Communication- Connect the Whole World

Mcburnery, R. (2012). Is social assistance the next frontier of social media

              innovation. Getbusy. Retrieved from http://www.getbusymedia.com/is-social-assistance-the-next-frontier-of-social-media-innovation/

Through the 4-month study of communication in ALES 204, Communication Theory and Practice, I learn a lot about communication such as twitter, facebook, flickr, Wikipedia. They all have great influence to my life and my academic study. Before taking this course, I only use facebook, msn to know more information from my friends, but I do not know those techniques of communication can be used to communicate scientific research. After taking this course, I can effectively use those techniques in my work and study.

All techniques what I know from class have advantages and disadvantages. I have never used Twitter before the course. Twitteris very useful and convenient for briefly communicating information. I can use my cell phone to update the Twitter, read the updated information which I am interested in wherever I am. Twitter can also bring other people to be more connected in one twitter, which means we can @ other people who relate to this twitter, so these people can pay attention to this tweet, and get involved to it. However, there are very limited characters in one twitter, so sometimes I cannot express what I want to say completely in one tweet. For example, in ALES class, the professor asks me tweet about my thought of Audioboo, but I have many thoughts about it, so I only can write several tweets for one ideas.   

Compare to   Clara T.'s Wikipedia blog post. I find that we have very similar thoughts about Wkipedia. Wikipedia is very helpful for me because it contain various information.  Wikipedia is not always accurate, but it can remind people the direction of research because people cannot think up what do they need to research about one topic.  What I learn from class is that I also can get involved to Wikipedia.  She talks about the disadvantage which I do not mention in my Wikipedia blog post is that the coding system of Wikipedia is very complicated. There are many symbols we need to use when we edit stubs. It is hard to use method to edit the words like underline, add links. These methods are easy for reader to the Wikipedia articles, but are hard for editors to use them. Wikipedia should improve the coding system.

ALES course is not only useful for our academic research, but also teach effective techniques relate to work.  Checking email is daily work I have to do. Writing professional email gives me useful suggestion of writing cover letter, so it can avoid non-proper use of words and formats. Interview is the scared part of looking for a job. The class introduce Audioboo to the class, which gives me a good chance to experience a practice interview. All the students uploan the interview to Audioboo, so they can learn more from others, and improve their interviews. However, as Audioboo is public accessible, everyone can uploan their interview, so it is hard to find a good sample of interview. I have to spend a lot of time to listen many interviews, and judge which one is a good sample.  

Compare to other courses, ALES course is very practical in our daily work and study.  Social media build connection among people, and connect the whole world together. Social media will be the mainstream in the future.

I really enjoy reading other student's blog posts, and comment on Clara T , Susan , Vldezl , shan-wilson , anneleedaniel