Task 1b Professional Communication Technologies (Reader 1)

I’ve put off task 1b until now as it’s taken me a few reads of ‘Reader 1’ to get my head around the whole aspect of Web 2.0 and how it helps our professional practice. To help me with my thinking on this task I read other students blogs for research to find out how they approached the task and how Web 2.0 helps their professional practice and their opinions upon the topic.  This task brought to my attention how much we use Web 2.0 tool’s in everyday life and throughout  our professional practice.

 

Professional Communications Technology

Unknown to me before reading ‘Reader 1’ I was using Web 2.0 tools without realising the magnitude of what I was doing e.g. Facebook, Google, Blogging, You tube, Flickr etc. Many of these social networks I have discovered from being on the BAPP course. The BAPP course has given me new opportunities in how to communicate with peers and tutors and given me the confidence to use these tools to benefit my professional practice.

 

How I understand Web2.0.

‘Reader 1’ explains how Web 1.0 was a huge leap forward in accessibility to knowledge and acts as a platform for Web 2.0.

“Content creators were few in Web 1.0. with the vast majority of users simply acting as consumers of content”. Commode, G and Krishnamuntly, B (2008)

Web 1.0.  Works on an author to reader basis, whereas Web 2.0. allows the reader to become the creator by allowing, editing, commenting and sharing information via communication technologies. Looking at today’s usage of the internet proves how much it has developed and how we have embraced the tools of Web 2.0. This new concept allows us to, collaborate information with a wider community so the creator and reader can communicate.

Tim O’Reilly’s ‘Meme’ of Web 2.0 helped me understand the key concepts, ideas and processes that underpin the growing technologies of communication.

’Reilly, T. (2006) ‘What Is Web 2.0: Design Patterns And Business Models

For The Next Generation Of Software’

Tim O’Reilly’s article points out how social media e.g. blogging allows the creator and reader to communicate transforming published text to being participatory. This process is essential for my learning on the BAPP course as it allows me to comment and raise information based on professional practice. Using this process I can better my learning and alter the way I think by looking at topics from a reflective point of view and questioning people’s opinions. The ‘Wisdom of crowds’ (James Suriowecki) is important within blogging as you will gain more out of your blog if you create a following and get people commenting.

 

My Participation of Web 2.0 and Ethical Considerations.

 

Web 2.0 allows people to interact and participate more easily for example; using web 2.0 I am able to communicate with fellow students without meeting them in person with such tools as blogging, emailing and Skype etc. Being part of various social networks I am able to participate, be creative and engage with a wide audience. If I was to pose a question on a social network site, instead of getting one answer I would get answers from various people. This process is helpful for advertising an event or cause as friends/ colleagues will share your post informing more people, then more people again.

 

A status or blog can also create a discussion or encourage opinions on relevant topics.  However, social networks have to have security measures in place as personal details and photos can be too easily accessible.  Being in the teaching profession I have to be very careful what I post and what people post about me on social network sites, it’s about trusting your users and keeping your integrity as a user. Working with children you have to be very careful what you publish on social networks and who can access them. There are many issues regarding child protection and safeguarding, but these are in place to protect children from cyber nemeses.  Kuehn brought this to the for front for me in his quote on teachers using facebook;

 

“Teachers are probably the most vulnerable group in danger from violations of boundary crossing between one’s personal and professional lives.” Kuehn, 2010 p86.

 

Being a singing teacher I came across these difficulties during Task 1d:2d Images. For this task I wanted to show some pictures of my singing lessons as teaching is a prominent part of my professional practice. I approached my employer ‘Starmaker’ to find out if parents have signed consent forms for their children to be videoed/photographed when joining the school for promotional purposes.  I can confirm that each child I filmed in my video ‘Happy Ending’ which I posted on my Flickr account and YouTube had written permission to be film.  Below is the link to Starmaker’s Terms and conditions page which allows you to access the questions parents signed registering at the school.

 

http://www.starmakerperformingartsacademy.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi

 

Having this permission demonstrating an extract of my singing class helps me to promote self-professional practice as a vocal tutor, and promote ‘Starmaker’ , giving us both better exposure and advertising.

However, it is our own responsibility to be aware of an effect of an action carried out or decision made on social network sites e.g. status updates, friends uploading photos of you, blog post etc. can have a negative effect. As a teacher I am responsible of what is posted on my social network sites and who can access them, if I don’t control this then problematic situations could arise.  What difficulties have you come across using social network sites?

As a singing teacher I participate on web 2.0 on a regular basis often using ‘Google’ and ‘YouTube’ to research new singing games, activity ideas and song choice ideas. Web 2.0 allows individuals to share innovative ideas to a greater audience and generate discussion and comments.

 

Collective Intelligence of Web 2.0

Feenberg and Bakardjieva (2004) extract stood out for me explaining how Web 2.0 allowed communities to develop;

"existing professional networks’ and offer a “Social space for people, strangers and almost strangers with diverse backgrounds to come together as equals, as generators of ideas, to deliberate and act collectively”

Feenberg, A. & Bakardjieva, M. (2004) 'Virtual community: No killer implication’, New

Media & Society, vol. 6, no. 1, p. 37.

 

Reader 1 triggers ideas that connecting with people, “communities will evolve, encouraging and supporting collaboration and facilitate debate and discussion”.

Gruber (2007) three components stood out to me how social interaction and collective intelligence has grown.

·         A social system, supported by computing and communication technology, which generates self-service problem solving discussions on the Internet.

·         A search engine that is good at finding questions and answers in this body of content.

·         Intelligent users, who know how to formulate their problems in queries that the search engine can match to online question/answer pairs.

(Gruber, T. (2008)'Collective knowledge systems: Where the social web meets the semantic web', Web Semantics: Science, Services and Agents on the World Wide Web, vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 4-13.)

 

If Web 2.0 makes systems consistently better then web 2.0 platforms will continue to evolve and grow.

In Social Media statistics: January 27, 2013 at 10:04pm prove how popular social media sites are and how many users there are daily. Within the top five are websites I use on a daily basis for personal use and professional practice:

·         Facebook: 1 billion users; 604 million mobile users; More than 42 million pages and 9 million apps.

·         YouTube: 800 million users, 4 billion views per day.

·         Twitter: 500 million total users, more than 200 million active users.

·         Google+: 400 million registered users, 135 million active users.

Statistics like these make you think do people of today’s society feel out of place if they don’t have a Facebook account?

 

Conclusion of thoughts on web 2.0

 

I’m guilty of using the internet for research e.g. finding drama games for kids to help my teaching. I also use Google on a daily basis. You can say has web 2.0 created a lazy nation or a pro-active nation? Many people use Google to type a question in to find out an answer rather than going to a library or other sources of information. However, with the vast collective intelligence on the internet do we gain more information from the internet than if we sourced from elsewhere? We have to consider is the information found on the internet reliable? With people able to have an opinion and comment using Web 2.0 tools factual information can be altered or derailed from the truth. I explain this as a Chinese whisper affect; someone can post a question or piece of information on a social network site then by the time people have commented and shared opinions the original question or piece of information can be completely different .

 

Having so many people easily accessible it is great for publicity/advertising to share events or raise awareness of current affairs. Web 2.0 keeps people more connected and allow universal communication.  Overall Web 2.0 is key to professional practice, it develops the individual and keeps them connected with the wider world and grows as new communication technologies develop for the better.