Reflective Post: What Has Social Media Brought To Uss?

In this term’s ALES 204 class, we learnt different types of communication. We spent the majority of time on social media-modern communication technology, written and oral communication. With the development of the internet, social media has gradually changed our world. The lifestyle of  current society has created a dependence on social media. In terms of oral and written communication, we learnt how to write resume, how to prepare interviews and how to prepare applications. In this post, I want to share some of my thoughts about Twitter and blogs, the two major social media tools we have been using throughout the term.

Gosier, J. (2008). Twitter Logo 
[Image]. Retrieved from 
http://www.flickr.com/
photos/ww4f/238791513

Before I took this class, I had never used twitter. I thought twitter was only a website for procrastinating and that the only information I could get on twitter were the ingredients of my friends’ dinner or what they were doing at every second. I love my friends, but I think there are more meaningful things to do than using my time to read their daily records and trivial things. However, after I registered on twitter, I realized that twitter actually had more valuable advantages than I initially thought. The values of twitter are dependent on how you use it. Instead reading the detailed daily life of my friends, I could actually search for some professional and academic information. By simply typing hash tag and key words in twitter search, I can find lots of information relevant to food companies and dietitians. Following these websites allows me to know what events are happening in the food business and what dietitians are currently doing. Twitter also brings us to a very close distance to researchers and professors whom we are not able to see in real life because we can see many of them discussing and critiquing their fellow peers. Twitter provides us with useful and up-to-date information through the functions of hash tags and name searching. The strongest power of twitter is its ability to quickly spread the newest and up-to-date information to millions of people. By posting 140 characters on twitter, all our followers can see our posts in one second. In this way, a pop star or athlete can make his or her millions of followers aware of things about them in a second. This situation also provides big potential for business companies to promote goods on twitter. On the other hand, twitter also has some negative aspects. As there is too much information on twitter, it can take a lot of time to find the most useful information. While we may not intend to read a lot of tweets, it is easy to be drawn in by interesting information, resulting in a lot of time being wasted on twitter. If you want to learn more opinions about twitter, please check my classmate Stephanie Nash’s post.

Zhu,C. (2005).Blogger.Com Logo 
[Image]. Retrieved 
from http://www.flickr.com/
photos/colinzhu/54784620/

Another social media tool we have been using throughout the term is a blog. We have been commenting on the class blog for the entire term and have written five blog posts and commented on 5 fellow classmates' blogs. Unlike twitter, blog posts do not have a word count limitation so we can write anything, in any form. Therefore, this new communication form has broader usage than twitter. Commenting on blogs allows the exchange of ideas between authors and readers. Authors can gather helpful suggestions and different opinions from both friends and people around the world. Without the limitation of area, blogs have a broader usage than traditional face to face communication style. In class, I learnt that we could find many science journals on blogs. However, these journals may be written by journalists or others who are not scientists. In this case, I would not rely on blogs as a source for writing a paper. Since libraries have databasees for publications, it is more efficient to use library sources.

Chay, T. (2007). LinkedIn Outdoor Banner (2007-0032 0002)

[Photograph]. Retrieved from http://www.flickr.com/
photos/tychay/512477490/

This term, we also learnt other types of social media such as LinkedIn, business emails, Wikipedia, etc. In a few words, social media allows ideas exchange worldwide at a fast speed and therefore has shrunk the world. Have you ever registered on twitter and blogger? Click twitter and blogger here to register one and experience the advantages that modern communication tools bring to you.

Links to 5 comments:

1. Stephanie Nash

2. Nian Liu

3. Jennifer Wheeler

4. Brenda Le

5. Lina Hegberg

CSL Experience

As a student in CSL, I practiced what we learned in ALES 204 class at Green Hectares, a non-profit organization. Green Hectares helps people partner with or expand agricultural business. In order to teach young businessmen and business women how to communicate their ideas and collaborate effectively with others, Green Hectares has to come up with a 5-point guideline on giving a presentation. My project is to create a tip sheet with the 5-point guidline and to research resources to support these guidelines.

Paglia, R. (2011). Social Media Related Events Icons [Photograph]. 
Retrieved from http://www.flickr.com/photos/ralphpaglia/5467778044/in/photostream/

The CSL experience allowed me to practice the social media tools I learnt in the class. I used several types of social media tools to find the online sources. These tools were BaseCamp, YouTube, TED, twitter and blogs. BaseCamp is an online project manager that I used to communicate with CSL partner and supervisor. Since BaseCamp allowed me to work on the tip sheet without having to meet in person with my partner and supervisor, I had more flexible working hours. The CSL experience also developed my critical literacy because searching online was more than just gathering relevant information, I had to compare and analyze which resources were the most relevant to my points. The first four points emphasized the traditional style of communication while the last one focused on modern style of communication.

