Posts Tagged ‘social networking’
I’m a TRAILBLAZER yeah!
September 10, 2009I am one of the lucky twenty ‘guinea pigs’ accepted to try out a new Rapid eLearning Development Course.
http://ministryofid.org/MID/Home.html
“Part 3D computer game, part social network, part collaborative learning, the ReD course will teach you how to build effective elearning and informal media using leading elearning author tools.
Designed by Rob Hubbard of LearningAge Solutions with input from some of the smartest people in the elearning industry including Clive Shepherd, Jane Hart and Patrick Dunn. This is a course unlike any other, designed to show how great elearning can be and built using tools that you too can master. We want the ReD course to inspire as well as train.”
John Seely Brown Lecture on Learning in the Digital Age
May 4, 2009Noted writer, speaker, and educator John Seely Brown discusses learning in the digital age at a guest lecture at IU. Brown is currently a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California.
Gary Vaynerchuk – Web 2.0 Keynote in NYC
April 11, 2009
38minutes
March 30, 2009
“….38minutes, the perfect place to indulge your techie side. Join in conversations through the blogs or forums or share your work and passions via photo and video uploading. On 38minutes you can find answers to your questions or just have a browse. 38minutes is a great place to find contacts, meet fellow creative peeps and get info on all things digital.”
A Ning site created by Ewan McIntosh (4iP Digital Media Manager).
Repost: 10 Ways to Build Your Blog Community with Twitter
March 26, 2009I found this brilliant blogpost today:
Posted by: Ivan Brezak Brkan on: 25/03/2009
Every blogger, no matter how ambitious or dedicated to his or her blog – wants a community around it. Easier said than done of course. To build a community you have to get people engadged around the premise of your content and then make it as easy for them to interact as possible. Both with you and each other.
3 Reasons Why Twitter Rocks for Your Community
It’s less tedious than forums. As any other type of website, forums have a specific organization scheme that users need to learn. Put in there signatures, private messages, subforums – and it’s not really the simples solution. Also, a forum you create has to start from scratch. From zero users to a community. What if you have both article comments and a forum – what will the user choose to do? With too many choice, he may just end up staying quiet.
It’s more effective than e-mail because you’re communicating to the community. While e-mail is personal, what happens when you get to much e-mail? What happens when you stop responding to people? Ok, so they might understand that you’re busy, but that’s not the right way to get your community going, is it? With microblogging, people know you’re around. They get it. The community is getting it’s feedback – in public.
Accessible everywhere – browser, desktop, mobile,… With all the tools and ways to access both Twitter or your own microblogging network, you choose the way you want to engage your readers. You might have 10 minutes on the bus perhaps. Just pull out your iPhone and get some feedback in. Never again will you want to share a thought with your readers and not be able to do so.
- Ask questions to your readers. What do they think about the topics you are covering, covered or plan to cover? Thoughts? Opinions?Since microblogging networks put a limit on how many characters you can write people have to get to the point. Keeping it simple means all the feedback you get is meaningful.
- Answer questions. Ok, so answering all your e-mail is going to lead to e-mail bancruptcy pretty quickly. By having a Twitter account or maybe even your own dedicated network you can crowdsource your community questions. You may not know the answer, but I’m one of your followers does. Or one of his followers. Microblogging lets information circulate quickly, giving people the i nformation they need – when they need it.
- Share the passion and linkup. What makes a real community are shared interests and passions. Your readers may love reading your articles, but why stop there. Link up other articles on the topic you cover. Give your readers a chance to explore videos, PDFs. By doing so, you strenghten your relationship with them. There on the inside, and you’re one of the guys sharing the good stuff.
- Follow the trends and create hashtags. Trend such as #FollowFriday have become rituals in their own right. By participating in them you can gain exposure since a lot of users monitor certain hashtags. Also, you can create your own meme. Love movies? Start #ThrillerThursday and encourage people to recommend interesting thrillers.
- Monitor the Twittersphere. With the help of Twitter search, you can monitor Twitter for terms relating to your topic. Say you write about stocks. Monitoring the term “stocks” lets you engage people who are interested in your topic. They have a question? Well – go on – help them!
- Be accessible yet private. With a blog, you become a public figure. Yes, your blog gives you a celebrity-like status to your readers. You the blogger. With time, people want to know more about you, but forums and e-mail make it hard. Microblogging on the other hand gives your community a backchannel into your life. So we discovered that Jason Calacanis loves his dogs and Kevin Rose drinks a lot of tea. The same applies to your own followers. They do want to know those little interesting quirks that sum you up as a person. Through Twitter you can share the little moments you want to share, while still keeping your privacy.
- Host contests and offer goodies. Namecheap runs “Fun Facts” Twitter contests. Every hour on the hour Namecheap asks a question and if you answer it correctly you get a $10 credit to your Namecheap account. Two of the players who answer the most questions in the period of two weeks get a Dell Inspiron Netbooks. Basically, they are teaching their community to pay attention. Their tweets don’t go unnoticed. Hosting a contest in terms of getting a response from the community is not hard since there’s basically no entry barrier.
- Feature your fans and retweet. Retweeting is also part of the Twitter culture. Basically, if you find something interesting on Twitter, you quote or “retweet” the message, crediting the user who posted it. With your own community you can do the same thing. When a prominent blogger features one’ tweet its like saying “This guy /gal is cool, and this tweet is even cooler”. Social proof you need to use.
- Offer them the world. By letting people engage you through Twitter or your own microblogging network you’re introducing them to a whole new level of social networking. By teaching things like how to retweet, use various tools and so on you’re impowering the community. People like to learn stuff and they respect people who show them things. I know I still respect the guy who taught me what RSS feeds were, and yes – I follow him on Twitter.
- Let them speak. Giving your community a chance to speak is at the essence of each and every of the things we went through in this article. In that spirit, what would you do to build your blog community with Twitter and microblogging?
ShoutEm, Mar 2009
You should read the whole article.
Big brother is watching…your facebook profile!
March 25, 2009I’m not sure what the fuss is about:
- Mobile and telephone companies already do this. They store data for up to a year which can be used in criminal investigations.
- Anything online has the potential to be hacked and fall into CRIMINAL hands so don’t store sensitive or personal data that can be abused in anyway.
- How many people already monitor your facebook profile? It’s hardly ‘private’.
- The government already has the right to do this under current legislation this is just a concrete plan to encompass new technology.
Guardian report here.
BBC report here.
Tim Berners Lee on the Semantic Web
March 24, 2009Tim Berners Lee on the Semantic Web
Web 2.0: The Power of Less on CNN
March 20, 2009
Click – a parent’s guide to technology
March 19, 2009Click is an online guide for parents -This video shows parents, students and a cyber-safety expert, Dr Martyn Wild discuss the technologies children are using and how to keep them safe online.
