What has this subject taught me?

The course INF506 has been designed to challenge its students to embrace social media as a way of connecting with one another and with the course. Students were asked to try new social media platforms, engage with the course through Facebook rather than the university’s Learning Management System and contribute to their personal blogs reflecting on their learning. Some of these tasks have felt quite easy for me, while others have been quite difficult. As a result, these have influenced my learning in the subject and my development as both a networker and a professional.

Engaging with the subject through Facebook and the Thinkspace blogs has been an enjoyable experience which has allowed ongoing communication with peers in a familiar platform. Facebook is my most used social media and being able to check activities and comment on ideas through this platform rather than swapping to the traditional forums made the content easier to interact with. I was able to check it more regularly and comment while I was out and about which made it feel more natural and part of everyday life, rather than as a task that needed to be done. While the Thinkspace blogs were similar in that the platform was familiar, both writing my own blogs and commenting on other blogs was more of a challenge due to time commitments. However, I found the content of the blogs very interesting as people were able to develop their ideas. I endeavoured to read a few blogs each week to help consolidate my own learning and synthesise information. Deng and Yuen (2011), in a study on blog use in higher education found that students felt more connected with peers when using blogs, build a sense of community and enhance their professional learning by reading each other’s blogs. Making the time to read through these blogs was important in my development as an information professional as I was able to read other people’s opinions and approaches to similar work that I was doing. This enabled me to further develop my understanding of the topics and to consider other perspectives. When a peer commented on my blog, she recognised something in my words that I hadn’t picked up on, which made me rethink and reflect on my own work. This highlighted how effective social media can be for enhancing your own work and building on what others have created. Although I had been reading other people’s blogs I hadn’t commented up until this point, and the realisation of a comments usefulness encouraged me to leave constructive comments on the next few posts I read.

As a networker, this subject also helped me to develop in several ways. It helped with my confidence when using social media by encouraging me to comment, create new posts and try new platforms. While I have had social media for many years, I do not post or update it very often. I have never felt confident to post, feeling that there was the pressure for the ‘perfect post’. Now, while my Facebook account still has the same profile picture from two years ago, my Instagram has new posts for the first time ever and I was brave enough to create a story and comment on other people’s posts. In addition to this, I also tried new platforms, in particular Twitter, which I have found to be very enjoyable and informative. The steps I have taken to develop my skills as a networker online has had ongoing implications for other areas of my life.

In my personal life, I have endeavoured to communicate with friends and family through social media more frequently, by sharing updates about my life. Although I still do not want to share all news publicly on my social media, I find that I want to create more posts to share with select friends privately. I also find that I am more up to date with news and events happening in the world as I started following news corporations on Twitter. These organisations post regularly with updates about events and political news that are important around the world which has helped me to stay more up to date with what is going on. When reading through the posts from the local news, I have also commented on a few posts to share my experiences and to engage with members of the community in a new way.

Comparatively, my newfound use of social media has impacted my studies in that aside from interacting with peers through Facebook and blogs, I have followed many libraries and librarians on Twitter and Instagram and have browsed their posts for ideas about my own assignments and coursework. In particular, this influenced my decision about where to apply for a placement as I became more interested in the process of archiving after following the National Archives of Australia on Twitter.

These same organisations which I followed have also helped me to develop as an information professional as I was able to use the ideas from posts to design and create new displays at the library I am working in, when previously I hadn’t been sure where to look for ideas or inspiration. Furthermore, this subject has reinforced the importance of using social media in information organisations to help ensure the organisation stays relevant and up to date as the world continues to change. I’ve learnt that the organisations which create engaging posts and interact with the community build more loyalty and satisfy user needs (Madan & Kapoor, 2021) This is something I will take with me as I venture into the future and find work in the field.

Studying INF506 has taught me about the importance of reading and acknowledging peer work to help build your own skillset and given me confidence to use new social media platforms. It has made me appreciate the usefulness of social media in a way I never had before and given me a strong foundation for a future as a social networking information professional.

References

Deng, L. & Yuen, A.H.K. (2011). Towards a framework for educational affordances of blogs. Computers & Education, 56(2), 441-451.

Madan, S.K. & Kapoor, P.S. (2021). Study of consumer brand following intention on Instagram: Applying the uses and gratification theory. International Journal of Online Marketing, 11(2), 32-51.