First posting for Assignment 3

To successfully meet the requirements of Assignment 3, students must create an online learning journal (OLJ) using a social networking site (e.g., a blog, wiki, ning, etc.), and complete the first entry for their OLJ. In this first entry, briefly:

(a) define what social networking is (in your own words);
(b) list what social networking technologies and sites you already use (for personal, work and study purposes); and
(c) describe what you expect to learn from completing INF506.

Social networking is a web platform that creates communities where participants stimulate and share discussion via text, photos or video.  CSU students in their introduction have said they use facebook to connect with family and friends. This is the community they participate within.  In an enterprise level it is used for marketing by stimulating discussion or for employees or colleagues to have their voice heard.


The technologies I currently use on a personal level are Facebook to keep in contact with good friends I don't see much due to distance and Twitter to read comments by my favourite music personalities or writers.  However I am guilty of being reluctant to give any of my ideas or post information frequently.  My contacts are people I know well.    I admire the "Like" button on Facebook, responding without fanfare! Within my library workplace it is not a platform that we communicate with or even view frequently, using email still to communicate between colleagues.  However the liaison librarians for each faculty do promote their facebook pages which are becoming more popular in keeping staff and students in the loop on new texts and electronic publications. Student Services use facebook to stimulate discussion and post events and photos.   I did start using Delicious and Bloglovin to bookmark favourite sites for study but interest faded or was forgotten over time.  I feel that there is so much information stored in these sites that I prefer to mostly go directly to a handful of favourite blogs or websites.


In regards to this subject I hope to grow more comfortable in using the social networking platform to properly promote an organisation in a professional application by scratching more than just the surface with technologies such twitter, facebook, youtube and flickr by interchangeably integrating them within each tool.