Task 3B Reflections on Network Theories

Task 3b

Before looking at the reader “The Networked Professional” I am convinced that I know a lot about networking and that the theories behind it are simple. Networks are essential contacts between people that help forward our careers, socialising and learning. I am sadly mistaken that there is actually a lot more to professional networking than just this and there are a lot of complex theories in the thinking behind it.

My initial thoughts were quite ignorant. I couldn’t believe that there were so many theories behind networking, something that appears to be so simple. Initially I found it difficult to understand why there are so many arguments and debates on things that I have never before thought of as being significant or that even exist. Is networking really as complicated as what it is being made out to be or are the concepts thoughts that are over analysing the way we network to have a more complex meaning behind it? Is it really important to analyse how we network? Why can’t we just let it happen naturally?

Here are some of my reflections :

Cooperation

My initial thoughts about cooperation were that obviously it works to your advantage to cooperate with somebody. If you help somebody out they are more likely to help you out in the future. Upon reflection this was quite naive of me to think, and I found the example of “prisoner’s dilemma” with the “tit for tat” strategy (Axelrod, R. (1984) pages xi- xiv) very helpful in aiding my understanding that whilst professional networking you can be taken advantage of or you can take advantage of someone else. There has to be some sort of trust with in the network, so how do we gain that trust?

I found a good example to me was our blogs. I have noticed that the people that leave more comments on other people’s blogs tend to get more comments back themselves and have also learned that not leaving comments after someone has done for you can leave people less willing to interact with you again as you are giving nothing to them so they are not benefiting from sharing their thoughts with you.

In the world of dance and employment it is important to build a strong reputation for yourself so that people want to cooperate with you. Reflecting further on the question raised from Axelrod, R (1984) pages xi-xiv: “When should a person cooperate, and when should a person be selfish, in an ongoing interaction with another person?” I realised that sometimes you have to let people down to keep your reputation, like not helping out someone by recommending them for a job because you know they are not strong enough. First impressions are also essential as they are difficult to change.

Affiliation

I can see how affiliation is associated with personality and how your personality traits can affect how you socialise and make connections with other people. For me this concept is the easiest to relate to as I feel that naturally I like to spend a lot of my waking time with other people and that I have almost been trained in my profession to work through my inhibitions and speak and get to know people a lot more and a lot faster than I probably would if I wasn’t in a profession that required as much contact in order to progress.

A lot of dancing contracts are about 6 – 8 months, some shorter and a lot of times you will be working and living with people who you do not know. Over time you learn how to get to know people quickly and also learn which characters to avoid and which to connect with. You also learn how to tolerate and live with those who you maybe wouldn’t choose to in real life. It is a big help to have a web of affiliates to support you in times of stress. Even being away from home for a long time can be upsetting and  so it’s important to have a group of people around to help you feel like you are not alone.

Connectivism

Looking from a connectivist point of view I can see that the internet has benefited us greatly in being able to gather information from which we can learn.  Having the internet at hand with developed search engines such as Google means that you have so much more information available to you from different sources than not having the internet and having to search individual sources for example books at a library.  The internet has also made looking for the knowledge a lot faster because it looks for words related to your search and usually finds what you are looking for in a matter of seconds. It knows where to look, whereas you may have to look through a lot of books to find what you were looking for in a library. This all links back to the advantages of web 2.0 and having so much knowledge on the internet that is constantly being updated means that people are more likely to want to find out more and learn new things. It becomes more of a hobby than a chore as there is not as much effort needed on the learners part to find out the knowledge. I have found that I use connectivism in the real world while in rehearsals for shows. To me connectivism is about using all the people in your network not just learning from one particular person. For example there maybe other people in my cast that I can ask about particular parts of the choreography not just the main choreographer. In relation to the internet I can use sites online such as you tube to watch dances in order to learn them myself instead of needing one particular person to teach me the choreography.

