Week 12-
During class this week we were discussing the future of social media. I thought this was a very nice way to end the module as all throughout we had been learning about the different aspects of social media and i then left the note, thinking about how it is going to evolve over the next 20 years. I feel that what we were learning throughout the course of this module is very applicable to our own everyday lives, which i throughly enjoyed.

One of the readings posted on blackboard this week was 'The Future of Social Media According to Vice'. I thought this reading was very interesting. It starts off by discussing just how prominent social media is in our lives today and then goes on to state that there is now a new apparent shift toward anonymity. The article also describes the effect that Facebook has had on the development of social media, through Facebook we entered "what could be said to be a new era of human communication."
The article finishes on the striking note that social media feels like the backbone to society.

Here is a link to the article: http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/the-future-of-social-media-121

Week 12-
This was the final week of term, we had our last class for social computing and media and also had to finish up on our group projects.

For the group projects, I had been collaborating with my team the whole way throughout the course of this module. I felt that we all worked very well together and really enjoyed my experience with working with this team.
Overall, I am pleased with the final product for our project. We designed an ATM Locator App that works well using geotags and google maps. For our e-marketing presentation we made a prezi. The prezi includes information on what the app does, how it works and what problem does it solve.
The prezi also includes a powtoon video to illustrate a situation may you may be in need of the App and a screencast to illustrate how the App works.

This was my first time completing a project like this and has definitely been one of the most enjoyable assignments for me!

Ted Talk- When social media became news, James Surowiecki.

This week I watched a particularly interesting Ted Talk, that i felt really ties in with what we have been learning throughout this module. 

This talk started off with an extremely detailed account of the Tsunami from someone in Colombo. This was quite significant at the time as it was said that one of the scariest things about the Tsunami was the complete lack of information. One of the things that happened in the wake of a tsunami was that we saw a whole load of live reporting from just witnesses and citizens themselves. Within a few days the outpouring of information was immense and this provided a vivid picture of the events that had happened. I think it was amazing to see the power of social media and the how much of an effect it was able to have in a situation like this one. A large number of unorganized, unconnected writers and video bloggers were able to come up with a far clearer image of what the tsunami was like than the main stream media.

This reflects how the blogosphere that exists today gives a voice to people who have never been able to talk before.

James continues to discuss the blogosphere throughout the talk and outlines three key questions relating to what the blogosphere tells us about our ideas and what motivates people to do things, the accessibility of intelligence with regards to blogs and what are the potential problems of blogs.

I gained a great understanding throughout his talk about the power that social media and blogging etc. has but the dangers too. People who contribute and spend all this time on the Internet are essentially doing it for free, which is pretty remarkable, as they receive no financial reward. These people giving their accounts during the tsunami were doing so solely to tell their stories to the rest of the world. Collectively, all of these blogs and contributions to social media can give us a very valuable picture of what is going on. Another message that I took from this talk and found quite striking is that there remains certain dangers when it comes to blogging and the power of online crowds. It is very easy to think that all networks are good but it can also be said that the more tightly linked you become with everyone the harder it is to remain independent, according to James, one of the fundamental characteristics of a network is that once you are linked in the network, it starts to shape your views and your interactions with everyone else. I think that having such easy access to information from people first hand all over the world is something extraordinary about the society we live in today but at the same time we do face issues when it comes to excessive use of social networks.

Week 11-

Our preparations for class this week included, having a look at google trends; Google Trends is a public web facility of Google Inc., based on GoogleSearch, that shows how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages. I found this quite interesting to have a look at and also watched the youtube video on how google trends works to do target market research. 

I also read the reading that was posted on blackboard, I found it extremely interesting and also quite shocking! (link to the article http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2257482/The-war-Wikipedia-fooled-years-Bicholim-Conflict-article-elaborate-4-500-word-hoax.html )
This article was all about a Wikipedia hoax. A 4,500 word article on the 'Bicholim Conflict' this was a fictional story that fooled the site for 5 years. The story was of 'how Portugal clashed with Indias massive Maratha Empire' but was completely made up.

I also watched the Ted Talk that was posted- 'The birth of Wikipedia'- this talk was given by Jimmy Wales. I really enjoyed watching this talk as he discussed how he brought together a "ragtag of volunteers" and gave them tools for collaborating and created Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia that anyone can contribute to.

