FINAL BLOG

This class has taught me so much about all these social networking sites and media sites that we have used. The first (and probably most important) is blogging.  This was primarily how students in this class kept in contact and shared experiences about the class every week.  Mine was very easy to set up and I seemed to learn a little more about it each week.  Following and reading other classmates' blogs really showed me that everyone else would be having the same problems as me or finding it easy.  The class was able to collaborate through these blogs.  You could say it held the class together in terms of a basis of communication.
Next came Twitter and Facebook.  A few of the students already used Twitter and probably all of the students used Facebook already.  I used Facebook and Twitter so this week was a breeze in terms of setting everything up.  Facebook has got it all from photo and video sharing to messaging and "blogging"(posts and statuses).  The problem with it is that it is a lot more personal than other media sites and being friends with someone is letting them see a large portion of your life so I am rather hesitant to add someone compared to the other media we have used.  Twitter is the best of both worlds because it allows people to "micro blog".  You can create a profile, follow people, and share photos in these tweets.  It is not nearly as personal as Facebook and still offers a great connection between people that may not want to be Facebook friends with.  I like Facebook better it works for me because I can connect with my friends on a more personal level which is why I am a little more hesitant when accepting someone as a friend.
Week four we were assigned to sign into Google Reader, or RSS feeds.  It was complicated at first but it became very easy.  RSS is sort of a social media tool I didn't really get that part of it.  I don't see the point of following another person or using it as a site to share content with it feels like to me a personal site specific to one person's needs.  What I did really like was that I could receive a feed of information from my classmates' blogs and sites that I found interesting like Discovery News.  RSS is not (for me) a social media site but an aid to make those things a lot easier and all in one place.
Podcasts were another tool we used to communicate with each other.  These were cool because its something that is quick and on the go and can be used for entertainment as well as for educational
purposes.  I do not use podcasts but hear about them all the time on the radio.  You don't really "share" podcasts its more of uploading for others to download.  It is almost like an audio blog to download and listen.  Some say its better than typing out blogs but I think it is just more difficult.  Typing works just fine and it can be read more in depth.
Youtube and Flickr was a fun week I got to look at videos that sparked my interests.  I didn't see the point in creating YouTube and Flickr profiles because photo sharing and video sharing can be done through Facebook and Twitter, the most popular media sites.  I guess I see that these two sites are very useful if they are specifically being used for video in YouTube's case and pictures in Flickr's case.
For me, the tool that will help me the most professionally is blogging.  I can customize it to what I like, I can easily follow people, I can get it in my RSS feed, and I can stay connected to my friends and pharmacists not easily accessible.  In college (maybe in the future for blackboard) it is a very good place for discussion and summaries of a topic.  This class it was my favorite tool to use (other than Facebook).
If I had to teach this class, I wouldn't change a thing.  All the powerpoints explained everything very well, the articles helped to understand the concepts, and the class itself broken up into weeks made the class very structured.  Great job on the class Bistra!

YouTube vs Flickr

Personally, I think YouTube is much better.  I use it a lot more (consider the audience) than Flickr.  On paper they seem to be the same only one does pictures and the other does video.  When taking a closer look they are very different.  Just searching through pictures on Flickr and videos on YouTube, theres a clear difference.  People seem to go on YouTube for entertainment due to the extremely high amount of hits for the videos for entertainment like music videos or funny videos.  People that use Flickr tend to use it not to share pictures with the world but with people they know to create albums and other stuff.  I feel like there is much more to offer with YouTube because so much more content can be shared.  I would only imagine using Flickr when I am older to organize my pictures I have had for a long time.  Overall I use YouTube more because there is not as much content for entertainment on Flickr and I think that is why more people (especially my age) use YouTube.

You know its shark week when...

As you all know from the video I posted from YouTube, I love Shark Week and I guess it seems to be a theme this week for my media sharing.  I came across this picture and thought wow that is so cool to do that to a building.  I guess Shark Week is more than just a TV series on Discovery!

Shark Week!

Podcasting

RSSSSSSS

This was probably the most confusing site to me so far.  I knew the idea of RSS, but did not know exactly how it was set up.  It seemed as though when I logged in everything was already set up for me because all my blogs I follow were in a row on my home page.  It took some searching to find the add subscription button (I know its not hard to find but it took a while) and it made it a lot easier to subscribe to what I wanted.  I could not find a subscription to my organization I looked around but got nothing.  I could not find them on Twitter either.  I like how the home page shows all of your subscription with subcategory stories that you can click on.  I (like Matthew) also follow NFL for updates.  My favorite subscription had to be Discovery News because it is all new breakthroughs and news going on in the science world.  A lot of it is random, interesting stuff.
When deciding on a subscription, I look at the stories under it and id the seem interesting, I follow.  I'm not sure if thats the way it is supposed to be done but that is how I do it.  In terms of following blogs, It was already done for me since the google accounts are linked.  There is a "Blogs I'm Following" tab on the left side that shows all the blogs in order that people post them.  It is actually very helpful if I want to view others' blogs rather quickly.  RSS allows me to do that along with viewing all the other information .  I am only subscribed to one or two wikis I can't seem to subscribe to the others unless I am already subscribed to them and don't know yet.  As for custom links, I made one that links to my blog and on that links to my twitter account it wasn't very hard.
Overall, if I continue to use RSS it can be less time consuming rather than opening like 5 tabs at once to check everything for this class.  It is everything I need to check for this class in one site.  I can also get updates with stories of what I want to subscribe to as an added bonus.