Rethinking Web 2.0

Here we are, another semester and another step closer to my master's! 

I signed up for this class, EME6414 - Web 2.0-Based Learning and Performance, thinking that we would primarily be learning about social media and its use in education this semester. Prior to taking this course, Web 2.0 = social media apps for me. However, I am already finding out that that is not necessarily the case and we are not even a week into the class! After reading this article published by the Pew Research Center on Web 2.0 for our discussion this week, it has made me realize that this catchphrase encompasses a lot more than just Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and the like. It provides users with so much more connectivity than just looking at what restaurants their friends are eating at and where their extended family members are vacationing this year; it connects them to their personal data and gives them control over how it can be used by companies, firms, and researchers. I took a class on data last summer, EME6356 - Learning and Web Analytics, and it made me hyper-aware of just how much data people create and utilize every single day without even consciously thinking about it. It's a bit terrifying, to be honest.

I am looking forward to what else I will learn in this class and how my previous perceptions about the Internet and how we use it will be knocked down!


Comments

  1. CourtneyMay 14, 2020 at 5:34 AM

    Hello Erin! I am excited to be taking this class, EME6414! Your post on your blog provided very interesting points. One point that I took from your post- "it connects them to their personal data," and essentially how the individual chooses to disseminate this information to those who collect this data. This is an excellent point made. What is interesting to me is the complexity when discussing Web 2.0 and social media. It will be interesting to learn more about these specific terms as we move forward in the class. That seems like an interesting class you took last summer (EME6356)! Thank you for sharing this. Welcome to the class!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Context Collapse and Facebook

Image
If there is one social media tool that makes me want to bang my head against a wall, it's Facebook. Maybe it's because it feels like it's one giant free-for-all with little censoring of fake news , maybe it's because I just have too many dang "friends" on there (at the time of this post, I have 1,162 Facebook "friends".) Whatever it may be, I have wanted to delete my Facebook account permanently for about a year now but can't because it's the way I organize a volunteer group that I work with. This week in class, we learned a bit more about "context collapse," which is what happens when members of different communities that we belong to follow us on social media platforms and get to see different sides of us that they wouldn't normally see when we are interacting with them in said community. I think that for most people Facebook causes the most context collapse in their lives which might explain why, for instance,  the youngest g...
Read more

Week 12 in Review: Produsage, PLNs, Reflections, and Extensions

Image
My semesters seem to be one-upping each other in terms of craziness this year. This one has been the wildest yet by far. Not only have we had to cram in a lot of information in only 12 weeks, it also kind of feels like the world has been convulsing around us while we've been trying to complete our coursework. For me personally, my workload at my job has also tripled since mid-March when the stay-at-home orders began. I can't say that I wish this summer had been different because it was a learning experience, I just wish it hadn't been as stressful! This past week we had to complete not one, but two projects. If there's one thing I hate about finals weeks, it's that it feels like everything piles up all at once. It makes it hard to manage your time wisely, especially when you work full-time like I do. The first project was the produsage assignment, which was challenging because I do not have a teaching background so I was not sure how to put together an engaging yet ...
Read more

Crowdsourcing and Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Image
This past week has been a lot to process. In fact, this whole year has been a lot. It is enough to make you truly go crazy if you do not have the proper coping methods to take some steam off. Call it childish, but video games have been an outlet for me in this time. I used to play video games a bunch on my Game Boy and Game Cube as a kid, and I have now graduated to the Nintendo Switch. One of the games that has been extremely helpful with giving me a break from the absolute insanity of the real world is Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It's a hard game to explain. There isn't an ultimate goal to the game. You just go to an island with a couple anthropomorphic animal buddies and build it up to a functioning mini society of sorts. You eventually get a museum, a general store, a city hall... and then you just chill out. You can go fishing, build your own furniture, etc. It has been helpful in giving me some semblance of control over my life during this time, and as a self-labelled ...
Read more