A New Slew of Social Media

Encouraged by a new list of social media web pages, I ventured out to see what Fakebook and Edmodo were like.
Fakebook is a resource for musicians who need to keep notes via technological resources. As a non-music writing musician, I found little application for this resource. To be honest, I was turned off after reading the "about" portion of the page and had no desire to investigate further.
Edmodo, on the other hand, is a fantastic resource to link classmates together in an easy to navigate facebook/classroom-like interface. After signing up and entering my Web2.0 class code to sync with other classmates I was ushered into the "community"in a breeze. If you couldn't tell, I was impressed with the ease of access granted and the lack of redundant questions/informational blanks. I would highly suggest that others go check it out!

Life as a Camp Director

Lately, I've been overwhelmed by the adjustment of the focus of my job. Fall tends to be recruitment, Winter/Spring is fundraising, and summer I pack up my bags to move to camp where I become a camp director for 6 weeks. It becomes a 24/7 job, waking up to make sure meals are getting started, making coffee to schmooze with adult volunteers to ease the crank of the heat, checking program areas, running events, calling back to the office to clarify issues, driving into town for one of the many "oh crud we forgot this!" trips, the list goes on!
In the midst of all of this, it has been difficult to remain technologically connected, (especially when only one building on the 600acre property has internet). To compensate for these challenges I've been Tweeting up a storm (in comparison to how often I used to). I have expanded beyond the hashtag for my Web2.0 class #EME6414, to begin a hashtag for the camp that I work at, Wallwood. #WBSR It's a young one, but it's out there!

Shipping Container Homes?

Colton, my boyfriend, and I have talked for a long while about making our own shipping container home. It's recycled material, cheap, and fun! It wasn't until my recent Pinterest searches that I realized how popular shipping container homes have become. We're not alone!!! My natural inclination has been to tend toward sources that have social bookmarks that indicate container homes. I've found a nitch within the greater "Alternative Housing" topic that I can focus in on more.

Image source.

Alternative Housing

I have been enjoying Pinterest in relation to my latest class assignment to observe social media bookmarking. I chose a somewhat obscure topic being Alternative Housing. Here is the link to my board.
We as a family are very interested in using the "trash" around us as renewable resources by means of making our own home. It's a topic we've talked about for a long while. Do we want an earth ship sort of home (a hobbit home almost, that is made with the local natural resources and recyclables like glass bottles) or do we want a tree house (yes we've seriously considered this) or to get crazy and creative and create a home out of a

Technological Overload

Life was all great and dandy with MySpace, then Facebook, then StumbleUpon, then Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter. Through my Web2.0 course I have discovered that the list does not stop there. Social media stems far beyond what I would call the "main stream" web sites and apps to include a wide variety of web sites that allow you to blog (there are many), track your twitter success, storify.com which "Makes the web tell a story" with your information, Delicious.com which allows you to store your links and never loose them (but I thought that was what the favorite's tab was for), Diigo.com allows you to annotate your reading and save it online. The list goes on. After discovering these I realize that I do indeed have a small Personal Learning Network and there's no way I can keep up with all of these different site options without quitting my job and doing it full time!

How often does the average person use all of these pages? At once (that's absurd)? Which one are most  useful to you ?

I can learn anything!

Diversification of knowledge due to Web2.0 has become the largest selling point of the Web2.0 tools that have become so readily available. So much more information has been made widely accessible, allowing for the public to be far more knowledgeable about any topic they so choose.

There was once a time when, in order to look up new information, you needed to search through a filing cabinet full of cards with each book listed. This was a time consuming process that may have been a reason, more or less, as for why finding quick specific information proved new impossible.
For a far more extensive time period, newspapers have been a primary source of trending and varied information. Although newspapers offer a great collective of information, most of the articles I sift through to find the few topics of interest (heath, cartoons) and leave the rest as recycling.

With Pinterest, Facebook, every blog and forum imaginable, and Google Chrome, I can learn practically everything about anything or everything about nothing at all. I have learned that crushed aspirin dissolved in water helps your plants fight off infections, one of the best pumpkin bar recipes you'll ever have, 25 life changing hacks. The list goes on. Most times Web2.0 helps in ways as simple as, I have three yellow squashes and a handful of radishes, what can I make for dinner?

What new things have you learned via Web2.0 means? How has it affected your life?

Is this really homework?

Recently, I realized that the "homework" that EME6414 requires is some of the most entertaining and engaging homework that I've had to do. Although it has been a mild lifestyle adjustment, Tweeting, blogging, Pinning, forums, etc. have kept me entertained and never bored. This is due partly because of the ability to participate only in things that I enjoy or things that are relevant to our coursework. No wonder why people do it all the time.
Are there Web2.0 tools that you have always used and have found a new use for? or new tools that you enjoy participating in beyond the means of homework?

Museums

Inspired by the blog on a visit to Kennedy Space Center on Share Ideas (http://shareidealukas.blogspot.com/) I remembered back in grade school when we took class field trips to museums to learn our country's history; to see the art, science and culture.
Well, I still visit museums because I'm a kid at heart and haven't discovered what I was made to do in life. I see space shuttles and wish I had remained in engineering school so I might be chosen for the next space exploration program. Great art museums inspire me to go home to draw what I would hope to be the next Mona Lisa. Or even, flying in an airplane makes me hope to get my pilot's license and travel the world. U-picking blackberries reminds me that I love gardening and should grow a U-pick farm. There are a world of opportunities with a finite amount of time. Web2.0 has allowed me to explore these interests into much further depth than I would have been able to before, and to do so casually. No need to sift through cards and cards of bibliographies and read an extensive book on a topic that I only wanted a chapter of. Convenient.

But this renders the feelings of what if I never want to grow up?

After watching Vanessa's videos on Personal Learning Networks (PLN), I've discovered I'm somewhere in the middle of wanting a large PLN but needing a small PLN.

Truth be told, I have the FOMO. The Fear of Missing Out. I want to have a large PLN so I don't miss out on things that are relevant, but I live a hectic and consuming life where I don't have time for these things; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest. How do you find a means to balance them out?

One of Vanessa Dennen's PLN videos (for that odd stranger not in our EME class that has stumbled upon this blog):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_kFmxaZPK0#t=22