Unit 2 E-tivity 1: Social Media & Its Usage

Following on this first Unit 2 E-tivity 1: Social Media & Its Usage

For some time now I have been using twitter, Skype, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook (x3), and more recently with our LA course here, I have made an effort to improve and edit my blogs (x3) and have been working at improving my Google+ accounts (x2) as well.

Initially, I set up all these to keep connected with friends and family. With the start of my master studies early on in 2011, I realised the importance of being connected for my studies, but more so professionally as well! So I set up my LinkedIn and Twitter accounts to make an online presence for myself and to keep records of academic issues related to my studies. However, gradually as I became more familiar and hooked on the benefits of learning I was getting, these extended to other universities, academic and professional sites from social sciences weblinks and current affairs informative websites.

As I progressed with the studies and modules into preparing my dissertation project, I set up another FB account dedicating it mostly to the topic of my research. It was a way of building a study case and keeping a record for myself, following up on my research and studies. My latest Blog under the title of 'Gender & Glass Ceiling Research HRM & Training Project' is also a reflection of my academic work and research towards my master degree.

I have actually been using all these online Social Media tools fairly regularly, with a long recorded history saved and archived, forming a sort of library & references for me to use whenever I want to. Most of these, I kept public as I felt they are mostly a collection of open, educational and informative sources, in addition to the fact they are not really mine to keep! I was happy to share them with whoever would be interested to have a look, just like an educational public library. 

I certainly feel I have been using them well for my own personal, social and academic needs; but maybe not so much to promote myself or seek job vacancies, or even connect for employment opportunities. At the moment, I’m not sure I want to be working as a full time employee anymore. However, I am conscious of creating a professional presence for myself, as I have been building my own personal career image through the collection of references and personal interests accumulated since being active online for the last two years or so (even though this was not really done intentionally initially!).