Social Constructionism

When you make a new social connection the properties of the relationship with the person or network are not yet determined. That means that you have the opportunity to construct the properties in ways that are suitable. For instance, if you meet a potential employer you can create an environment that is more professional than you would if you were meeting a co worker. You would be able to do this in many ways, perhaps by using more formal language and limiting the topics of conversation. An example of when I have done this is when applying for a job, my CV has a professional head shot rather than a photo taken by the pool on holiday. This creates a first impression that starts to define the properties of the connection. As this connection becomes stronger it is possible to change the boundaries depending on the relationship.

I decided to read an introduction to Connective knowledge by Stephen Downes that is referenced in the reader.  Downes talks about a lot of other different concepts that are related to connective knowledge, some of which are argued by readers who have commented. I tried to look up connectivism and found that there is not a lot of information about it. Wikipedea does have a page but more citations are needed and there are only a few paragraphs suggesting that there haven’t been mountains of research to do with this theory. I am not surprised as this concept is particularly difficult to understand in the grand scheme of connectivism as a whole outside of networking. Many of the theories behind the concept are also being debated so there does not seem to be a clear line in some cases of what is connectivism and what isn’t.

Communities of practice

This is a concept that I have been unaware of but actually am involved in without realising it. “Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.” http://www.ewenger.com/theory/ I found that this website was a great help in explaining further in maybe a more simple way what the extract in the reader from Lave and Wenger (1991 pp. 98-100) was talking about.

 I have found that I haven’t needed to challenge this concept as I can really see the benefits myself. Being involved in a group where all of the participants share the same domain that interact often to share knowledge about what worked best, or solve problems taking part in group experiments, finding an answer together, this is a community of practice. I asked myself if I was involved in any communities of practice and found that there are many:

On board my ship where I am working at the moment I am involved in a community of practice. Outside our work hours we take classes regularly. The classes themselves are fairly informal but you do have to be a part of the cast to take part. We mess around with choreography, trying to make up new dances. We also practice tricks and help each other out. For example I have never been able to cartwheel but I’m trying to learn and other members of the cast who can cartwheel successfully give me tips and pointers on how to do it better and the techniques that they use. We all leave each class having learned something new and it’s an ongoing process.

Task 3a

Task 3a

From recent experience I have found it very important to create networks of contacts that can help me forward with my career. Have you ever heard the expression “It’s not what you know but who you know”? Unfortunately, or fortunately I have found this to be true, but... not as true as “It’s not who you know but how you know them”! It’s human nature that you would ask someone to help you that you know you could trust over someone who you didn’t know at all or didn’t know very well, and it’s the same at auditions.

If you were dancing in a strong group of girls in front of a panel of employers they’d more than likely take a girl who they knew or had been recommended to them by someone reputable that knew both parties than someone who they didn’t know at all. Sometimes it can be frustrating especially when you know that the girl they have taken may be slightly weaker than you, but that’s why it is so important to create a professional network and a great motive to get involved.

I like to make a conscious effort to attend classes and workshops when I’m at home to get my face seen. When I attend these, even though I know there isn’t a job at the end I like to act like I’m at an audition, trying to create a good first impression so that people will remember me in a good way. It’s not all about dancing though, and sometimes it can be difficult but I like to try and talk to new people and find out things like who they’ve worked for, what they have enjoyed and generally be friendly.

 As you work with more and more people you encounter people who have worked in many different areas. Maybe one of these people had your dream job and had a close contact that could help get you closer to getting the job than you would be if you had no contacts at all.

Another good idea is to join an agency as this is like joining an instant network that has already been created for you. Agencies have pros and cons as usually if you get work through an agent you would have to pay them a percentage of your wage but often you are more likely to be employed with an agent for particular jobs than without as the employers trust who the agents send even if they don’t know the person who they have given the job.

Usually you would have to audition to be a part of the agency but then it’s the agents job to find work that you are suited for. So already being with an agent can put you a few more steps up the ladder to getting the job.

I think it’s also essential to make use of the technology that is available to us. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are a brilliant source for making new contacts and creating cyber networks of possible employers, agents and likeminded people who work in the same business as us. The profiles on these sites can be a help as to whether you would really want to make contact with a particular person, what kind of work they provide, etc.

