And I thought it couldn't get any worse...then came RSS

This had to be the most confusing site I have used so far. I have never even heard of it to start off with so I didn't know what it could do for me. At first the directions were extremely easy setting it up until I had to find people and then had to figure out all the settings. There were no easy to follow directions on the site itself, which was very odd since it was a Google site and you would think they had everything all step by step. It was really cool how when I logged in, immediately all my blogs that I follow were right there in front of me but from that point on I was beyond confused. Finding subscriptions took a while to figure out at first because I couldn't find the subscribe button (which happened to be right in front of my face) but once I found it, it was so easy to follow more RSS pages. So far I have added The Environmental Working Group, which is the group my project is on and random other interesting ones. Nothing in particular impacted me when subscribing other than the amount of other people who had already subscribed. It kinda told me whether or not the site would be interesting.
I found this site extremely helpful when looking at the blogs I follow. By breaking it down by people and their blogs it made it easier to see who has a new blog and how many blogs each person has. Also it just put all the blogs into one easy place rather than me having to go to their blogger page and try to see if I have commented on their most recent blog or not. I think having all these sites connected onto one is a great idea (Good job Bistra!) I was having difficulty checking each website and remembering which site I need to post things on each week, but now I can look at this site and all mine are right there in front of me at the same time. Overall I think that using the RSS will be easier to connect all my sites together but I don't particularly find most of the articles interesting because I don't really have enough time to read them all. This class in general has been very time consuming and this website will help but having deadlines for each assignment is very hard to keep up with when your schedule gets hectic.

Twitter isn't as bad as I thought

So far, Twitter is surprising me in numerous ways! I always thought it was just some weird website to follow celebrities on but now I can see how easy it is, like Facebook, to connect with my classmates and friends. I was able to create a list to easily find people in this class. The list allowed me to group people together so I could actually tell how I know them. I still have not fully understood the trends because Twitter is worldwide and a lot of specific "trends" I have never heard of, but with the "hashtags" it allows you to just click on a specific trend and it actually brings you right to that page so I can read about it then and there. I don't particularly like the "replays". On Facebook it is a lot easier to see when a person comments on one of your posts because you get a notification, where on Twitter it doesn't show up anywhere except on the timeline. Although you can see who comments on your tweets by going to the @mentions, its hard to know which tweet they are commenting on. Does anyone know how you can more easily tell?
On Facebook my privacy settings are on friends only, just because I don't want people searching my name and creeping on everything. But on Twitter I left my settings open because I think I'm only going to use it for class so it will make it easier for my classmates to find me.
Luckily on Facebook I'm very careful about what I say and what is said to me. My parents, grandparents and many other influential people in my life are my friends on Facebook and I want them to still feel the same way about me no matter what they see on my Facebook. I try to never post any pictures that would be degrading towards me or anyone else and do always think about what other people will say when they see a post or comment made by me. Most of my status' are boring, just about me doing this and that but never too revealing in case the wrong person sees my profile. Most of my post's too are just like hey I miss you type things and I don't think there are many things on my Facebook that could get me in any trouble.
Professionally I think there is nothing that would hurt me during an interview if the employer saw my Facebook profile. I do however think that Facebook and Twitter would be really helpful during my professional career because I can connect with people all over the world regarding physical therapy. I feel that it would help me connect with physical therapists all over the world and would allow me to talk to them about different techniques and even problems we are having.
The Environmental Working Group has multiple Twitter pages, one is the group itself and then another is done by the press secretary. On Twitter there are many tweets involving new media and news but on Facebook the page basically just talks about the group. I think that it will be very helpful following the organization on Twitter because there is an array of information that can tell me more about things people will actually care about.

What have I got myself into?

So setting up my Wiki was challenging but not at the same time. I felt that it was a perfect follow up to creating a blog because they are rather similar, but at the same time neither site is exactly the same and I have had to figure out how to now create a Wiki when I finally started getting used to my blog. But overall I understand why we are using the Wiki space and found that the tools on there were very helpful once I found out where they were. It also took me a while to even figure out how to create a new page but I realized that was just my fault and the "add a new page" link was right in front of my face.

