November 9th Blog Post

What role will social networking play in our plan you ask?  The social network around the selected programing that the New Jersey InternetWork (NJI) plans to use is a key element in the convergence of the New Jersey Network (NJN) to an online medium. By allowing users capabilities such as choice of programming, blogging, forums, tagging,  and sharing the media (through share buttons that are created through html code) this will give users a sense of "participatory empowerment through our social media platform".   Our social network must also be a child friendly interface, that promotes learning along with entertainment. By creating Web 2.0 learning environments around children shows we will give parents the opportunity to not only  teach their children through NJI programming, but also relay information to each other via the network.

Social networking will not only serve as the distribution of NJI content and programming, but also key advertising and marketing elements as well.  By sharing videos, forums posts and blogs on other social networks, users themselves become marketing tools for the network.  This will be a pivotal growing our New Jersey audience.  

If one needs to look at a great example of a Web 2.0 platform, they need only to look as far as Facebook.  55 percent of all teens in America have a Facebook (or Myspace) profiles.This is a social networking platform that I used from time to time to connect with my friends, family, and give updates from time to time regarding current events in my life.  Since taking this class however, it has become the bane of my existence.  Facebook has become another inbox for me, its the only I have been able to connect with my collaborative writing partners effectively throughout the course of the semester. For something that is supposed to be "passive communication" I find myself on it to damn much. It has gotten to the point where I had to hide myself from chat sometimes so my friends don't think I'm a loser going on Facebook all the time now that I'm not playing football.  I use to go on and message friends that I haven't talked to from time to time.  To hell with that now.  

Meeting with my writing partners in "live" formats last week (The Alcove on College Ave.) was a much needed and pleasant change as oppose to scrolling down the lost list of Facebook messages.  But as we sat in front of  the computer that night, we found ourselves going to that very list to gathering information we've posted to create our table of contents and cover page.  We also saw that one of our partners was actually in the real life New York, probably having a blast while we sat there trying to create the document.  That person (I will not name any names) at the very least owes me a drink.  

I also know that one of my writing partners loves his or her girlfriend very, very, very, very, very, very much.  And while I'm sure I'm jaded from marriage and the fact that I have to go and study for an exam tomorrow morning, I'm sadden by it.  But if we weren't using Facebook as a means of communication, I wouldn't have had too.  Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy for him or her. As one of the articles that I've sited suggest "is that each form of social media has its own biases in terms of the kinds of communication it facilitates and the social consequences and rewards it has for users".  

In conclusion, I hope that this blog is satisfactory, while I understand that I've filled the 500 word count limit, whether I actually completed the assignment the right way may come in question.  Well I did complete it the right way. So there.  Goodnight.

Quan-Haase, Anabel, and Alyson L. Young. "Uses and Gratifications of Social Media: A Comparison of Facebook and Instant Messaging." Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 30.5 (2010): 350-361.Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 8 Nov. 2010.

Tagtmeier, Curt. "facebook vs. twitter. (Cover story)." Computers in Libraries 30.7 (2010): 6-10.Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 8 Nov. 2010.

Using Google Docs for Peer Reviews

Last week, part of our assignment involved using Google Docs to give peer reviews on the first drafts of the three other groups’ midterm papers. This of course was less of a priority than completing our own midterm, but nonetheless it was something that had to be taken care of. The group primarily used Facebook, as we have used for all previous assignments, to complete this one. In fact, all of us communicate for the most part on just one message thread when working on assignments. This way, all important information pertaining to our assignments is readily available in one place.

Posting peer reviews for the other groups is probably the part of last week’s homework assignment that we spent the least amount of time on. This was unfortunate, but I believe it was necessary in order to spend the most amount of time possible on the most important part of the homework assignment, which was completing the final draft of our midterm sales letter.

The process of writing and posting reviews for the other groups’ sales letters was probably a little more disorganized than we would’ve liked. One person posted a review of all three groups, and a couple others added to those reviews as needed; in reality, this translates to: someone added a good amount of material to the reviews, and I added a minimal amount (sorry!).

