Digital Literacy & Me

This was my first experience recording a podcast. I’ve never created this type of content for the Web before and it was a really interesting experience. I must have re-recorded my podcast at least a dozen times because I’d always make some mistake near the end, and because I’m new the audio editing, I wasn’t sure that I would be able to fix any missteps. I used the memo recorder on my iPhone and Audacity audio editor to add the music in the background. This was first time using Audacity, and I was surprised how easy it was to use, though I need to keep practicing because it was hard to get the background music volume levels just right.

This experience really taught me how easy it is to create something like a podcast with essentially free software –the recorder on my phone, free audio editors, and to post directly on to Audioboo. I didn’t realize how accessible participating in this type of activity really is for most people. Creating a podcast is not something I would have really considered in the past, because I would have assumed you needed special audio equipment or a special hosting site. This assignment really showed me that truly anyone, with very little skill or equipment, can indeed participate in podcasting – and my digital literacy has increased a little bit more!

The music I use on my podcast is from a great Fredericton band called Sleep Driver (with the band’s permission) http://sleepydriver.ca/

http://digitalliteracy.cornell.edu/

listen to ‘Digital Literacy & Me - Assignment 1’ on Audioboo

Digital Literacy & Me

listen to ‘An Entrepreneur's Social Media Story’ on Audioboo

An Entrepreneur's Social Media Story - My Story - My Prezi!  Enjoy



This assignment was fun to put together. I used a Prezi template with feet to walk through my journey into the world of social media. The Prezi is also included if you want to watch the slides. I think Audio.boo is a very good tool that we will use on education/information blogs such as those in the insurance industry. It’s great to have the image and then be able to talk through it; the audio quality is excellent. Also, it’s generally easier to talk through an audio than write out a presentation; and, my experience is that consumers in general would rather listen than read.

Although I work in the world of online marketing which includes social media properties, I don’t spend a lot of time on my own social media. I use LinkedIn for recruiting, connecting with others, and reading the blog feed several times weekly. I am a regular Facebook user: I like many of the business pages we create to check their development and functionality. I use Facebook to connect with family and friends for birthdays and just to keep in the general extended family news. I use the Twitter feed for sourcing information but I don’t tweet except for #NMN!

I created a Pinterest account for the first time and made a Social Media Tips board. I was amazed at the amount of excellent resources to pin. Pinterest has a much bigger scope than I thought and I will use it more in the future. I will definitely be using Delicious to bookmark sites going forward. I just made my account! Here’s how to connect with me:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/lynnemotkoski

https://www.facebook.com/lynnemotkoski

https://twitter.com/LynneMotkoski

http://www.pinterest.com/lynnemotkoski/social-media-tips/

https://delicious.com/lynnemotkoski

Digital Literacy & Me

  By: Mandeep Jawanda

Hello Everyone,

Creating a podcast was something I had never done before; I have gained a greater appreciation for those who do it on a regular basis. The biggest obstacle/ hurdle that I faced in creating my podcasts was limiting my information and articulating it in a creative fashion. There were also times in my podcast were I forget to mention something important, even with written notes.

The overall experience of creating a podcast was very good, and I am confident that I will use it again in the future, either for another assignment or in my professional career. It is another tool that I did not use prior to enrolling in this class much like Pinterest, but once you start and figure-out the basics, it is not so bad, and was actually a great experience.

I created three podcasts in total, I may have confused the three minute limit of the podcast in the grading rubric to mean we need to create three different podcast files, anyways I hope everyone enjoys them regardless. I have also included the PowerPoint presentation in the link below, as I mentioned in my podcast. If there are any questions or concerns please let me know, thank you.

Additional Material:

YouTube Microsoft Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwj2s_5e12U

PowerPoint Presentation Available Through SkyDrive (Please Click Here)

References:

Podcast Picture 1: http://rickrainerludwig.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/introduction_small.jpg

Podcast Picture 2: http://www.worksmartmompreneurs.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/url-5.jpg

Podcast Picture 3: http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/future-technology-arrow-26322788.jpg

Digital Literacy & Me

The Evolution of the "Selfie"

by: Lenie Lucci

This was my first time creating a podcast! I have to say, I was a bit nervous at first, but Audioboo made it really easy. That said, I hate watching or listening to myself, so the actual editing process was a bit painful.