 Our organization "The Environmental Working Group" is basically a group aiming to help people in relation to their health and the environment so the pages of our Wiki space were set up surrounding that. Our Wiki is still a work in progress but I think we will both try to take one or two pages for ourselves and research what we can on them so that we don't conflict with each others findings. 

Personally I would have my Wiki page be hot pink...but I didn't think that was appropriate for our organization and didn't exactly think Matt would appreciate it. All the other settings we left alone because its easiest to keep the page simple and uncluttered.

So far the research for this organization has been really interesting. Their website is extremely helpful and has a lot of interesting facts and articles on it. I read this one article already on how to choose the right sunblock (which obviously I haven't because I'm beet red). The website has such an array of topics from the health of children to how to use alternative forms of energy. From what little research I have done as of now, the most interesting thing I found was about how to limit our exposure to cell phone radiation. My parents tell me how bad it is yet I know that I have always just laughed and said yeah right! This article told me how to limit this radiation and what phones are the best to limit that too which I thought was really insightful. Its not like I'm getting a new cell phone anytime soon but its really interesting to see that cell phone radiation actually exists and can effect anybody.

Overall creating the Wiki wasn't too bad of an experience, creating the blog definitely warmed me up to using online tools such as these two. I actually enjoy creating a site that is all my own and that I can say whatever I want and have other people help me to elaborate on my ideas or thoughts

HELP ME!

I am beyond confused about this class in general...

So first I created my first blog, then I commented on other peoples but what are the due dates for these. I have received a million emails and instructions about this and don't have the time to try to pick apart every single one and figure out this schedule. Could anyone help me with at least one of the assignments (like when its due)         

Also this whole Wiki thing is killing me right now.. I can't figure out how to do anything! I finally figured out who I'm working with (Matt) and that we have to research the Environmental Working Group but I can't figure out how to invite him to view the page I created and also how to even set up the site.           

I really hope I'm not the only one struggling with the assignments on this class because I don't exactly feel that we have had adequate time to read the articles and post this and that on them. I work full time and the workload for this class is a bit much for me right now. If anybody could help me figure out any of the assignments or due dates for them I would really appreciate it! :) thanks

My first blog

Hi, I'm Marika Stayte. I live in North Yarmouth, Maine and have created this blog for my social application class which I am taking over the summer. Ive never really been one to tell people everything about myself but here's a little bit. I am a sophomore in college and this summer I am working full time to try to pay part of my way through school. I love my job but sometimes get frustrated because the retail business isn't always that much fun. I want to graduate college with my degree in physical therapy. I love traveling and recently visited Niagara Falls. I also love nature but my favorite thing by far is water falls. No matter what I always happen to find them.

From this course I hope to gain insight into how to better use the technology our generation has graciously been handed. No other generation has had the option to be able to do the amount of things in which we can. The world is in our hands and I would love to find every possible way to utilize that.
Setting up this blog for me was very different but seemed easier as I went along because directions aren't that hard to follow. Also now I will forever have a blog in which I can interact with many different people. In my professional field I could even discuss matters with other physical therapists and seek advice when I don't know exactly what to do.
My privacy settings I left alone for now because I have no clue which ones will be best but the information in which I put in this blog should be seen by whomever. I feel that if you put something on the internet you wanted it to be seen and that is why young adults and kids need to be careful what they post on any website.
I also chose the layout I did because I think it goes along with the title of my blog. My life right now is all about college and books are a huge part of college. I set it in the format because I have used Facebook for a while and this layout reminds me of that so hopefully it'll be easy to navigate. The colors are also my favorite colors.

Overall this blog will be a work in progress but I am very excited to learn about how to blog and how blogging can help impact my life. I always love to try new things and this will also help me to reach my goal of completing college which of course isn't a bad thing :)