This was the week of our MCQ, therefore we did not have an elab or etutorial to complete. I spent the week reading over my class notes are some more of the readings to ensured I was prepared for the exam. My result in the MCQ was 22/25 which I was very pleased with.

Week 10-

This week, there was no elabs or etutorials and no readings/ted talks were posted on blackboard.
This class we had a guest lecturer. She spoke to us about social media for business and how it can contribute to creativity, community building and being connected. Social media strategy- Learn, listen, define. Relationship building strategy using social media. We also discussed some tips when using social media in business including: engage and be active, its all public so be wary of what you are posting. We saw the different peak times for interactions on social media. One particularly important person associated with social media is Erik Qualman. 93% of social media users believe that a company should have a presence on social media. We then completed a task where we made up a company and created a business strategy for social media for our company.

Week 9- This week we did not have any e-tutorials or elab to complete. During class a person from each group stood up to present each of our App ideas.

For my group project, we have decided to design an app to help people find ATMs in their area. It is an ATM locater and uses google maps to show you where your closest ATM is and what bank it is. The app can be used in the areas of UCD campus, Stillorgan, Donnybrook, Goatstown and Clonskeagh.
The app is particularly useful for UCD students, many of the restaurants in UCD do not accept paying by card and therefore cash is necessary!

As a group, we have been using facebook as a means of communication and have been meeting up frequently. We designated roles to each person and have been working away individually and there collaborating together.

Week 8-
This week we learnt about the managing of visual social media.

As part of our elab this week and in relation to the managing of social media, we each had to make our own flickr account, upload, organise and edit our photos on it.
I created my flickr account through yahoo and choose photos from my desktop to upload.
Before uploading the photos I organised them into certain albums and added tags. 'Tags' help you to easily search for your photos, while 'sets' allow you to create collections of photos.
I also added a title and description to each one of my photos.


I also created a pinterest account and selected different categories of photos i would like to see on my homepage.
I have pinned some photos i like and added them to boards on my page.


Link to my shared flickr photos:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/130955754@N07/

Link to the editing and organising of my flickr photos:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/organize


Here are some screenshots from my flcikr page with the uploaded and organised pictures:

Screenshot of my Pinterest page:

Week 7- This week we were learning about mash ups, Web mashups are the combination of data from webpages and apps which are used to create a seperate functioning app or webpage. Example of a mashup includes google maps. Web mashups usually have 3 key features such as aggregation, combination and visualisation. Three main types types of mash ups include data, business and consumer mashups.

For our Friday lab this week, we had to visualise some information using google maps. 

Week 6- Screen-casting
This week we learnt about screen casting-
this enables you to capture information on your computer screen and combine this material with audio to create a video. It would be a good idea to include a screencast to show how our app works for our group projects.

We used the website: www.screencast-o-matic.com and firstly, we watched a demo video.
For our individual lab exercise, we created some data/information in word or excel and started recording.

As a homework assignment, we were asked to add audio to our screencasts. Unfortunately, the sound and microphone is currently not working on my laptop and I will not be able to carryout this homework until i get my hands on another computer to use.
Watch this space!

Here is a screenshot from the screencast-omatic demo:

Although I did not get to create the screen cast for the elab, I got to assist with the making of a screencast video for our group project. I learned how screencasting works and when to use it. 

Week 6- Ted Talks-

This week I watched a few more Ted Talks in preparation for the class.

These talks were about crowd sourcing and youtube and copyright.

Margaret Gould Stewart talks about- How YouTube thinks about copyright- she is YouTubes head of user experience and talks about how the video site works with copyright holders and creators to foster a ideally creative eco-system where everybody wins. This talk reminded me of one I had previously watched and mentioned in my blog post from week 3/4 about laws that choke creativity and was given by Laurence Lessig.

The other Ted Talk was about crowd sourcing the news and was given by Paul Lewis. This talk was about how everyone can be a potential new source and about the future of investigative journalism.

Week 5-
This weeks we learnt all about Prezi and how to use it. We also made our first prezi, I found this very helpful and decided we would use Prezi for the e-marketing part of our group project.

Prezi is a presentation software, used for presenting ideas on a virtual canvas.

We started off by setting up a Prezi account and selected a theme for making our own prezi.
I decided to make my prezi on artificial intelligence.

I used the different features of prezi to add images, diagrams and youtube videos. I also added a variety of frames and customized my theme.
I really enjoyed using prezi and feel more confident now for when i go to use it again.
From watching the tutorial I am now aware of all the different features and how to use them!

