last blog :(. - blog #8

First of all, I have had such a great time in this class, it is crazy to see how there is always more to learn about in regards to social media. Even though we are a class about internet and social media sites, the classroom was very beneficial because there were many different perspectives and inputs in regards to the readings. I was really able to see that when we all worked together for a study guide for the midterm, seeing all the different explanations and inputs everyone put in was really cool because we all worked together for that. The study guide started after I tweeted and asked if anyone wanted to join me on that, it was really great to be able to use twitter to be able to get in touch with everyone. At first, I was really nervous about having to tweet something everyday because I am such a forgetful person, but it turned out to be a really great tool. I thought it was super helpful for Dr. Bernabo to get things out to us quickly and for us to get in touch with other students for questions. I think it really helped us stay involved and keep up with what we were (or what we were supposed to be) doing. I don’t know about anyone else, but I have a really hard time understanding concepts just from reading, so when I got to see other people talk about it I was able to grasp some concepts better. Using twitter also came in handy when we had to transition to online.

I had never really used twitter before this class, to tweet that is, so it was really cool to learn how to do certain things. My favorite times we used twitter were when we were in class, like that one day we all had to post a selfie. I of course didn’t know what kind of selfie so I picked a random filter on snapchat and took a picture and I ended up getting a spotlight. I came up with some explanation about lighting and posing, when in reality I was just having a really good hair day. But the reason I liked this activity was because everyone got to show their personality a little bit and it helped us get to know each other a little better and foster a sense of community. I thought that was the coolest thing about tweeting, we didn’t all just sit around and not know the other people all semester, we were able to use twitter to get to know each other and interact with each other a little and it helped class discussions. I really enjoyed getting to see how the topics we learn about apply to social media, like the uses and gratifications. We used twitter for information-seeking, communication, and sometimes entertainment (Whiting & Williams, 2013). 

When it came to actually tweeting, it seemed a little harder than I had anticipated. At first, everyone just kind of tweeted whatever, but once we all learned what we were supposed to be tweeting there were a lot of different interpretations of what that looked like. There were questions that were posted, polls, or just comments. Some people were very insightful and some people were really funny and some people were both. When it came to my tweets I tried to say things that would get other people involved or expressed my feelings about what activities or readings we were doing. Sometimes they weren’t very insightful and sometimes I just responded to what other people were saying. I really enjoyed getting to see what people said when they responded to other students and how those interactions went. I didn’t really miss many days, I think there was a week or two where I missed a couple of days, but other than that I was consistent with tweeting and retweeting. Another one of my favorite activities was a live tweeting of scandal. It gave everyone a chance to really have fun with tweeting, even though it was really hard for me to keep up with the show and tweeting (and in case you’re wondering I am now on season 3 of scandal). This activity also went to show a visual example of the things we were learning in class. We were really learning hard hitting topics which were really good, but made me a little nervous to tweet about sometimes. I am not good about keeping up with news and politics so when I read about the things we read about, that is one of the first times I hear/learn about it. So, when I go to tweet it on a public page I stop myself a little, because if my tweet starts an argument I don’t feel confident enough in my knowledge to have a productive conversation about it. Now that is nothing against tweeting and what we learned, because I thought both were great, I’m just trying to explain my reasoning behind some tweets. This is definitely related to the way that I want to present myself on social media or the way I want other people to see me. Another place I fell short a little bit was including the hashtag, when I went back through to look at my tweets I noticed that there were a couple of tweets that I forgot the #cnusocialmedia.

So, while I would like to think that my tweets were great every time, I think I tried to focus more on interacting with others and started conversations and how I interact with social media on a regular basis. I know that can be done, because of the syllabus, but they may not have been as insightful as others tweets. I think that my insightful comments came in my discussion posts. I know the blog isn’t really supposed to be about this, but I really wanted to talk about how hard it was to transition to online learning. I don’t know if I’m just not as technologically capable as other students my age or it’s because I’m a very visual and in person learner, but I found it really difficult to learn online (even with a class that was internet focused). The discussion boards were hard to keep up a conversation, I  think people had really great things to say but I didn’t want to just keep saying “oh I totally agree” or “this was a great post!” because that doesn’t really contribute to conversation and people didn’t say many things to keep conversation going. Ok off topic, sorry I just wanted to get that off my chest, back to tweeting. Of course I would love to say that I would get a 50 out of 50 (I figured it was going to be out of 50 still). Last time I got a 49, which I thought was very fair, this time I think I would deserve at least a 47-48 because of those ones that I missed, I know that this might not be the grade that I get, I strongly think I accomplished a grade in that range. Realistically I'm not sure if that is what I will get, but that is what I'm hoping for. Thank you to everyone who participated and helped me in class and shoutout to Dr. Bernabo for having one of the best classes at cnu!

References:

Whiting, A. & Williams, D. (2013). Why people use social media: A uses and gratifications approach. Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 16(4), 362-369.