Since the last reflection blog, we have moved on to a new topic: Filter Failure and Crap Detection.
Continuing on from learning the difference between Broadcasting vs Blogging. Our class discussion moved to “filter failure.” We watched Clay Shirky’s discussion on Web 2.0 Expo about It’s Not Information Overload, It’s Filter Failure. In this video clip he explained how we are getting this overload of spam, junk, crap, all because our filters have failed. We live in a world were everyone had some kind of ’21st century ritual’ when checking their email, using spam folders along with manual filters to clean out the junk before reading the important content. In class we talked about some ways/solution to help with the spam overload, not just with email, but with social media sites as well.
We moved onto reading 3 short articles talking about RSS (Real Simple Syndication) as well Aggregation Tools, and how we have to convenience our present brain to see the positives of our future brain. We discussed in class the visual organization, channel coverage, and compartmentalization tools that can help keep all the information you want to stay up to-date on in an orderly, organized, manageable place. After learning what a RSS Feed is, I was still a little intimidated about what it can do. I still see it as another thing to keep track of and to keep organized. Personally I really don’t have a use for it, because I don’t follow multiple sites on a regular basis. Readings: Mindful Infotention by Howard Rheingold, Practical 101S: Google Reader and Persistent Search by Dave Fleet, and Screen Shots: How I Use RSS To Track Thousands of News Sources Easily by Marshall Kirkpatrick.
Class topics moved on to Crap Detection, we read Crap Detection 101 by Howard Rheingold, which talked about how to find credible sources with the help of search engines and manual detective work. In class we played a little game and found sites, with similar topics to our Group Blog Project, to test our skills at finding a sites that we credible. We looked for correct dates, lack of type0’s, credible sources within a article, if the people writing and/or people cited on the site were real and creditable, the amount of traffic flow through the site, and other ‘red-flags’ that popped up on a particular site.
Yesterday we had to read, Twitter Literacy by Howard Rheingold, which talked about Twitter, the uses of Twitter, how to use it, it’s differences compared to other sites, like Facebook, and so on. I personally love Twitter, I didn’t at 1st but I have grown to really appreciate all it’s worth. Our professor Dr. Famiglietti, gave us a wonderful idea and some tips to use Twitter as a search engine for out Group Blog topics, I’m a little bummed I didn’t think of it before. Because I’m the most Twitter savvy in my group, I am now in charge of finding credible sources for our blog though Twitter. I’m so excited; with in the last 10min of class I found lots of great information and people/organizations/companies to follow.
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