“Why Is Everyone Using. . .?” BITS Workshop Series
During summer 2009, BITS hosted a Technolunch series called “Why Is Everyone Using…?” which focused on popular digital media and social networking tools. The goal of these lunch demos was to increase awareness of what these tools are and why you might want to use them. Thirty-one people registered for these sessions.
On May 27th and June 3rd, Nate Ude hosted sessions on using iPods and iTunes, respectively. Beginning June 10th, Danielle Ryan continued the Technolunch series with a session dealing with the instant messaging tools Meebo and Microsoft Office Communicator, as well as the online communication tool Skype. Danielle explained that while studying abroad in England, she and many other students relied on the free video and voice capabilities of Skype to keep in touch with family and friends back in the states.
Jodi Simek from the Center for International Education attended this session and felt that Office Communicator has made them more efficient, increased communication, and helped with team building in her office.
On June 17th, Danielle focused on the social networking applications Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. In introducing Twitter, Danielle referenced the June 2009 Time Magazine article "How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live," which provided an interesting context for why we might want to learn about Twitter.
Danielle demonstrated how Twitter can be used as a platform for information sharing, showing that local news organizations like VolumeOne and WEAU TV13 post regular Twitter updates featuring the latest news items.
Many staff members from the News Bureau attended this social networking session and were excited about the possibility of using some of these applications to share UWEC news with the University community.
LinkedIn is a professional social networking site that allows you to create useful professional connections. Upon creating a LinkedIn profile, you will find that many people from UWEC have created LinkedIn profiles.
On June 24th, Danielle focused on social bookmarking sites, Delicious and Digg, and blog sites Blogger, LiveJournal, and WordPress. Danielle explained that she also used Blogger to share writing and images of her study abroad experience with friends and family. In addition, Danielle showed that social bookmarking sites provide an easy way to create and organize online bookmarks that you can access from anywhere, as well as share with friends.
Particularly interesting was how easy it is to quickly publish information to social networking or bookmarking sites. Danielle showed that many websites allow you, with the click of a button, to instantly publish that website’s information to the social networking application of your choice, or create a bookmark in one of many social bookmarking sites.
On July 1st, Danielle’s session focused on online media sites Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, YouTube, and others. Go to YouTube and search for the “In Plain English” videos of various social networking applications.
This series is being offered on Fridays at noon during Fall 2009. Browse for our workshops in the BITS online training registration system, stop by OL 1106, or give us a call at 836-5157.