 Going back to professional communication technology we have realised how important it is to understand that it is just as important to give off a good cyber impression of ourselves as it is in person so keeping these sites as professional as possible is important (or as Ethnie suggested, creating a professional and personal site is also a good idea).

It also seems that the hardest point of social networking is starting out. It’s as if you need that first job to prove yourself. The more work you have had the more likely you are to be employed again (in a lot of cases). Also I find that being away you can be forgotten about so it’s important to keep contact within the networks strong so that a chain isn’t broken.

I imagine my ideal network to look like a web made out of chains of connections. The more connections that I make add to the web making it bigger and stronger and therefore more likely to catch work from employers. I also understand that the web chains can become broken and that it’s important to keep them strong by keeping in touch and not fading away into the distance.

I admire practitioners such as Heather Morris, who plays Britney S pierce in Glee. She is an amazing dancer with many different work credits including dancing on tour with Beyonce. I wonder what her professional network is like and I wonder how many different contacts she has made in her career so far. She is someone who I would like to know more about and if I could I would ask her for advice on professional networks.

task 2d

2D

When I go about my daily practice I am most enthusiastic about music. It is music that drives me to dance and I have been enthusiastic about music for my whole life. As a child I was a very musical person and I enjoyed playing the piano and flute. I decided to study music further as an option at school but found that I could express myself better through dance and also felt more of a fulfilment from dancing to music than playing it.

I love hearing a new piece of music that I can really relate to or that stirs up emotion inside and I really enjoy attending workshops and classes where dances are choreographed to relate to a piece of music emotionally. When I see people dance with their souls rather than their bodies I am inspired. I really admire Mia Michaels a choreographer best known for her work with contestants on America’s So You Think You Can Dance as she has created so many moving and inspirational pieces. Another choreographer who I admire is Mark Battershall whose classes I have attended at Pineapple Dance Studios in London.

I am a worrier. If I don’t have anything to worry about I will worry about something that could happen that probably never will. Growing up I found that going to dance lessons I would forget about everything that was going on outside the room until the lesson was over. I was able to purely focus and enjoy dancing and it was my teachers who inspired me with their music this is what I love so much about what I do and I admire Rebecca Davies my childhood dancing teacher who was able to make me feel this way and have such a passion for dance.

It makes me a little sad sometimes when people don’t take dancing seriously.  A lot of people are uneducated about how specialised it is. In order to be a strong technical dancer a lot of hard work and motivation is needed. It annoys me when people turn their noses up at me when I tell them that I am a dancer. Some people don’t have enough knowledge of dance to be able to respect it.

I really admire those who are trying to put dance more into the public eye through the media such as Nigel Lythgoe who created So You think you can dance. I feel like the more people see dance the more they are able to appreciate it. This particular programme showcases professional dancers competing against each other over a variety of dance styles, here is a link to one of my favourites which was choreographed by Mia Michaels http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38XIFZLlIiM.

Although I don’t have a specific line of inquiry yet I would like to go in the direction of inquiring about music and dance. What makes a piece of music so inspirational to dance to? How can we use this to inspire more people to dance?

Task 2C 'a critical reflection'

'A Critical Reflection' I have uploaded task 2C as a Google document as it was quite long so hopefully it will be easier to read.

Journal Writing Experience

After getting the hang of writing my reflective journal I decided to experiment with different ways of writing.  I have tried many different ways so far: Making lists, drawing spider diagrams, evaluating the day, questioning myself...in fact after trying a few different styles it was difficult for me to pin point which style I was trying because in the end they all began to merge with one another to create a style personal to me.

The one style which I did not enjoy was drawing. Drawing just doesn’t come very naturally to me, I even have to label stick men so I wasn’t able to relax into what I was thinking about and instead just thought about whether the drawings were understandable or not.

