When I first started IN506: Social Media for Information Professionals, I had a few ideas in mind of what I wanted to get out of completing the subject. I hoped to learn how social networking can be used to enhance my professional practice and I wanted to be able to engage more confidently and meaningfully with a wider community of like-minded professionals in my field. Additionally, I wanted to gain a better understanding of the impacts, benefits, limitations, and pitfalls of using social media in order to become a better collaborator and communicator in my school community.
Mostly Harmless
A reflective journal of a student teacher librarian
Category: INF506
Technological innovations are advancing faster than ever and people are increasingly engaging with online open access to information and social connectivity, more so now than ever before (Knowles et al., 2023). In today’s world, social networks have become powerful tools for communication and the sharing of information. We can share news stories, videos, and opinions on all manner of subjects with just a few clicks. However, the growing use of social media has led to the proliferation of misinformation to the extent that it has been observed by the scientific community that “evidence-based reasoning seems under assault” (Zucker, 2019). For almost every issue facing society people can obtain current information online. Unfortunately, for almost every issue, people can also find misleading and deceitful information. For every reliable source, it seems there is also a fraudulent one. These days sorting fact from fiction is not as easy as it seems, so in order address this we must first understand exactly what misinformation is.
Upon starting my journey as a Teacher Librarian, I was encouraged to explore and create a Personal Learning Network (PLN), very much like Utecht has described in his article Stages of PLN adoption (2008). I previously had not used social networking to develop a PLN for professional means and so I began investigating how social networking can support and further improve my professional practice. I learned that professional social networking allows users a greater reach and access to a wider professional community to enhance collaboration and sharing of knowledge and ideas.
Photo credit: Jeso Carneiro via Flickr/ CC BY-NC 2.0
As a Teacher Librarian currently working in a school library, I understand that information and digital literacy is a key part of my learning and teaching role (ALIA and ASLA, 2016a). Additionally, I know that library programs that support information literacy enable the development of essential skills such as critical analysis of information, identification of appropriate information sources and the ability to curate and re-imagine information (ALIA and ASLA, 2016b). In a world where there is an ever-increasing amount of information being created and disseminated, a world of ‘fake news’, a world where socially networked communities have the ability to reach and influence mass audiences, acquiring information and digital literacy skills is vital.
I will be exploring the online presence of the organisations listed below.
The three main elements of the client experience I will be looking at are the extent to which the sites :
- are user friendly and navigable
- contain up-to-date news and information
- Build community – interaction and collaboration (Gruss et al., 2020)
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