Here is a link to my prezi: http://prezi.com/n6uprayadg7e/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

Here is a screenshot of the theme I was using and what my prezi looked like:

A Day With No Technology!!

One day in class, Shane suggested that we all try carry out a day using no technology.
Hearing the challenge at first doesnt sound like the worst and in fact, I thought I would be able to handle one day pretty easily!
Although, it was certainly easier said than done! I decided to try it one day and being honest, I didnt make it very long.
Firstly, I found it difficult to even remember the challenge I was taking part in and a lot of the time I found myself going to pick up my phone, not because I needed it for anything but just out of boredom and without thinking. I found it almost impossible to carry out daily tasks like checking emails and making arrangements with people. It stopped me from being able to research and look up certain information.
I felt like I could be missing out on big news or plans without being able to look at my phone. By the end of the day, hours without technology had felt like days!
This challenge made me realise just how much we rely on technology today.

Week 4-
This week was all about Social Bookmarking and Social Tagging.

As part of our Elab this week we each had to set up our own Diigo account. A social bookmarking service is an online tool for collecting and organising your web documents.

Diigo- a free social bookmarking, research and knowledge sharing tool created to mimiic the ease of taking notes while providing a network for sharing and discovering information. 

Features of Diigo include: Highlighting, taking notes, screenshots, searching, collaborating and using groups, bibliography and sharing.

For this Elab, I set up my own Diigo account and added the Diigolet button to my browser.
I then went on and read the article about the dark side to mashups http://techland.time.com/2012/04/06/combing-social-media-sites-can-be-hazardous-to-your-privacy/

I bookmarked this article by clicking on the Diigolet button and added a titie, description and tags.
Tagging is a significant feature of social book marking as it enables you to organise bookmarks so that information is easily accessible.


Screenshots of adding Diigolet button and bookmarking and tagging the article:

Week 3- Face to Face Lab

This was our second face to face lab for social computing and media.
This week Shane showed us on the projector how to create our second App and also how to install the emulator on to our computers (this was be important for our group projects.)
The emulator is used to test the android app that you have created to make sure that it works properly.

This week we were creating an App titled 'Magic8Ball'. I found that as we made this app I was forced to remember everything from the first the first time we used this software. It was a lot easier this time around and Shane was also going around answering any questions we had.

Week 3- Ted Talks

In the preparation for class this week I  watched a number of Ted Talk videos in relation to 'The rise of Collaboration'.

I watched Linda Hill on - how to manage for collective creativity.
She spoke about tools and tactics companies use in order to keep great ideas flowing!

I also ended up getting a bit carried away and watched quite a few more talks, all which are relevant to our coursework.

I particularly enjoyed Eli Pariser’s talk on ‘The Filter Bubble’

Eli Parisers speech on the ‘Filter bubble’ was extremely effective and gave me a further insight into the access we have to information today. Throughout this talk Eli is putting across how web companies today adjust news and search results based on a number of factors including our personal tastes. However, we are now suffering from one unforeseen consequence of getting trapped in a ‘filter bubble’. This invisible shift of information flow online and not being exposed to certain news is stopping us from broadening our worldview. In some ways it is frightening to think of the power that Google has, being the search engine that the majority of people use and the influence they have on forming opinion by being able to shape the news effectively any way they want.

I found it very striking to see that there are 57 signals Google looks at when it comes to attuning results to your personal preferences. A quote from Eric Schmidt in the video stated that: “it will be very hard for people to watch or consume information that has not in some sense been tailored for them.” Although this is true, the web is giving us what we want to see but this isn’t necessarily a good thing as we are being shown more of what algorithms think we want to see and not what we should see. It is essential that Google isn’t allowed monopolise

Another Ted Talk that i found very interesting was Laurence Lessig who was speaking about 'Laws that choke creativity'. This was in relation to the issues surrounding copyright. 

The first work shop for social computing and media.

The workshops take place in the Newstead building.

We explored certain software used in the creating of an app. The work I was doing was quite new to me and I felt I was learning a lot.
We were using MIT app inventor.

Shane was present for this class and explaining a bit about how to use it which I found very helpful.
 We set up how our app would be displayed as we create it on an android device or emulator and started building the app named 'Hellopurr'.

This is the same software that we would be using for the creating of the app for our group projects. Therefore I found this particular class extremely helpful.