I also enjoyed having a go at writing a short poem or verse about the events of the day although here I couldn’t express everything that I wanted to but I’m not going to give this up after reading some of Adesola’s poems which are very powerful. I’d like to be able to teach myself to think and write as she does. Here is a link to her poems:http://adesolaa.blogspot.com/2010/11/poem-4.html
Although I wasn't writing all my thoughts while creating the poems they did stir up a lot of deeper thoughts about the day so I found the poem an aid in to then writing an evaluation of my thoughts and feelings.

I also found it helpful to make notes or an ongoing list throughout the day if I knew it was going to be a busy day. Sometimes what would be important on a normal day could get forgotten about on a busy day because there is so much going on it doesn’t seem to have had such an impact. But I found that even if I don’t write about something in detail it won’t be forgotten if I have made a few notes about it earlier.

Videos certainly help me to critically reflect as I have found out in the past few days watching myself on the show DVD’s in a rehearsal our dance captain organised and also whilst filming my show reel which I’m putting together at the moment. I discovered that when watching myself back I am only able to see the negative things and things which I can improve on. I am unable to easily say if something looked good or even ok.

Looking back over my reflective journal so far I can see that I write a lot of negative comments. I put myself down a lot and by writing them I believe it even more. I’ve started to write a lot more motivationally and when I am writing negatively I’m trying to pick out positive points and write about them too and where I can, improve on the negatives so hopefully I will start to believe these or at least put myself in a more positive mindset.

I’ve found that the journal has become my unspoken voice of thoughts that if I don’t write down I won’t hear and I’ve realised it is important to address even the most obvious as sometimes there are deeper feelings to these thoughts that can be holding me back.

 An example of this is my show reel.  I have been putting off making it for weeks but after finally booking the stage and arranging a time to have the lights on with the stage manager I HAD to do it. I found myself getting so frustrated and realised that the reason I had been putting off making the show reel was in fact because I knew even if I performed to the best of my ability that in my eyes my work would not be good enough to send to an employer because I can always see what is wrong with what I am doing and not what is right.

If I had written about thinking about making a show reel in my reflective diary then maybe I would have figured out why I was putting it off before it actually came to making it and possibly done something about it like tried to motivate myself into making it and talk about the positive things of myself as a dancer so that maybe I could have seen these when playing back the video, not just the bad things.

A reflective journal is going to help me enormously with my work. It has taken me a long time to realise this but the journal is helping me to learn more about myself and I can see where I’m holding myself back and begin to address this.

I’m looking forwards to carrying on my journal writing throughout the course now and seeing how much I will have learned looking back at the end.

Thoughts on The Last Campus Session

Although I was unable to attend the last campus session, after reading the blogs of people who did attend such as Phil, Aicha and Sarah and Also Adesola's blog I think I have a great idea of what went on. I really appreciate everybody's summaries as everyone had a different experience of the day. Everybody noticed different things that went on and wrote about what they thought to be the most important. Although the general idea and over view of the day was the same, details about what happened and what you did varied and it's great to have as much detail as possible.
It's funny because the campus session was all about noticing things that you wouldn't usually notice and in the blogs it's still clear that from different peoples experiences different things have been noticed!
Thank you once again for the summaries, much appreciated.

2a: finally breaking the ice

I think I can safely say that I have found the whole process of writing a Reflective journal a lot more difficult than I first assumed it would be. I thought that having written a diary through the most part of my life it would be quite easy but for some reason as I said previously I felt inhibited and not sure what to write about and if what I was writing about was the right thing to be writing about.

 I think the thought of the reflective journal being used for learning purposes made me question if what I was writing about was relevant or suitable.

First of all I really confused myself with the words “professional practice” I did that thing where I said them to myself so many times that they no longer made sense to me. I felt that I understood what the reader was saying but didn’t know how to put it on paper myself. I gave it a few goes but convinced myself that I was doing it wrong, confusing myself in the process.

