Reflect Reflect Reflect

Time flies and we are through the first week of the course! There are a lot of things to do i.e. blogging, monitor the communities, try out various web 2.0 tools (Twitter and dashboard), read fellow classmates' blogs and getting things ready in advance for the other assignments. I have been on my computer all the time looking through the various social media applications and stuff, I hope I am doing enough!

I get to try out Twitter and there are a lot differing views on the usefulness of Twitter, and what it is good for. Personally, I am not quite a fan of it because of the word limit (140 characters) and I find it difficult to express myself completely. However, it is a good platform for people to share news or information links, which others could go ahead and visit those links to read more about it. I still prefer Facebook over Twitter haha!

I always thought community and network means almost the same thing but after doing the readings, and going through the discussion forums, both are actually very different! I feel that a network is more like a "who you know and who knows you" kind of a concept, whereas a community also has that element in it but there 3 main dimensions in it (think Community of Practice) i.e. shared repertoire, mutual engagement and joint enterprise. As I began to participate or lurk in the online communities that I selected, it feels as though people just join the community to get the information that they want, and not really engaging with the members within the community. There are definitely members who actively engage in meaningful conversations with one another but majority of the online threads or posts, will not last more than a week, and they become inactive after that. On the other hand, in an offline community, there seems to be more continuity in the things that we discuss like for example ideas to improve the community to achieve the common goals that we share, until the goals are realized, then we move on from there. Maybe the online communities that I am observing is not a really good example of a real online community. But I thought the experience was pretty good given that I have never really participated in any forum discussions before, although I did, which was like 15 years old on my favorite idol.

It is a pretty stressful first week but I am very glad that we made it through! And it is the Independence Day of the United States tomorrow and I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy Independence Day! Have fun but stay safe and be safe! God Bless all of you!