
tweetstats – shows ur tweet stats http://tweetstats.com/ here’s mine: top 5 words: blog, social, course, twitter, class http://is.gd/gYTy
Brittanica To Follow Wikipedia Model Online http://is.gd/hiRc
fun! Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. http://www.wordle.net/

Week 4:
Find, read & explore some wikis
Marketing: http://www.stephanspencer.com/wikis/wikis-for-marketing
Educational: http://wikisineducation.wetpaint.com/page/How+we+use+wikis+in+class?t=anon
List of wikis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wikis

Businesses & wikis
How To Use Wikis For Business
Wikis Are Now Serious Business
Would Your Business Benefit from a Wiki?

Wiki:
Comment on the wiki’s you’ve looked at What do you dis/like about the use of wikis? Would you ever use/create one? How are wikis good for businesses? Twitter: Comment on how tweeting is going for you, any interesting things you’ve come across, and the tweets you are reading. Find a way to tweet that works for you – check out these suggestions:
Top ten types of Tweets
Six Types of Tweets
Get Twhirl to try a different interface to tweet with.

Experiment with #Hashtags at http://hashtags.org Find something you’re interested in and see what’s being tweeted about it.

Tweeted Links:
Present.ly gives ur employees the ability 2 instantly communicate their status, ask & answer questions & share media http://snurl.com/avmcx
inauguration puts online video consumption into focus http://snurl.com/avm9u (and all social media tools really)

Course Blog Comment:
The (new) US Government – and Barak Obama – are ict & social media users/producers. I found some cool stuff:
the Presidential Inaugural Committee 2009 YouTube Channel. It’s really good. Here’s their website and their twitter profile. The White House’s Blog.
What other info can you find out about Barak Obama, the inauguration, election, US government etc with respect to using social media. Obama is all about reaching people and connecting with him. How did he do it? What do you think of all this?

Tweeted Links:
Looking for US government agencies using Twitter or other social media? here’s a directory. interesting. http://is.gd/8j4J
Tweeting 9-5: what a way to make a living – slide deck: http://is.gd/i8Ni
50 Ways to use Social Media http://is.gd/TY0
In google we trust? Google Marked Every Site as “Harmful” http://is.gd/hVjw
Ads that see you? http://tinyurl.com/cdv5kj
Facebook & Profs http://is.gd/5dtG
Share MP3s as tweets with Song.ly share an MP3 with a friend, or with a bunch of other folks on Twitter http://is.gd/hFJH
50 Great Widgets For Your Blog: http://tinyurl.com/24kk3t
Should your boss be your Facebook friend? http://is.gd/hxtx

Week 5:
-How do manage and organize your bookmarks or favourites right now? Does it work for you? benefits/constraints?
-Check out/explore the following social bookmarking sites:
Delicious
Digg
Diigo
-Sign up for one SB site and add 5 (five) bookmarks that are course related, tag the sites (blog about the sites you chose, what you added, what you found – and some reflections about using the SB sites). Email your username & SB site to Tracy
-Pick a tag (topic/word) of your choice (ie hockey, web 2.0, flowers, twitter etc – anything), Search for this tag on Delicious, Digg and Diigo
-Blog – What kind of differing info (or same?) did you find? is it useful/not? why/not? did you get different info then say, a google search? What do you think of these SB sites? Personal and critical commentary is good.

Tweeted Links:
Google Earth Plumbs the Ocean Depths – cool! http://snurl.com/b81mb
GOP Joins the Twittering Masses: Republicans Embrace Twitter, Even During Closed-Door Meetings http://is.gd/ifUT
How Twitter Was Born http://is.gd/hY57
Facebook Turns Five
Information Technology Association of Canada http://tinyurl.com/beubzw
why do you tweet? http://is.gd/iCEr
Google & Location Based SN
Trent Reznor frm NiN – new business model http://is.gd/iwpZ
MySpace, Facebook and Other Social Networking Sites: Hot Today, Gone Tomorrow? – http://tinyurl.com/392kdx
25 Things I Didn’t Want to Know About You http://is.gd/iwv6
What Is Social Networking? – What is Social Networking? http://tinyurl.com/d7snzr
John Mayer announces his proposal plans on Twitter http://is.gd/iEZO other celebrities tweeting: http://www.celebritytweet.com/
Podcasting in Plain English http://is.gd/fpcX

No Blog Comment this week.

Week 6:
-Find examples of and comment on a:
Moblog; Photoblog; VideoBlog; Audioblog
-Find two corporate blogs; comment, compare & contrast. How effective or successful do you think these two examples are?
-Pick a student’s blog; on the blogroll on the course blog, choose the person below you to comment on.
-comment on a post;
-blog about it on your blog;
-talk about the ‘style’ or ‘tone’ of the blog;
-Link to the blog post using trackback

Course Blog Comment:
This week’s ‘collection of tid-bits’ is themed around ‘blogs gone bad’. I’d like you to find some articles/info/blog posts etc that show some of the ‘unintended consequences’ of blogging. We talked about some examples in class – what’s out there that talks about blogging pitfalls?

Week 7:
Go to LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com
-Create a profile
-Create your online resume/CV
-Email me the link to your profile
-Blog about creating your online resume & provide link to your profile in your post; Provide commentary.
-What will you make public? Why?
-How might this be useful to you?
-Explore the site!

Here’s my profile: Tracy Kennedy

Course Blog Comment:
This week’s ‘collection of tid-bits’ is themed around work/employment & social networking sites. I’d like you to find some articles/info/blog posts etc that are related to this theme; people finding work via SNS or how to use SNS for employment etc.

Week 8:
-Catch up on blog work in course to date
-Discuss three things that you have learned in the course so far
-Think about what we have been talking about with respect to creating, searching & circulating information

No blog comments this week – catch up!

Week 9:
-Find logs for your search words via your search engines (or browser history) if you can
-If you can’t try and log your search words over a few days or a week
-Comment on how your search words might be construed or understood from an outside perspective (you don’t have to reveal your keywords if they are personal)
-How might your search words be valuable to third parties?
-Pick a key word & search on google, yahoo & Live
-Reflect & comment on what you get/don’t get

Week 10:
What privacy issues are most important to you? why?
What information do you share/not share on facebook? Why/not?
Do you have a story to share about privacy infringement via facebook – either you or a friend?
What issues does your story tell about privacy & SNS?

Blog tid-bit: This week’s ‘collection of tid-bits’ is themed around privacy & social networking sites. I’d like you to find some articles/info/blog posts etc that are related to this theme; perhaps infringements of privacy or other issues

Week 11:
-What measures (if any) do you take to maintain your privacy online?
-Why do you do this?
-What concerns do you have?

-Is there some information that you do not have access to about yourself that you want? What is it & why would you want it?

no blog tid bits this week.

Week 12:
TBA