So I asked a few people what they thought and did a bit of research myself.  I used “Google” to search “examples of journal writing experience” and found that these websites really helped:

http://www.clinpsy.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=955  - Information for aspiring clinical psychologists. (Strange as it sounds but it really helped.)

www.lc.unsw.edu.au/onlib/pdf/reflective.pdf  - Reflective writing, University of New South Wales, Australia.

Both of these sites used many of the ideas from the reader but reading the ideas in different ways helped me to understand a little bit more. I was also reassured by Alicia Beck, Corinda and Adesola that I was starting to go in the right direction which made me a little more confident, and I'll be sure to comment on other peoples blogs if they are questioning themselves about anything as the feedback really helped me.

I think I have initially been holding myself back, almost afraid of what it is that I’m writing about. But for my last entry I just let myself write. I wrote about everything that came to me. I found that I had a few niggling work related issues that I hadn’t really discussed with myself properly but that writing them down meant I had to deal with them.

I found that I naturally wanted to ask myself questions and answer them. I realised why I felt a certain way about a particular incident and wrote myself a solution or a suggestion of something that I could do to rectify the situation.

When I had finished writing everything felt a lot clearer.  I realised that I could ask as many people possible about advice on writing a journal, but really the only way I would learn is to just get on and do it myself. I have been writing a reflective journal for a couple of weeks but I just wasn’t letting my personal self in to the writing side of things and I think I’m going to have to do that to benefit from it.

Finally I think I have broken the ice!

further thoughts about task 2a and b

I’ve been keeping a reflective journal for about 2 weeks now alongside my personal journal which I have kept on and off at different points in my life. From writing these 2 journals I’ve noticed that in my personal journal I tend to talk openly about how I feel, yet in my reflective journal I seem to only write about things that happened in the day, just an order of events. This is not really reflecting though, is it? Surely in order to reflect I need to talk about the emotions I was feeling at the time or write about what I thought went well or could be improved. I try but am feeling a bit inhibited at the moment and I don't understand why.

I think I need to establish what I need to be thinking about in order to do well In reflective practice. Does anybody else find it difficult to write a reflective journal?

Sometimes I think i’ll be just getting there and then I may lose my train of thought.  What do you find you are thinking about when you are writing in your reflective journal?

Maybe I have just not not found a style of reflective writing that suits me professional journal yet.

I would appreciate any advice anybody has, thanks, Emily

An introduction to task 2a

I have begun to set out a time for myself every evening to write a reflective journal for task 2a. I’ve started out by just letting myself write as I would usually write a journal. I have kept a diary at various times throughout school so I think that I must have developed my own personal way of writing throughout these years.  I have always kept them and occasionally will have a flick through of the old ones. I think it’s nice to sometimes look back and have a chuckle about what was going on then, read about all the gossip and the biggest dramas then that seem so petty looking back.  I also like to see how any problems that I had were resolved and what I did then to overcome any obstacles. I think the real reason why I have kept my journals though is because I like to look back and see how I have changed and developed as a person (as sad as that sounds). I think it’s funny to read back and remember that I thought in a particular way about something or had an opinion of something that is completely different to what I think today and I think (hope) that the Reflective Journal will also develop in this way.

I’m looking forwards to firstly writing the journal, then hopefully realising where my learning changes and develops and then finally looking back at the end of the course and seeing how my writing has developed and hopefully see that I have developed as a professional practitioner as well.

I’m going to attempt to write in different styles of journal writing so that I can hopefully incorporate them into my own.  Before I do this I’m going to research some different styles of journal writing by checking the examples in the reader and also doing my own research online to see what’s the most useful and helpful for me.

Hopefully you’ll be able to tell me what worked best for you too!

Hope to hear from somebody soon,

Best wishes, Emily

P.S Also thank you to Liam Conman for letting us know of a way to keep up with comments on other peoples Blogs, very helpful!

