Can Online Gaming Be Educational?

This week for class, I watched a video of 13-year old, Lewis Tachau, talking about how online gaming has helped his communication, cooperation, and socialization skills.  Here’s the video below:

Tachau explains that the game he plays, “World of Tanks,” made him interested in World War II and began to learn about tanks, like the ones that he played in the game, and their part in the war. Tachau spewed facts about the tanks’ advantages and disadvantages in the war, how tanks were used, their strategies in battles, how they are hard to make, and so on. It’s interesting to see that from playing an online game such as this, that a kid Lewis’ age, can become interested in a subject and take upon himself of reading about it. Lewis also then explains the socialization skills of this online game.He connects with other kids who have the same interests, personality and thoughts.

With that in mind, should libraries incorporate more of these online educational games for children? Are they beneficial? Can children really learn from them? And develop these kinds of skills that Lewis did in his presentation?

I’m no expert in games or any sort of video games at all. I remember when I was a kid in elementary school and playing Zoombinis during computer class. With no knowledge of what kinds of educational games are out there, my teacher posted links to three online educational games: Webkinz, Penguin Club, and Moshi Monsters. Webkinz is an online game where you can adopt and take care of a pet, while playing educational games, puzzles and activities. Penguin Club is where they explore different islands, play activities and socialize. Moshi Monsters is just like Webkinz, but taking care of a monster! What I find important of these games is that the moderators stress for a safe and fun environment. The social chat and interaction is closely moderated and restricted to provide a safe space for kids for online chatting. These kinds of games would be fun to have at libraries I think! I think these kinds of games could serve the purpose of both having fun and learning.

It also introduces kids to an online network and communication for the first time. Since this will be a new experience for them, it’s good for the games to be moderated. Also, it will prepare them to use social media in a couple year’s time!

What do you think about online educational gaming? Good or bad for kids? Should libraries use them?

Uses for Social Media Other Than Marketing

For this blog post, I want to address the question: “What can information professionals do with social publishing tools other than marketing?”

Social publishing tools, such as blogs and Twitter, are great to market a businesses’ brand, services, products and content.

For information professionals, social media is ideal for marketing their organization. Such as librarians marketing their library’s services, materials, events and programs. Could libraries use these social media publishing tools for personal use? For example, librarians can create blogs and have different staff members post something that is thoughtful, creative or personable. A staff member can comment or post about a book they recently enjoyed, or a book that they disliked. Other topics could include music, movies and TV shows, or respond to news related to literature or other information organizations.

On Twitter, information professionals can share or retweet news from major information organizations like New York Public Library, Library of Congress or the Smithsonian. Librarians can share tweets of exciting news, promotions or facts. For example, Library of Congress usually tweets “Today in History. Librarians can retweet this to their followers for them to see.

Information professionals can also use social publishing tools for education means. Librarians can post facts and interesting tidbits. But importantly, information professionals can offer how-to’s and instruction guides on how how to use a library catalog or database, or how to search for an article. Librarians can post tutorials for students of how to write a paper, how to use citations or how to read an academic paper. For adults, librarians can post tutorials on how to use devices such as iPhones, iPads, and Androids.

With social media, to reach your audience, sometimes you have to think outside the box!

Improving Marketing Practices on Social Media for Information Professionals

One of the questions that was offered in class was: “How can library and information professionals improve on their existing marketing practices through social publishing tools?”

This question reminded me of a webinar I attended conducted by librarian Sophie Brookover about tips and improving social media for libraries.

To make it easier to market your platforms, I remember a constant theme was tidying up your accounts. Which means if a platform is not working for your library, ditch it. Then focus on those social media platforms that are benefiting your library. Then here comes the tidying up: social media is all about presence. The social media profile and look should be appealing. Use pictures that–profile picture, background cover, etc–fit and represent your library. Something that is fun, catchy–maybe a logo–that can be used and is appropriate. Make a short, simple and to-the-point biography. On social media followers, condense who you’re following and be follow the right people/organizations. This can help also to create content by sharing/retweeting content that these followers posted that the library might share on their own platform.