I personally had A LOT of work to do this week—especially a lot of catching up on reading for other classes, and I admittedly am in the habit of not completing assignments promptly unless they factor directly into my grade; i.e., I spent a lot of time working my part of the midterm sales letter—the heading, address, and patron/introduction part—and spent very little time working on the reviews for the other three groups.

The end result were reviews that probably could’ve contained a little more information and could’ve been a lot more helpful to the other groups. The best way to do this probably would’ve been to assign groups to one another for us to individually review, much like the way that we have been divvying up specific parts of other assignments among one another. Bottom line is, much of our peer reviews consisted of simple “yes” or “no” answers to the review criteria. If we had spent more time peer reviewing the other groups’ work, we probably would’ve been able to give more constructive and/or critical feedback which would be much more useful to them.

In the end though I believe that we had our priorities straight. All five of us seem to have pretty busy lives, so we are simply unable to put in the ideal amount of time for each of the assignments. However, by prioritizing properly, we know which tasks are most important; we know which tasks we need to devote the most time to, and therefore we generally get done what we need to get done. Next week is our midterm review, where we will discuss with the professor where our group needs to go from here. The midterm review will be very helpful in helping us see what we need to work on for the oral presentation and the final proposal.

Week Three: Communication through Social Networking

This past week, our group has once again worked on their separate times and shared their ideas and work through social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. We are an interesting group as four of our group members are commuters and only one lives on campus. Scheduling an appropriate time where everyone can meet and work on the assignments was simply impossible so since the very start we had created a Facebook message thread with everyone in our group receiving the same messages from one another.

This usage of Social Networking had become very beneficial to the group as Facebook does not limit the amount of characters we are allowed to have nor does it limit us to any length of our message, as Twitter does. Also, many of us are very new to Twitter and Facebook has been a Social Network most of us check numerous times during the day. It was great to see the way that our group has remained to be very connected to each other, although we do not meet face to face, we are always aware of what we are working on and what needs to be done.

This week, we have also become very comfortable with using Google Docs to submit our Rough Draft, Reviews, and our Final Paper. After each of us had created a Google Account we were able to upload Word documents and share them with our group members and our classmates. We found this to be very efficient and useful as the entire Document could clearly be viewed and easily edited. For some of us this was again the first time we have ever used Google Docs so in the beginning there were a few submitted documents that were set to private and could not be seen by anyone else other than the other. However, the problem was quickly solved as we notified one another through the Facebook thread that either the document wasn’t shared to the public or that it did not allow editing of any sort.

Twitter was the final Social Networking our group has come to utilize. However, it is one Social Networking site that we rely on the least. It is merely used for sharing documents with our classmates since that is where we are all under the same list. Our group has used twitter to post our links to our Midterms and Reviews for other groups to see. Through Twitter, it was easy to find each group’s midterms for reviews.

To say the least, Social Networking sites have become a huge part in the way our group communicates with one another and extremely beneficial. I can’t help but to think of other ways our group could have communicated and I realized that Facebook has become a social networking site that is most suitable one for our group. AIM or Skype, for example, are great for communicating but the issue with both is that many times conversations are not saved and many times it is hard to get everyone on the same chat. Our group may not meet in person during the week expect for class time, but social networking sites have made it possible for us to be on the same page and work cohesively together on our assignment.

Lucija M.

NJN Week 2- A re-Sourceful Breakdown

Saving NJN-Week 2
Hello Fellow Internetworkers,

How is everyone? Hope all is well, Its Sergio blogging in on October 4, 2010. Pleased to be here and currently working on sources for the New Jersey InterNetwork Solution. It seems there’s lots of information, if only it dealt with NJN.
This week has been quite interesting. After we left last class on the 28th, it seemed as if we had more of a grasp with what we wanted to do with the project. Though we left off on a positive note, it seems as if our project is going to be much harder than expected. We believe the idea of creating a social network where we can receive the news, educate ourselves, our children and maintain communication between those that share interests of New Jersey is the reason for saving NJN and part of the solution. As we established what we were willing to work with and what routes we wanted to take, we were able to narrow down what information we want to research. We established a plan and divided it evenly among each other.