Task 1a final Professional Profile and CV and further thoughts

So here we are my final Professional Profile and CV. Thank you everyone for all your advice and comments. I think I am happy with these now although of course nothing is ever perfect. Of course if anybody does have any suggestions they are always welcome.
I also started to think about a CV I have that credits some of my accidental learning. I think this helps when it comes to reflective practice. I am able to see how it was that I learned something, by this I mean by watching or doing or seeing etc. I'm using "Kolb's learning cycle" which is spoken in the reader to aid me in doing this. I'm not going to post the CV because some of it's quite embarrassing, but I recommend trying it as I found it really helped me to start thinking about reflective practice.
Thanks to adesola for suggesting the "accidental CV" to me.

Posting Task 1C to the BAPPMDX You Tube channel

Hi there.
If any body knows how to do this please would you be able to let me know? I've been navigating around the site for ages but I just don't understand!
Any help would be greatly appreciated, Thank you 

Learning

Hey everyone, I hope the session went well today. I couldn't make it but managed to talk to Adesola via Skype. We were talking about how we learn after we already know something. For example I have learned a show and it's ready to go onstage but I haven't learned everything about it yet. Some things you don't learn until other things have happened and its only by accident that you learn them. For example I learned in my first week on board that for one of the costumes I have to loop my skirt onto my fingers before my glove because otherwise there's a chance it could be knocked out of my hand by my partner. I only learned this because by accident my partner knocked my skirt loop off my finger and it was because I had put my glove on before my skirt. I learned this through experience, but in what other ways have I learned things? Which step of Kolb's learning cycle is it where I tend to learn things most?
I'm going to think about this in a way as Adesola suggested, a "CV of things that I have learned" and then hopefully look at this CV and see a pattern of how I learned these things.
Just writing this has made it all a bit clearer to me.
Emily

Final Draft of CV

In my final draft I have decided to remove my date of birth. Knowing my age could possibly put people off employing me if I am auditioning for a job where I am supposed to look a certain age and my date of birth is not that age. Without it I can try and look a certain age instead.
I also added the Qr code as Aicha suggested. At the moment it links to my starting out on BAPP video but I intend to change it so it links to my showreel.
I have uploaded this CV as my final draft but of course any feedback is always welcome.
Final draft of CV
Emily

2nd draft of CV

After taking on board the comments I have added my special skills and also made my work credits stand out in bold. I'm also trying to find how to put the tag that Aicha suggested but I can't find it anywhere, can anyone else?
Any other feedback is greatly appreciated,
Thank you.
Emily Brenchley CV 2nd draft

My professional Profile

I've had some really helpful comments about my CV and I'm still working on it but I thought I would upload my professional profile. At the moment it's a bit impersonal but I'm not sure if it's already too long winded as it stands? Here's the link: Professional Profile. Thank you

Task 1a My CV

Previously I uploaded my CV to a new gadget to the right hand side of my blog. I listened to what Aicha had to say and also had a look at other people's CV's and saw some really professional work.

I decided to use google docs to upload a new draft of my CV to my blog so I removed my CV from the gadget and it's here instead.Emily Brenchley CV

It's just a draft again and I hope to improve on it some more but let me know if you have any suggestions,

thank you, Emily

Task 1C Starting out on BAPP

Hello! I've just uploaded my video about starting out on BAPP to you tube but I'm not sure how to add it to the channel. It's really embarassing for me to watch, I'm even cringing seeing it below in my blog. I hope I've gone about it in the right way. Please let me know your thoughts, 

Thank you,

 Emily

Further research into web 2.0

Hey everyone. I read Justin Reich Reworking the Web 2008 and he asks "Will online communities within firms represent a new avenue for employee advancement?"  On the news recently there has been a huge story about how scientists have used web 2.0 to help them discover the structure of a retrovirus molecule similar to HIV. In this case though scientists have gone outside of their firms to the public to ask for their help and ideas.

Scientists have been trying to work this out for over a decade but they couldn't find the answer. They then decided to turn their problem into a game called fold it which they posted online and also created a wiki on wikia where the players could upload and edit information they learned. The gamers solved the problem in only 3 weeks meaning that scientists are now able to go on to design retroviral drugs and hopefully find cures for diseases such as HIV, cancer and Alzheimer's.