I think I touched about content and hashtags in previous posts, so I’m going to direct to other things. But first, something real quick about content: make it fun, creative, colorful, etc. Depending on the library, personable and fun posts can make patrons feel like they are part of the library community (they can relate and connect to).

Sharing is caring! To market your platforms, try sharing and connecting your platforms together. For example, you can connect Instagram with your Twitter and Facebook accounts. Whatever you post on Instagram, that Instagram post will be seen on your Twitter and Facebook accounts, also. This will be marketable to more groups of people. So if a follower doesn’t have an Instagram account, let’s say, they can still see this post on their Twitter account that they have.

Another thing about marketing is, consider what kind of “voice” you want to use. This is very crucial for using Twitter. Warm it up. Think accordingly. How do you want to come across to your followers? Of course you want to walk the line of being professional, but lean towards personable, as well. Think about it and maybe play around with it. But once you found your voice, be consistent!

From the webinar, I learned about Boosts, which is a feature on Facebook. I believe it is not a free thing, but Boosting your posts helps market and make your posts more visible. What it does is that it “boosts” your post to the top of a user’s page, so it’s one of the first posts they see on their News Feed. It can be helpful to market your content on Facebook.

Since social media platforms are always coming up with new features, marketing strategies are always changing, as well. One thing about social media is you have to keep up with it. Marketing practices continue to be developed. The best thing I think we can improve marketing practices is trial and error: to see what works and what doesn’t to help the library’s social media presence.

Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration

This week for class I watched a video of a talk by Nicole Ellison, of University of Michigan, and  Matthew Weber, of Rutgers University, discuss how social media is involved in knowledge sharing and collaboration of distributed teams. Below is the video:

Ellison first talks about the general scheme of social media and how it plays its role in knowledge sharing. She discusses context awareness, which relates to, for example, media stream as in a News Feed on Facebook, which connects knowledge shared by users to other users. Ellis describes greater network transparency; an example of that is a Friend’s list on Facebook, which is knowledge of who knows who. Ellis also goes into a social graph, which includes mutual friends. Mutual friends is knowledge of who should know who, and also who you should connect with. Information like this on social media is a great example of knowledge transfer. Sharing information on a feed or seeing who you’re connected to, is information being transferred everyday from a person to person or a person to a group of people.

Ellies goes into more detail describing how networks and knowledge are a central focus of organizations today. Knowledge must be able to be shared across contents through relationships and networks. Ellis says distributed teams facilitate the acquisition and application of knowledge and create diverse knowledge. In all, the use of social media increases knowledge in organizations. A social media networking site that describes Ellis’ collaboration is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a social networking site that connects job professionals to other professionals and also to job organizations and groups. Users can create a profile where they update their work experience, essentially creating an online resume for employers to look at. Users can also apply to job postings and can look at employer and organization profile pages. LinkedIn creates team building by introducing groups of organizations together and connecting like-minded networks to collaborate and grow.

Social media can share knowledge in a positive way. LinkedIn is a prime example of this because it connects business-oriented groups and people to similar goals and needs.

What is “Authentic” Content in Social Media?

Inspired by this week’s unit and the discussion by my classmates, I would like to talk about what does authenticity mean in the social media world.

There are different types of categories related to social media content. As a user, I personally post noncommercial content. I basically post comments, thoughts, opinions about my day, events, pop culture or whatever is happening in my life. Some posts/tweets are thoughtful, silly, fun, etc. Some are meant to be rants, or vent, or to just “get it out.” This is the “fun” of social media–to share this with people that I know. To network with them. It’s a way to talk about our days and things we like. This content gives us a chance to connect with each other.

