Category: TG@CF

An archive of the posts on the original Thought grazing blog, created to support the Social Media Cafe established at Cardiff University in 2009, and held in various venues – with the quality of the discourse being more important than the quality of the coffee! [I’ve tried to attribute authorship of posts wherever possible.]

Posted on

Does Social Media Imply Twitter and Facebook?

Simon's Tent

I thought I was splitting hairs yesterday. I was trying to make the point that admitting to not using Twitter and Facebook was the not the same as admitting to not using social media. Social media does, after all, take other forms. I did think this was a somewhat pedantic point to make, but then I was arguing with a self-proclaimed pedant whose Twitter bio gives their location as “My High Horse” so I wasn’t going to let that hold me back.

It seemed for a while that anyone making serious use of social media would likely be on Twitter. It has been such a fabulous tool for networking, conversing, sharing links and such like and it has long had a critical mass that makes it seem like given almost any interest you could connect with like-minded people and discover valuable information. I can entirely see why my interlocutor felt Twitter and Facebook are indicators. Continue reading “Does Social Media Imply Twitter and Facebook?”

Posted on

Just a dash of coffee

I’ve been busy just recently, so apologies for the late notice of a confirmed date for our next #tgsmc meet-up …

Wednesday 31st October from 10:00am at Costa Coffee, Park Place

… what will we talk about? That’s up to you, but I’ll be interested in hearing people’s views on new Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Google products and how they may be used in research, and learning and teaching. Then there’s digidol – the JISC digital literacy project the University is running and of course it’s Social Media Strategy – where does that stand at the moment?

I’d also be interested in views on where twitter is heading; has it now become just a marketing and PR tool and lost its value. Or, is it re-inventing itself with new uses and users. Then again, should we be defining an essential toolset for academic use, or do  VLE / VRE still have a place.

Then we all follow certain colleagues who we feel we can learn something from – it might be worthwhile exchanging that information. For me, I’ve been struck recently by Martin Hamilton’s blogpost Suddenly, Everything has changed – it brings many themes together in one place rather well and is worth a read; and then again Steve Wheeler’s excellent summary of where we are with Theories for the digital age: the Digital Natives discourse is also certainly worth a read. Have you got a similar hot blogpost?

Finally, to avoid getting caught out as I did recently when I didn’t know the difference bewteen Green and Gold Open Access and found my knowledge of OA rather lacking – take a peak at the PhD TV video on Open Access; what was happening in Cardiff last week for Open Access Week?

So … old-hands, or newbies, we’ll look forward to seeing you and of course there’s always the coffee …

Privacy Policy Proudly powered by WordPress