WL11 - Create an Image Slideshow Using Photobucket

Module 4 – Communicating and Collaborating Online

What I learned

Module 4 “Communication and Collaborating Online” was an “Introduction to Social Media.” In this module I learned how to describe the components of e-mail systems and email messages, what the various different online media tools were and how they are used, the different tools used for collaboration, how to use “social networking safely”, and I learned the differences between asynchronous and synchronous.

Email is widely used in the business world today because email has many advantages over postal mail or “snail mail.” The advantages of email are speedy delivery, low cost, accessibility, convenience, and easy management. In order to send an email, you must have an email address (an email address consists of a user ID and a host name) and some sort of email client. A few email clients that can be used are Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Windows Mail, Windows Live, Opera Mail, Google Mail, Yahoo Mail, Apple Mail, and Mozilla Thunderbird. The steps to sending an email are (Discovering the Internet, Chapter 4, pg 166):

• The sender creates and sends the message.
• An outgoing mail SMPT (Single Mail Transfer Protocol) server connects to a DNS name serverto resolve the host domain name portion of the email address to an IP address, determines the best route to message destination, and the message sends.
• The message is typically routed through multiple internet routers until it reaches its final destination mail server (POP, IMAP, or HTTP).
• The mail server than receives the message and stores it into the recipient’s inbox.

Here are a few other ways to communicate online: Blogging, Microblogging, Social Networking sites, text and multimedia messaging, chat, and instant messaging. Blog sites have been around for awhile, but they did not gain popularity until the 2004 Presidential Election. News reporters, special interest groups, and candidate supporters began hosting blogs to get their message out there to general public. Now, blogs are a very useful tool for sharing thoughts and ideas to a World Wide Web audience. Microblogging is a combination of blogging and instant messaging, the message is usually 140 characters or less to a public website or to the cell phone or computers of private subscribers. An example of microblogging is Twiter.com.

Social Networking is individuals who maintain connections with their friends and family to keep them up-to-date on day to day activates, birthdays, special events, and you can usually post pictures and create different picture albums. A few social networking sites are Facebook.com, Myspace.com, and Friendster.com.

As mentioned above, you can also use text messaging, multimedia messaging, chat, and instant messaging to communicate. A text message (SMS – Short Message Service) or multimedia message (MSM) are sent via a cell phone. There are chat clients “that allow two or more people to exchange text or multimedia message in real-time, using either a special client or a Web interface” (Ch4, pg 218). You can also send an instant message, which is a private chat between buddies, with clients such as AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), ICQ, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, or Facebook Chat.

Whenever you are using these kinds of media outlets, they should be used safely. According to the online article, “11 Tips for Social Networking Safety” there are precautions that should be taken such as: use caution when clicking on links, know what you have posted about yourself, do not trust that a message is from who it says it is from, do not allow social networking sites to scan your e-mail address book, type the social media URL directly into the browser yourself or use personal bookmarks, only accept friend request from people you actually know, assume that everything you put online is permanent and cannot be deleted, be careful about installing add-ons or toolbars, and do not use social networking at work.

Lastly, I learned the difference between asynchronous and synchronous communication. Asynchronous is a type of communication that does not require the user to be online at the same time (i.e. e-mail) and synchronous communication, or “real-time”, requires two or more users to be online (i.e. Instant Messaging).

Digital Learning Object

• Facebook.com
• Twitter.com 
• AOL Instant Messaging
• Wiki

New Terminology

• Asynchronous Communication – does not require users to be online at the same time and includes e-mail, mailing lists, and newsgroups.
• Synchronous Communication – is real-time communication, in which one or more users must ve online at the same time.
• Social Tagging  – allows users to post a Web page favorite or bookmark to a public Web site and then tag the bookmark with keywords.
• Signature file - A signature that can be automatically inserted into an e-mail message, containing standard content such as name, title, and connect information of the sender.

Module 3

Module 3 was about Searching the Web and Cyber-Lesson 5, “Information Fluency & 21^st Century Skills.”

 

In Chapter 3, I learned all about how to search the web. I learned about search engines, searching strategies, the searching process, searching with Boolean Logic and searching the Deep Web. When using a search engine, you aren’t actually searching “live” web, you are searching through web pages on the database of the search engine. There are certain strategies that should be followed when searching. They are: search, can, find, or keep revising. There is also a process that should be followed and questions you should ask yourself. What exactly are you looking for? When do you need this information? Where do you think you could find this information? How would you find this information? Why did you receive these search results?

Another type of searching is called Boolean Searching. Boolean searching used the words “and”, “or”, or “not”. Using “and” means both items must be present in the web page, “or” means either or both items will be present in the web page, and “not” will help find one but not the other.

Than there is the “Deep” or “Invisible” web. The deep web consists of web pages the “crawlers” could not see, they either missed it, the area may be password protected, or they may be non-html resources such as images, audio, animation, and pdf files. To find these web pages, you have to find an “Invisible Web Database”. To find these resources, you can use any search engine, you just have to add keywords like database, archive, or repository.

In Cyber Lesson 5 “Information Fluency & 21^st Century Skills” I learned about information fluency, digital citizenship, how to identify the proper and improper digital etiquette, how to search a web page, how to use a social bookmarking site and to cite web articles in MLA format. I also learned what the Life and Career, Learning and Innovation, and Information Media and Technology Skills required for the 21^st Century.

Information fluency includes information, technology literacy, and critical thinking. This is also known as “21^st Century Skills.” Information fluency follows a flow chart of ideas that include: What information am I looking for? Where will I find this information? How will I get there? How good is the information? And how will I ethically use the information? There are “nine elements” to digital citizenship and using technology appropriately. The nine elements are digital: etiquette, communication, literacy, access, commerce, law, rights and responsibilities, health and wellness and security.

My participation this module was better than the last. The web lab helped with that because our response was tied in with completing WL6 – Social Bookmarking. Social Bookmarking is a great tool to have and I am so glad we went over it in this module!

• Boolean Operator – is a conjunction used in logical expression.
• Web Crawler – browses the Web, automatically adding the URLs and other information about Web pages to a searchable index.
• open-ended search – seeks information on a broader scale, using a simple keyword.
• primary source – is any document, item, or other data that provides firsthand information about a particular topic.
  
  

Life and Career and Media and Technology Skills required for the 21st Century:

• Learning and Innovation Skills – 4C's: Critical thinking, Communication, Collaboration and Creativity.
• Information Literacy
• Media Literacy
• ICT (Information, Communications, and Technology) Literacy
• Flexibility and Adaptability
• Initiative and Self- Direction
• Social and Cross Cultural Skills
• Productivity and Accountability
• Leadership and Responsibility