Thing 7 and 8

Things 7 and 8 seem quite timely for me – I have recently restarted my twitter account!  I opened an account about 4 years ago when I did a PGcert in digital education, and aside from an aborted attempt to restart it last summer I am trying to use it now….  At the moment mostly I am retweeting, sometimes as a way to store information I may want to find later but mostly because its easy.  It was interesting to read about the various ‘twitter’ voices and how they might be perceived which gave me ideas (yet to be put into practice) about how professional etc. do I want to sound.  It is an account mostly for work – although I do look at friends who seem to combine a bit of both work and other aspects of their life and wonder….  The bottom line I think is I am naturally hesitant about sharing personal info on any social media platform.

And thing 8…. the dreaded Facebook!  As someone who actually doesn’t much like Facebook, I have two accounts.  One for work, linked to the course page and one for home life where I limit friends and try to have little cross over with work – they even have different names as I kept my madden name at work.  I put almost nothing on my personal one – using it to keep up with friends I don’t see as much as I’d like.  So at the moment the work account is more active – although I feel that I don’t really understand the ins and outs of having a page.  One reason I started to become more active on Facebook for work was the idea that we might use it to keep in touch with alumni.  At the moment that isn’t really happening but maybe creating a group is the answer – I’ll add more when I have had a go!

 

Thing 5 – the bitmoji and discrimination

Its me as a bitmoji with a crab….

Well, I have made a mini me – it has glasses and brown hair so I guess it looks a bit like me, I got bored by the time I reached the clothes so they are not that representative and ‘my’ legs look really thin but maybe picking thigh size would be a step to far?

I don’t really use emojis apart from the cake, tea and cocktail ones but even then rarely.  I did notice a couple of weeks ago that you could select colours of skin, when looking for a bride emoji to send to a friend in the lead up to her wedding day and I did change the hair colour.  So was sucked in to make it more ‘representative’ of her.  I’m not sure what the answer is…. I can see that the default of a white emoji is predictable and irritating but from reading the articles it doesn’t sound as though selecting different colours has improved the situation.  Talking to a friend recently she pointed out that as someone in a mixed race relationship, her and her partner are still not represented in the emoji colour options – just checked whatsapp and there is no colour choice for couples or families but there is gender choice….

As someone who doesn’t really use emojis I don’t think I can really answer this question – I do use smiley faces more and thinking about it I am glad that these don’t change colour as it is a sentiment I am trying to express – happy, excited whatever and nothing to do with the skin colour of myself or the person I am sending it to.  A general move away from the default of white and often white men would be a good thing, although a change in the fundamentals of society not just emojis is needed….

The additional resources on diversity and discrimination are interesting, particularly the computers and big data article – I am looking forward to watching the lecture when I get the chance.  I think the advice on bystander intervention was excellent and is the type of information I would like to see the University more actively sharing.

Thing 4

Thing 4 – digital security, as someone who is inherently a bit suspicious of phones, data and social media – I feel I should know more about this than i do! I have always found fact that I was giving away information a bit worrying but it has always seemed that if you want to use a particular app then you just have to tick the box. Going through the recommended resources, I have now turned off automatic updates so that was a good thing to find out. But in terms of limiting the data I am giving away, I’m not sure anything had changed… As an android user with a google account it does feel like google knows a lot about me but then it is useful to have your location known for maps and transport apps. I used to turn the GPS off unless I was using it – maybe I should do that again?  I mostly did that as I didn’t like the way that Facebook pops up and asks you to ‘check in’ to places when the location is activated on your phone – it feels like an invasion of privacy!  I recently took facebook off my phone, so no niggles about that now.  Although this was not security related but sanity related, for although I rarely post anything I found myself checking it a lot.  I much prefer logging in from my laptop once a day if I feel like it.

Bonus thing A – “about.me”, at this moment in time I don’t feel like I need to market myself to this extent.  I can understand if you are setting up a new business or work freelance that it would be useful.  At the moment I find it hard to put things on Facebook or tweeting or updating linkedin for work so writing a blog and linking my online presence with a site like about.me seems unnecessary for me at this time.

Thing 3

So thing 3 – digital footprint, step 1 – google myself, I was happy to see that the first thing that comes up is my University page, however I was then not happy to realise that the information is out of date and has bits of code in the text. Note to self – come up with a clear bio and use that on all related things – will look at what I put on my linkedin page….

The next thing to come up is a link to recent paper, then two twitter accounts that are not mine…. Then researchgate which I don’t use. I suppose I may need to think about using research gate and adding a picture – maybe use the same picture on everything as a type of brand – argh!  In terms of pictures there were only 2 of me in the first page and both are ones I have used as profile pictures – so that is ok I think.

However the next link I clicked on left me quite surprised, the level of information available on 192.com, postcodes and people living at the same address, seemed somehow quite personal.

Thing 1 and 2

As someone who works on an online MSc programme for the University of Edinburgh I feel that my online skills may not be up to scratch! I am hoping that taking part in the 23 things course will expose me to new tools and help me get over my social media phobia…. And given I have just moved this blog from pebble pad where no one could see it to wordpress, maybe I am moving in the right direction…..

The social media guidelines are interesting – I was not aware of them but am not surprised by them either. I think creating social media accounts associated with the University is a bit daunting. I have recently taken over looking after our course facebook page and find it difficult to think what to post – although I think the more I do it the easier it will become. I have also recently opened a linkedin page for myself as a way to try and keep in touch with alumni – I found myself surprised by how like a ‘work’ facebook account it is and is there for just another think to try to keep on top of! Maybe my real aim of doing this course is to become a bit more open minded about social media….