Lasica, J. (2009). Bronwyn [Phtotograph]. Retrieved from 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdlasica/4003438246/

The first point on the tip sheet focused on how to be a confident presenter and how to guide the audience through the presentation. The various sources we found for this point included how to properly practice a presentation and how to calm one’s nerves. For the second point, we introduced how to persuade your audience and the power of repetition. The best way is to make audiences feel connected with current issues the presenter is addressing and  then hook your audience by telling them you have the solution to their problems. Repetition of this part draws attention to your ideas. The third point is about how to appeal to the audiences' emotion. According to our resources, the most important thing is that you have to be passionate. Also, making eye contact with audiences conveys your emotions to them. The fourth point explained the importance of having a complete structure with a beginning, middle, and end. Steve Jobs always gave a clear theme and outline at the beginning of his presentations. This strategy is very important to hook people onto your topic. Always divide your presentation in several parts, each ending with an intermediate conclusion. In this way, people who get distracted can easily catch up with you. The final point stressed the need to use PowerPoints effectively. Posters and PowerPoint should be uncluttered with few words and mostly with pictures. PowerPoint and posters should be used as tools, not crutches in presentations.

Saunders, G. (2007). Welcome To Powerpoint 
[Photograph]. Retrieved from http://www.flickr.com/
photos/garethjmsaunders/748083829/

 This project allowed me to learn new things. For example, I learnt to use social media like blogs,twitter, and YouTube for professional research. In terms of traditional communication, I learnt how to convey ideas effectively in presentations. A good presentation is not only about good content, but the strategies used to communicate that content. I am sure my CSL partner JenniferWheeler also has some good ideas to share.

Copyright

Ye, X. (2011). Banff [Photograph]. Retrieved from http://www.flickr.com
/photos/75289322@N04/6830755768/in/photostream

I recently learned in ALES 204 class that Flickr users can choose one of the several types of licenses on Flickr, which limits usage of their original photos to other people. Coming from a country in which copyright laws are very different, it is important for me to learn the different limitations of each license. For example, I did not know that some of the original photos with certain licenses on Flickr are not allowed to be modified or used for commercial purposes by others. I learned that I need to be careful of the restrictions when I want to use some photos on Flickr if there is a copyright on them. These licenses on Flickr are Creative Commons copyright licenses. These licenses allow creators to own copyright but authorize certain uses of their works. I think Creative Commons provides a platform for every ordinary person sharing their creations and intelligence. Through some social communication tools such as Flickr, everybody can find and use other people's creations or build work on them while the creators still own some copyrights to their creations. I see this as the communication of wisdom through modern communication technology. By sharing and adding wisdom from others' works, more people are able to have better creations. In order to practice usage of these licenses, I uploaded one of my original photos on Flickr.

Ye, X. (2012). Collage Homework Of ALES 204 [Photograph]. 
Retrieved from http://www.flickr.com/photos/
75289322@N04/6840424940/in/photostr

The most interesting thing in class was to make a collage which was composed of 3 public domain photos, 3 copyrighted photos and 3 original photos. I learned that the public domain photos are the photos don’t have copyright, so I am free to download them and use them for any purpose. On the other hand, copyrighted photos have certain limitations for usage, depending on the license. I also found out that there are many online collage makers, which is very convenient to use on the internet because I don’t need to download the software.

When talked about copyright, I like Larry Lessig’s point of views on his video about scientific publishing, posted on the class blog. I agree with Larry’s opinion that scientific publishing should be free for everyone to access,not just the university professors. This is especially the case when the fees benefit only publishers and the authors don’t want to limit access to their work. In China, people in the past considered writing books as contributing or donating their knowledge to build up the civilization. Furthermore, they were so proud and happy that their knowledge could be passed on to people from one generation to another. Therefore, there were no copyright laws in history. It’s interesting to see that everybody likes to own something in current western society, even if it is just a personal photo with a Creative Commons license. Many people and publishers today write books or create things to build up their personal wealth. Only the wealthier people are able to afford university textbooks. With the influence of individualism, people tend to stress the importance of personal property and ownership. I think copyright is very much culturally influenced. People with different values hold different opinions about copyright. It is very hard to argue which one is exactly right or wrong, but it is important for everyone to think which way benefits the society the most and why. If you want to read more information about the sharing of information, check out Danielle Lu's blog. She wrote a blog post about another form of communication---Pecha Kucha.