Alright, I will admit that I am lagging behind on this reflection post. It is now Monday evening, and class was Thursday, and I can barely remember what happened. Lots of talk about Twitter and Webinars.
Twitter. As I said in my last post, Twitter was quite the experience. But from our discussion in class on Thursday and reading through some of my classmates' blog posts on the subject, it seems like I was not the only one struggling with the platform, and I hated it less than others. I intend to keep my Twitter account and check on it from time to time, but I have to admit that I'm already failing at that, too. I haven't touched it since Thursday at least, I'm sure. I actually had a bit of a moment with another classmate while I was complaining about how it seems like everyone just posts links to articles, and how can I possibly read through even the ones that interest me when they are flying in at light speed? She admitted that she sometimes just retweets a link based on the title or headline without actually reading it. I have to really wonder how often that happens all over the web, but especially on Twitter. It just doesn't seem conducive to actual absorption of information. Speaking of that, NPR played a great April Fool's Day prank which illustrates that point exactly.
Webinars. Yes, this is coming back to me, now. Kristin walked us all through what the webinar platform we will be using looks like (Blackboard) and how to use it. It took quite a while for everyone to get on board, and the class was apparently quite slap happy (I guess being so near to the end of the semester turns stressed out grad students into children) because we spent an awful lot of time drawing on the slides with the interactive tools, and sending silly "private messages" which the moderator can see. Joking aside, though, it was a good to see a full-scale tutorial of the technology we'll be using to conduct our own webinars. Now I just have to practice it with my group a few hundred times before I can feel comfortable actually doing it.
I second everything you said in this post! I go through this exact process when it's time to blog. I do applaud you for planning to keep your Twitter after this class is over.
ReplyDelete"I have to really wonder how often that happens all over the web, but especially on Twitter. It just doesn't seem conducive to actual absorption of information." I think that this is my biggest with it because it is so lightening fast, the more people that you follow, the information that you have to wade through. I think Twitter is a form of organized chaos, but more so chaos for me.
I really liked NPR's April Fools joke as well! People skim based on headlines; it's obvious when you go into comments section and you wonder if they read a word of that article. Maybe that's one of the reasons I don't like Twitter; it seems to almost encourage skimming without absorbing the information. I guess it really depends on how you use it. I know a lot of people use it to keep up with professional organizations, and they appreciate the fast skimming. For me, though, Twitter will probably never have that appeal. I made the mistake of following a lot of people, and the chaos of my home page is just a bit too much for me.
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