One of my classmates pointed out a very interesting point in the discussion–how are ads considered authentic? Ads falls into the the commercial message category because the advertisement is trying to persuade the reader to change an attitude or behavior. Personally, I do not see ads as “authentic” content at all. Can ads be original? Can they be sincere? Some ads are certainly clever and do carry out some sort of message. In this day and age, you can’t escape ads, especially from social media. From Facebook you see ads everywhere. On Instagram, while scrolling down, you see sponsored pictures (from organizations and companies) on your feed. On Twitter, there are promoted ads and tweets, also by companies and organizations, as you scroll down your timeline. Some intentions of these ads could be to make you buy a company’s product, invest in something new their doing, or maybe even make you sign up/use something. The message makes you to change your attitude about it. Could the wording define these ads as being original content? Or could it be the picture? Or the meaning behind it?

As a user, my goal is just to engage with my followers/friends: to have conversations and discussions. Authenticity comes from the heart; from how you feel and think. Thus, the engagement and networking with users with this original content creates even MORE authentic content.

What makes content original and authentic–and their purpose of being read by the user–is definitely something to think about.

Insta Ideas For Libraries (Part 2)

This is more of a continuous and expanded post that I recently wrote briefly about using Instagram for libraries. But, I stumbled upon this article from the YALSA blog through the ALA newsletter and it mentions wonderful ideas to incorporate and use Instagram for libraries.

These ideas struck me because they were very creative and different. I think what’s hard about creating content on social media is the planning and implementing: to be original and stand out from everybody else. It’s very helpful, though, to see ideas like this because it’s a starting point; you can turn it and use these ideas to make it your own!

What I thought I would do is list the some ideas from the article, then come up with ideas of how I can use them for the library that I work at:

1. Shelfies–This idea is basically like a selfie (taking a picture of yourself), but you take a picture of you and a book.
   1. I can incorporate this idea into my library by asking patrons to take a picture of themselves with books they recently checked out or returned. Or better yet, take pictures of patrons who checked out NEW books, to promote that section and keep it circulated!
2. #BookDropLife-Take a picture of a stack of books recently turned in the library.
   1. I can incorporate this idea by taking pictures of books from our inside and outside returned box! This can generate circulation and interest from all kinds of materials from the library. I can switch it up and take pictures of not only books, but also maybe a pile of DVDs and mix books with audio books, too! I can also use this idea to take pictures of stacked books of popular series.
3. Mini-Virtual Tours-Take a video of tours around your library
   1. With this idea, I can get very creative with this. What’s great about this idea is that it gives patrons a “behind-the-scenes” look at the library. I can take videos of the library building, its features (show patrons different sections like adult, children’s, teen, show databases, etc) Or maybe show patrons like how a book is being processed or scanned.
4.  New Book Reveal-Take a picture or video of opening up new library books coming in.
   1. This is a fun and exciting way to let patrons know what’s new and available at the library. I can take videos or photos of opening the boxes of our new items–I will expand it to not only books, but also to DVDs and audio books!

I would recommend reading the article and seeing what YOU can do to incorporate Instagram into your library? Do any of these ideas interest you? Do you think they can stick and attract users?

Instagram For Libraries

Today, I was in a meeting with my fellow co-workers, and one of the things we talked about was making our social media presence stronger. One thing we touched upon was using Instagram. As our library does have an Instagram account, we kind of have abandoned it and have not used it in a while. We talked about how we can use Instagram for our library and this is what we came up with:

• Taking photos of programs (adult and children’s) and events
• Taking photos of news of the library (new equipment, changes, etc)
• Taking photos of new materials (books, DVDs, etc)

Like with any social media account, Instagram has to be kept consistent and used daily or so. We talked about how when one of us is on the desk during a program, we each take pictures of that program or event. And of course, making pictures appealing and “pretty” to attract users, we talked about getting comfortable with taking pictures and getting good shots. This is the extent of what we talked about today with Instagram, but with our next meeting, we will discuss more. It’s exciting to know that we are on track again for using this social media platform and that we hope our users will become aware or gravitate towards it.

Does your library use Instagram? If so, is it effective? What users are attracted to it? What do you use Instagram for in your library?