This is such a good example of how web 2.0 can be used to help solve serious issues and shows just how important the technology has become to us. It could be life saving. 

Here's a link to the full article.

http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/gamers-succeed-where-scientists-fail

On a note more relevant to us I wondered if anybody had heard of Reddit? It's a site that users can post anything online and other users can comment and up or down vote the post so it becomes more or less popular. There are different categories within the site and there's one specific to dancehttp://www.reddit.com/r/dance take a look and see.

Task 1a My CV and 1d photos of my work

Hello everyone! I have created a gadget to the right of my blog page with the first draft of my CV, I have included a photo stream from flickr with my portfolio pictures.
I have also uploaded a photostream of " photos of my work" but if the photo stream is too slow to load please click the link to be taken straight to the website.
Any helpful comments are very welcome,
Thanks,
Emily

Initial thoughts on Reader 1

So, I had a read (or 3) of the first reader. ( I had to read it 3 times  because I was so overwhelmed at the information I couldn’t process it!) Now I reckon I understand what we mean by web 2.0 sites. I can’t believe how many web 2.0 sites I hadn’t heard of, so for research reasons and pure curiosity on my behalf, i’m going to sign up to a few and see what the benefits are from them all... I’ll keep you posted.

Anyway the idea behind web 2.0 is that the more popular the site is the better it works. This is because the more people share with each other, the more information and knowledge everybody has.  This is what Alicia Beck was saying on her blog when she spoke about Wikipedia. Because anybody can upload information to the site there is a lot more information available to everyone, and the information can be continuously updated.  Boggled yet?

This is all amazing, anything I want to know I can find in a matter of seconds. But, with everybody being a “prosumer”( valtysson (2010) pg 7 reader 1) now how do I know which information is fact? What can I trust? If anybody can write anything surely this is where web 1.0 becomes a more reliable source? Well this brings us back to the popularity of the site. If somebody posts incorrect information but many people access the site then the information will be changed or questioned by other readers, so yes the more popular the site and the more it is used the better it works and the more reliable it is. What do you think?

Also has anybody noticed how facebook shows what people have “tweeted” I’d have thought this a big no no as surely these are two competing social networking sites but they are both working together. Why do they do that? 

Induction Day

Hey everyone. I just wondered how the induction day went?
Im so disappointed that I couldn't be there! I had a look at the slideshow on Paula's Blog but it's left me a little confused if I'm honest although I did understand that some of the slides were from the libguide site and uni hub so possibly explaining them.
I was wondering if anybody would mind summarising what happened?
Hopefully it will all be clearer when I can see the video of Alan talking about module one. Were there a lot of people there? Hope to meet you all in person soon.
Best wishes, Emily

First Blog

Well I'm a little bit apprehensive about writing this.
I generally don't enjoy posting things online for others to read because I am usually worried about how other people may take them. Even when it comes to updating my facebook statuses (which I do once in a blue moon) I will sit there for about twenty minutes sometimes, thinking of a good way to word something and even then I will wonder if I have made myself look silly.
But I suppose a part of this course is about learning different techniques of expressing yourself in this way and so I hope I become a bit more confident in expressing my personal opinions and commenting on other people's posts by the end of it all.
I'm still a little confused about everything with all of the information that we have been given but I hope that it will all become clear once the course begins. I've had a read through most things and actually I can't believe how much I already rely on web 2.0 features. I use facebook almost everyday and many casting websites when I am looking for jobs and auditions. I also like to use you tube to see if there have been shows posted up online of the jobs I would like to audition for.
I have also learned a lot from the handbook that I had never heard about before! The google reader is actually amazing!. I wish I'd known about that a while ago, It could have saved a lot of time! (its a bit like the news feed on facebook but for updates on all of the different websites that you subscribe the reader to)
Unfortunately I can't attend the enrollment days because I'm working abroad. I'm disappointed because I would have liked to have met everyone and hopefully got a bit more of a grasp on the course.
But I'll keep an eye on the google reader to check for any updates.
Hope to hear from you all, Best wishes Emily