Hello again. I said my wrap wasn't my final blog. I forgot to blog about face book and twitter!
Twitter
What to say about this? I have actually been tweeting more than the minimal amount! Last time I crated a twitter account I had thought that twitter was the least interesting and relevant of all of the technologies that we tried. I feel a little warmer towards it now. I previously understood that people found it useful in conferences to tweet to other participants about which one to come and see. Useful in context but limited were my thoughts on that. I now understand that it has been yet another and at times only medium of communication in disaster situation - now it begins to be an important medium, although what I can't understand is WHY other mediums DIDN'T work!
In libraries - yes useful for promotions. I can see a use for it there. Me - no. I don't think it is something that I am going to use personally.
Face book
Again - not really my thing, although as I have said in my (previous) wrap up I may keep my account so that I can read the face books of (real) friends overseas and see what they are up to. I don't intend to write in mine more than needed for this training.
Another thing, having just revisited a lot of this technology after a fabulous Christmas break, there are adverts on my page! How did that happen? Who put them there? No one asked me and I don't approve of the content of the adverts, let alone the whole idea of advertising in my space. I might have to write something on my wall to the effect that I do not endorse any adverts which spontaneously appear there. Has anyone else had that experience? I don't recall reading that on any blogs.
Useful for libraries - yes - again another marketing/ communicating/ promotions avenue for libraries. Of course the fact that so many of our members use our computers in order to access face book is relevant as well. This is what people want. They get the sort of value out of this that I get out of paperbacks, movies and you tube clips.
There is also a dark side to face book and other social media. The kids (and adults) that meet "friends" who end up being predators indicate that this is also a media that can be abused. This is also something that we need to keep in mind. The world is probably not more dangerous than it was when I was growing up, but the methods by which that danger can travel have increased. Also I am concerned that parents don't all have the skill their kids have in computing and may not have the ability to protect their kids as well as they would like or the kids need. I had a heated discussion recently with a friend about the access her kids had to computers. She is also relatively young and thinks my view of the world is pretty twisted and that such media are safe for kids. True there are not a LOT of abuses of the technology, but wouldn't you be just devastated if one of those few abuses were of someone you cared for?
On that light note I think I'll sign off.
XXX Harry
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