Friday Food for Thought

I’m going to end this week’s blog post with something fun, but also with some questions about social media to think about this week:

With social media, nothing is monitored or censored. Social media is a free-for-all for anyone to post their thoughts and opinions. My questions are:

• What are the consequences to this?
• Who can see this?
• What is the point of “getting it out there” on social media?
• Who is the audience?
• How many people do these messages get across to?

For example, let’s look at this clip below. This clip features a segment Jimmy Fallon regularly uses in his show where celebrities read mean tweets posted about them on Twitter:

As you can see, these tweets aren’t necessarily full of love. So, what is the point of sending or posting something like that out in public? Is it directed to the users’ audience? Do they hope that the celebrities will see these tweets? (and they did!)

Personally, I don’t post these kinds of tweets because I try to always keep it positive and believe–and want–to use social media as a positive and beneficial and keep it a safe place.

My final questions for this week are: What do you think are user’s purpose of posting negative tweets like in the video above? Reactions?

Thanks for checking out my blog and stay tuned for more next week!

Facebook: The Power of Sharing

Like. Friending. Connect.

These three words are strongly associated with the Facebook’s power of sharing of information to people all across the world.

Jose van Dijck shares in her journal article, “Facebook and the Imperative of Sharing,” that there are two meanings of “sharing” related to two different types of coding qualities (4).

1. Connectedness– directing users to share information with other users through purposefully designed interfaces (4).
2. Connectivity-to aim at sharing user data with third parties (such as the infamous “Like” button) (4).

The first type of sharing, connectedness, relates to users sharing information via their profile pages. Users can share photos, posts and contact information on their profile page–and also post life details such as date of birth, education and school, place of employment, place of current location and relationship status. Users can also list interests such as film, books, TV and movies. Users can communicate with friends through posting, messenger (chat) and live video. Users can join groups which can allow to communicate with people based on same interests. The News Feed feature allows users to see the top and most recent “stories” and activities from their friends list. The “poke” feature allows user to gain attention from another user, and Status is where users can post how they’re feeling or what they’re doing.  Lastly, “tagging” friends in statuses, posts, and pictures can be seen and shared to friends and also friends of friends to those users. So, this feature can be shared to across the network.

The second type of sharing, connectivity, I will focus on the “Like” button aspect. The Like button is important because with this feature–you can “like” almost about anything that you see across the network. This can be friends’ photos, statuses, posts, shared posts, life events, relationship statuses and anything that a user has changed on their profile (like cover page, profile picture, change of a new job or change of a new place, and like of a page). Again, what’s unique about this is that everyone can see this on their timeline: if a friend sees that friend ‘liked’ New York Yankees, that friend will know that information that their friend most likely is a fan of that team. Through this ‘like’ feature, information is universally shared. This information stretches across from all topics and to all kinds of people.

With that in mind, what I want to try to answer is: Is this too much? Personally, I think Facebook can be too stuffy–which means too much information is being shared. It can be a little too much knowing every single detail about a person. With this amount of sharing, you can know a person’s life. Of course, a user can opt to not share certain information with certain people. Users can decide who they want to share their information to (to public, friends or even to just themselves) and users can decide what to share or hide information on their profile page. To what ends does it end? Still today, Facebook is a dominant tool of connecting and sharing data and information. When a user started Facebook at a certain time, that information is stored on Facebook. Facebook “keeps” this information until the user deletes it. And remember, what’s uploaded, will stay there for the world to see forever. Users can also see information that they posted in the past–this new feature is called Memories, and users can look back on old information called On This Day and see what past information or activity happened on their page on that particular day.

It seems that Facebook will be here to stay in the online media world. It’s tough to grasp how Facebook will change or evolve over time. The thing I’m wondering is how it’s going to keep impacting the ability of sharing or connecting of information to a global network or community. Only time will tell.

 

Reference: Dijck, José Van. “Facebook and the Imperative of Sharing.” The Culture of Connectivity(2013): 45-67. Web.