I had a bit of technical difficulty only because I didn't update my flash player on my computer and it made recording right off Audioboo a bit difficult. When it hit me that I could record my podcast off my iphone, I was super excited because I felt more comfortable that way anyway. Then I imported my audio and some free piano music I found online into Adobe premier to edit, and then uploaded that file to Audioboo

Thinking about how to make this an interesting podcast took awhile. I took a very narrative approach to producing my podcast - speaking about how social media provided a new outlet for this very embarrassing selfie addiction, but I think you'll see after listening, that unlike what a lot of scholars think about social media, I don't think Facebook is the culprit behind our infatuations with ourselves in pictures, but rather, we were just waiting for something to come along that would make this existing desire ok.

I hope you all enjoy this honest look at the relationship between social media and the selfie!

listen to ‘Digital Literacy & Me’ on Audioboo

Digital Literacy & Me

By Nicole Basaraba

This was my first attempt at creating a podcast and in doing so, it increased my digital literacy. My first challenge was figuring out what software to use. I have worked in iMovie before so my first thought was to create a YouTube video, but taking on the challenge of creating a true podcast was something I wanted to learn. After doing some online research on Apple forums, I found that GarageBand has a podcast feature so I learned how to use it. 

Nicole Basaraba's social media networks

After selecting the software, I wrote the script. It was 900 words and way too long for a three-minute podcast! I spent a while editing it down to the bare minimum. The 500 words I was left with doesn't seem to capture the whole narrative of my digital literacy, but it does give the listener the highlights. The time constraint was also great practice in learning to be more concise. I tend to be write a lot so this assignment was a real test for editing and capturing what listeners really need to know.

I noticed that a lot of podcasts on Audioboo use introductory music, so I added some music and sounds in an attempt to garner more listener interest. Overall it was a great way to focus on developing a concise auditory-focused communication rather than written/visual.

A couple of introductory notes I didn't have time to say in the podcast is that I'm a Communications and Events Coordinator with the University of Alberta. I've been working in communications for over four years and I'm also a freelance writer. Most of my technical and communicative digital literacies are self-taught because working in the communications field, I feel responsible to continually improve my skills and be aware of current digital practices and trends. My podcast focuses on more recent digital literacies that I have developed on my own time.

I use over a dozen social media platforms, but I could not cover my experience with all of them in this short podcast. The following links are to my main professionally-focused accounts:

• The Chron-nicole's blog: http://nicolebasaraba.com/chron-nicoles-blog/ 
• Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/nicolebasarabawriter
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/NicoleBasaraba
• Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/nicolebasaraba/
• LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolebasaraba
• YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/NicoleBasaraba?feature=mhee

My podcast refers to Dr. Doug Belshaw's 8 Elements of Digital Literacies.

References for podcast:

• Doug Belshaw's Tedx Warwick video

• Doug Belshaw describing the 8 C’s of digital literacy

• What is Digital Literacy? (Not used specifically in the podcast, but did help me decide to cover the 8 C's) 

Used with permission from

@dajbelshaw

listen to ‘Digital Literacy & Me - Nicole Basaraba’ on Audioboo

Digital Literacy & Me

You can find the link to my podcast here!

I must say that I genuinely enjoyed the process of creating my podcast. I was forced to think critically about how I have made online communities part of my life since 2004. It was a lot of fun to “share my social media story” in this format because I really don’t have a lot of experience recounting my social media use up until now, nor have I created a podcast before. The hardest part of the whole assignment was narrowing down my story to the core three minutes. (I could have easily talked for half an hour!)

Furthermore, after some audio testing, I decided to use the Voice Memos app on my iPhone to do the recordings. I found that this was much clearer that recording through my computer. After I recorded the audio, I brought it into GarageBand and tinkered around with splitting the tracks, adding sound and getting a feel for producing a podcast. It’s amazing how simple it is to create and publish high-quality audio recordings for the world to hear! 

Finally, this assignment not only made me think critically about my social media presence in the past, but also what my focus would be in the future. I had to stop and think about where I really want to take my online presence. I believe that working to position myself as a thought-leader on LinkedIn, through sharing relevant and timely content, is a good use of my time and resources. This will not only mean keeping my content up-to-date, but also interacting with my connections. The use of Facebook for my personal network will continue to be reserved for keeping in touch with friends in far-away places. Overall, I found this assignment to help me think introspectively about my digital literacy, as well as allow me to become acquainted with a new audio sharing platform.