Plan: Read Chapter 5 carefully
Annotated Bibliography
-10 sources: 5-Scholarly Sources, 5-Popular Sources
-150-word description

We left with the plan in action, and we knew that each of us had to find 1 scholarly source and 1 popular source. We figured that since we are in New Jersey and the issue is taking place in New Jersey that there would be a plethora of information. Communications through Twitter and Facebook has revealed to each member that the information is quite scarce and that each of us is having a difficult time finding sources. Facebook is our main gateway of conversation. We all work independently for the majority of the week, skimming through info and sharing links and articles through the thread on Facebook. The weekends seem to be the most active, where most of the information-collecting is done and Monday evenings, we all revise and submit our information into a new thread.
I feel like a lot of us seem to wait last minute but the added pressure helps us find useful articles. With the help of social networks we can instantly communicate with each other and almost immediately post our works online and share what we find. Though the info is intangible, we can compare the info just as well as if we had a hard copy and we can see what more we have to contribute or how we can connect all the ideas from the different authors. I think facebook serves as more than a social network, and can actually be used for beneficial purposes. Using it as way to unite thoughts the social network facet clearly is an underestimated factor.

Week One: Facebooking For Credit?

This week, Group 4 worked separately to create one piece of work. This is always a challenge, but even more so for us. The majority of us are commuting students who are only on campus at specific times during the week. Along with our competing class schedules, we also all work and have many other obligations. So, the use of social networking to create our White Paper was incredibly helpful. In fact, even if using sites such as Twitter and Facebook was not a requirement, our group would have relied on some aspect of the internet anyway.

The first thing we did was exchange phone numbers. Through text messages and phone calls we were able to address any immediate issues that had come up. However, our main source of communication was through the use of Twitter. From Twitter we were able to put out information to one another that wasn’t time sensitive, such as links to different articles and general thoughts or observations. However, once our deadline was closer, we switched over to Facebook. By creating an e-mail thread, all five of us were able to communicate in one space with no limitations. We were able to see what one another was working on and were able to ask questions or share information in a space that we knew would be visible to everyone. Through the use of Facebook we shared more links, were able to divy up our work and then finally post our final products. It made our plight of not being able to get together almost inconsequential as we were still able to talk and share our progress efficiently.

The use of social networking sites for things other than pleasure has already been proven successful. Google’s network, Google Wave, is another site that has really honed in on the uses the business world has for social networking. Google Wave allows for threads, chat rooms, surveys, tables, and video chatting to be accessible to a large amount of people at once. Though still in it’s beta format, I believe that if Google Wave were more well known, it would be even better than Facebook.

However far off Google Wave is from actually being used in the class room, I think that Twitter is the least effective way to collaborate. Though it is useful to share quick tidbits, it’s character restriction acts as a large limitation and unless one wants to receive phone notifications (which can be quite annoying if the person you are notified of uses Twitter for anything other than your specific business), it is easy to miss Tweets made by group members. I think Twitter is great for celebrities, comedians and the average Joe, but I don’t think it is as successful at assisting in the White Paper as Facebook was.

Overall, as an avid user of Twitter and Facebook, I do enjoy having them as a part of the curriculum. You can learn more about a service once you are forced to use it in a way you do not normally use it in. Mostly, though, I’m glad that for once when I log onto a social networking site, I’m not procrastinating on my homework. Rather, in this case, I’m completing it. Who would have known?

-Che

Testing

Hey guys, if you can please create a google account (or let me know if you already have one) I can add you all as authors. Just comment here I guess with your e-mail address once you've done so.