End of the Semester

You know it is getting to be that time of year when the Christmas lights go up at temple square! It is the end of the semester. And today I am writing my final blog post for this class. As I look back over the semester, I'm so glad that I took this class and was able to learn all that I did learn. It was an interesting experience to do so much self-directed learning and to seek out things that I am personally interested in. I struggled sometimes with keeping up with all of the self-directed learning and the posting and the sharing, but I enjoyed the experience. It was fun to take this class while working in social media at the College of Fine Arts and Communications. I had fun learning about digital media and all of the amazing things we can accomplish with it.

Self-directed Learning / Personal Blog Posts

Throughout the semester I took a somewhat casual approach to learn about digital culture. I realized in the beginning of the semester, when I tried to participate in the media fast, that I heavily use digital media for almost every part of my life. I do homework online, I work online, and I even socialize online. Digital Culture plays a big role in my life, so, I decided that I wanted to research my personal everyday interests for this class. Here are a few ways that I investigated and developed thinking about specific topics in digital culture:

1. Reading the Googlization of Everything 
2. Reading A Heartbreaking Tale of Staggering Genius and applying it to digital culture 
3. Researching articles on mashable.com (and other websites) for family connection, benefits of the internet age, social media marketing, internet safety 
4. Talking to friends and family physically and through digital media about blogging, social media, family connectivity, internet safety 
5. Professional development for work in social media: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Stumbleupon, Blog, Hootsuite, Hubspot, Webinars, Symposiums, YouTube 
6. Watching YouTube videos 
7. Blogging my responses to research and experiences 
8. Publishing content (while applying my research) for my job on Facebook, Twitter, and Blog accounts for the Museum of Art and College of Fine Arts and Communications 

I meant to go through everything I posted this semester and fit it into neat little categories, but I thought that this list would suffice to show the research that I did throughout the semester. These are just a few categories that I regularly researched and these are a few links that show that research.

Googlization of Everything:

The Googlization of Everything (blog/book)
Video Interview (google+)
Goodreads Review (google+)

Obsession with pop culture:

Fake Celebrity (google+)

Social Media Professional Development/Our use of Social Media:

The Science of Facebook Marketing (google+)
Social Media and Music (google+)
Mashable.com (google+)
Twitter Marketing for Dummies (book)

Connection

Wherever the Winds May Take Us (blog)

Family Connection

Why Do You Mommy Blog? (blog)
More on Mommy Blogs (google+)
The Benefits of Mommy Blogging (google+)
Digital Storytelling (google+)
Upwardly Evolving (blog/book)

Change of Cultural Norms

Heading into Uncharted Territory (blog/book)
The New Model (blog/book)
Life-changing benefits of the Internet Age (google+)

Since I do a lot with social media for my job, I spent a lot of time going over new ways of marketing with social media. I wanted to know how people were creating a market online and how I could increase my audience. I had a lot of fun applying what I learned and could visibly see the number of 'likes' go up on our Facebook pages. I really enjoyed learning about connectivity and how to improve this through the internet. I never really created content on the internet until this year. Now I'm being paid for it. I love it.

Collaboration

For my group project I worked hard with the other group members to research our topic and prepare for our presentations. Over the course of the semester, I found and shared multiple articles and websites that were related to our topic. I read my group member's blog posts and google posts and tried to provide feedback on their research. I came up with my presentation materials for the webinars and presented at each one. I helped write content for all of our group blog posts and contributed to each iteration of our project, including our 'story' and case study. I sought out social proof for our project through presenting the idea to friends, family, and peers. I provided content for our original YouTube playlist and then created and our main YouTube playlist. I was going to present our idea to one of the professors, but all of our schedules conflicted and I was not able to attend.

 I regret not spending more time helping other groups' projects in the class. But, I did provide feedback to other students on google+ and tried to answer their questions or concerns about their projects. I participated in the media fast. I provided feedback for the Remix group and researched their topic. I also provided feedback for the Badge group and advertised their presentation through my job.

 Although I don't speak up in class a lot, I contributed a few of my thoughts in class discussion and enjoyed talking to other groups about their projects before and after class.

Others’ assistance

I have loved getting to know the people in this class. So many of my classmates are excited about digital culture and have inspired me to pay more attention and do a little more research. My group members in Digital Sweet Home were so uplifting and wonderful, I loved working with them. Jake Cannon, Rebecca Johnson, Allie Crafton, and Audrey Blake all worked very hard on our group project and made sure that they were each pulling their load. I was impressed with Katie Wilkie's hard work in the badge group and was impressed with her enthusiasm about digital culture. 

Digital Literacy

I decided to take this class because I thought it would help provide some insight into the digital culture that I was trying to understand for my public relations job at the College of Fine Arts and communications. I wanted to learn how to better tap into social networks and learn more about computers and technology. Basically I wanted to increase my digital literacy, and through my personal research, sitting in lecture, and applying what I have learned at work and in my group project, I feel like my digital literacy has been well developed and I'm excited to learn and do more to immerse myself in digital culture.

Consume

I never have really done anything but consume digital media. This was a part of digital literacy that I understood well. In the past I have spent hours reading things online, researching articles on online databases, reading blog posts by others, checking out websites and games, and reading my Facebook feed. But I think this class has inspired me to consume in new ways. I now know that I can seek out topics that I never even would have considered researching online. I know that I can curate material so that I can consume material more proficiently. I know that it is important to consume wisely, only study the best material online. I must also realize that google's algorithms may not always bring up the best material I want to consume. There are other ways of finding the "best material" online though friends, family, enthusiasts, and experts.

Create

I have never created so much content on the internet in my life. I wanted to learn how to create better content and how to better connect with my audience while working on the public relations team. It has been fascinating to try and use the quick iterations format. I have always been a perfectionist and it is hard for me to send things out to the world wide web before they are complete. But through creating iterations of our ideas and projects the research and development process seemed easy. Instead of developing a full-fledged project that no one liked, we were able to get instant feedback on our creations. I've just started applying this principle to my social media posts for the CFAC. People will follow you if your material is unique and kind of gives an insider's twist on the story. These days people want to see more than just the polished final product of the Phantom of the Opera; they want small tidbits about what is going on backstage, they want to know where the actors are from, and they want to know how many times the ballet cast had to rehearse a certain dance. I'm excited to continue to create content in so many new ways through playlists, Facebook posts, tweets, videos, blog posts, and photos.

Connect

I'm finally learning how important connection is in internet use. As they said at the Mormon Media Studies Symposium: "The electronic age led to a social disconnect and individualism, whereas the digital age leads to connectivity and collaboration through the internet. The internet is our global village, our collective identity." What an awesome statement! I've really learned the truth of this statement this semester through this class and my job at the College of Fine Arts and Communications. I've seen and experienced the influence of connection over the internet. I'm excited to see how this will affect the classic research project in the future. I was always worried about how much digital media I was consuming. I always wondered why my parents were so against TV, but loved letting us use computers in our home. I think this is because they realized the growth that can come from the internet and the use of computers. Computers are more than just sources of entertainment, they are ways to connect to the rest of the world. You can use the internet to collaborate with people all the way around the world in a way that we have never been able to do before. I'm able to apply this in a small way as I work with social media for the CFAC.