EVA SoMe Course Feedback

The great part about this course is that it's HANDS ON!

The lessons were interesting and usefull. I did get a detailed idea on how Social Media works and how communities are built  around various topics, publishers, authors etc. Until this course I was a Facebook user, and never had time to experience the usage of Twitter. Now I finally understood the differences between this two.

Beside the theoretical aspects I've learned from some lessons, I liked the usage of various Social Media tools like blogging, google groups, google docs. They were not new to me, but I still found the interesting because for this work I kind of worked wit them from a pedagogical perspective. I really liked the collaborative work for the projects and the challenges it raised. It was a good opportunity to get to know eachother and to interact.

I appreciated the fact that the course was pretty clear from the beginning, the lessons, anssignments and projects well organized.

As improvement suggestions, I would say:
* try to keep a constant interactivity between students and professors, otherwise students will lose motivation; I think that stronger motivation techniques need to be used
* split big projects into smaller sub-modules and give intermediary deadlines (as you did for project no. 2)

My feedback on first project

• Was the assignment explained clearly?

- I think the assignment was explicit enough, and the provided example and graphical representation reinforced the explanations.

- however, I suppose that the reason why I was behind the schedule with completing my tasks on the project was the lack of personal motivation. On the days that followed the project start I spent a few hours working on the project - I chose a graphic designer, analysed his website and social channels and took some notes. After taking the notes, I had no more interest in finalizing the project; probably a closer deadline would have helped.

- even the assignment itself was clear, it was not clear for us what were the expectations regarding the collaborative work. A few instructions in this area would have been useful - e.g. use comments on google docs, plan a skype conference, plan a group discussion on facebook etc.

• What were the learning goals of the assignment?

- analyse the impact of social media communications in community building, comparing the social network channels with other online channels like website

- experience a collaborative project work in an international team

- get to work with collaborative tools like Google docs and communication tools like Google Group, Facebook

- get a comparison result in a well-constructed conclusion or graphical representation

• Did you reach the learning goals?

- I feel l’ve reached my learning goals, except the part of the collaborative project. I think that more interaction between the project group members (Graphic Designer) was needed

• Did you learn anything else?

- I got a better understanding of how Twitter works

- general knowledge about various graphic designers

- in an online learning environment, you need lots of self motivativation in order to succeed

• How did you experience the Google Docs for working with a joint document?

- it wasn’t my first time of working on a joint document, but I learnt useful tips like following a color convention for different contributors, using Google docs integrated chat, using Google drawings

• Did your team Google Groups stream of messages  serve discussion good enough?

- yes, it did. It helped the group get on the same page, it helped us triggering the finalization

• How did the team work differ from working around the same table?

- the online environment gave us flexibility and gave us the possibility of being ‘international’, but there were other inconveniences or lets call them challenges like asynchronous communication and more difficult communication due to the lack of non-verbal/para-verbal communication

• Would your learning outcomes have been different if you have completed the assignment alone?

-  I don't think my learning outcomes would have been the same if I would have worked alone. I learned a lot from the other group members and it was interesting to observe the similarities of each part that formed the final paper.

• Looking back at the process and the results you got, what was more important; to learn about social media in community building done by your research objects or to learn about using social media tools for teamwork with fellow students?

- I think both learning about social media in community building and using social media tools for teamwork were equally important and interdependent. Learning about social media in community building was a theoretical task, while using the social tools for teamwork was a practical one.

Long time, no post

Lots of stuff happened since my last post:
* we returned form our holiday in Barcelona
* I got back to work from the maternity leave
* we had Easter and had a lovely weekend with family
* Marc, my little baby boy know how to wavehis little hand saying bye, and know how to clap his hands, and he also plays so nice with car toys
* I started working on mamtastic.ro, a new personal project I am excited about
* I started to learn Java, thanks to a new project from work
* I did some assignments and readings for EVA... and talking about EVA, I had a look to a very interesting social media tutorial on lynda.com... I will make a summary of it in my next post.

In the meantime I will be playing with Twitter, as it is pretty new to me. I am a Facebook daily user.

Barcelona

Tomorrow night I'll be, hopefully, in Barcelona with my little baby boy and my dear partner for the next week. So, EVA folks, I'm letting you know in advance about my dissappearance. I promise to get back on track as soon as I return from my holiday.

After I get back, I have many things on my ToDo list... almost as many as I had on the 'before holiday' ToDo list :) Starting with 2nd of April I have to return to my job (I was on maternity leave since April 2011), and I have to prepare for a new position. It sounds really exciting and I can't wait to start working on new software development projects. However, I am a bit sad and worried that I have to leave my son for a great part of the day... I would simply glue him on me with superglue, and go to work just like that.

Another 'after the holiday' ToDo item would be related to an online shop, a small personal business that I want to setup. But I will let you know more about it in my next posts.

In the meantime I'll keep you posted regarding our holiday in Barcelona!

Hi everybody,

I am 25 and I have graduated from Computer Science and Communication&PR (Babes Bolyai University - Cluj Napoca - Romania). I work as a Software Developer (www.fortech.ro), but currently I am on maternity leave (I will be back to my job starting from April). I like my profession... and I like to think that I am a technical person with (some) people skills... meaning that my artistic side is not very developed; however, I do strive to develop my creativity. I am fascinated by creativeness and innovation in IT&C, and I am trying to keep pace with the latest technologies, especially web user interface related technologies because in my recent software projects I have worked mainly on the UI/presentation layer.

Regarding my spare time, when I am not spending time with my baby boy, I am reading about baby related things, I am sewing baby quilts and other useful stuff, and I'm coding software for moms :)

You can friend me on Facebook ( http://www.facebook.com/adina.pascalau) or add me to your professional network via LinkedIn.