Alabama's Public Liberal Arts University

Discussion Guide ~ UM101/Prof. Cooper

 

Goals of Today's Discussion/Presentation

  • To provide an introduction to social media and Web 2.0 technologies
  • To explore reactions to various types of social media
  • To discuss how these technologies can be used to connect people and ideas

 

Introduction

Information Sources for this video

Discussion

  • What is the main claim made in this presentation? Do you agree?
  • Which of the statistics in this video caught your attention? Were you surprised by any of the information presented?

 

Definitions and Characteristics

What is Social Media?

"A category of sites that is based on user participation and user-generated content. They include social networking sites like LinkedIn or Facebook, social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us, social news sites like Digg or Reddit, and other sites that are centered on user interaction."

What is Web 2.0?

"A term that refers to a supposed second generation of Internet-based services. These usually include tools that let people collaborate and share information online, such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies. -definitions taken from searchenginewatch.com, emphasis added.

 

Discussion

  • What social media/Web 2.0 sites do you use?

 

Video on Social Bookmarking (del.icio.us)

 

 

Some Key Characteristics of Web 2.0

  • Data can be readily shared (think of technologies like social bookmarking)
  • People can access and use tools on their own
  • Social tools encourage people to create, collaborate, edit, categorize, exchange, and promote information
  • They use the power of the network; the more people who contribute, the better the content gets (think of Wikipedia versus Encyclopedia Brittanica)

-adapted from Mike Wolcott, bnet.com.

 

Why do we use social media sites?

These are some of the people that I am connected to via social media sites:

 

Philip C. Williams,

University of Montevallo President

(via Twitter, @UMPrez)
Andrea Lindenberg,

Morning News Anchor

(via Twitter, @AndreaNBC13HD)
A bunch of librarians

(via Twitter, Facebook, Ning, etc.)
Ashton Kutcher

(via Twitter, @aplusk)
My dad

(via Facebook)

 

 

Discussion

  • Who are you connected to in social media sites?
  • What motivates you to connect with other people in these online spaces?

 

Next week: Social media at UM. How can you use these sites to get more involved at Montevallo?

 

Posted 9/15/09