Group Task Progress

Suzie, Maddy and I met today in Richmond with Anita joining us from QLD via phone link up.  We had a really successful day working out a great Mind Map for our website and working our way through the 10 steps to create a website.

As part of our planned website it was decided that I should contact the fabulous Paul Mercurio to try and get his cooperation and endorsement of our site (are you intrigued???).  I have posted a message for Paul on his Blog and all we can do now is wait and hope that he reads the request and responds positively in time for us to include him in our site.  Fingers crossed.

We had such a great day today and I think we are on our way to a fantastic website that will be fun and engaging and something that people want to participate in.

Week 4

Train of thought musings.....

I visited my mum in hospital yesterday, a small routine knee replacement on Thursday, only to find that during the surgery, when they hammer the new knee joint into the femur, they had hammered a bit too hard and have gave her a hairline fracture to go along with the new knee.  What a very caring surgeon!

I am off to Karingal Hub now to increase my mobile phone plan, for the past two months I have gone above my data usage and had to pay much higher bills, thank you Swinburne for giving me an on-line social life.  After that it is back to study and hopefully catch up with the group 4 gals to move ahead (sorry Julia) with our group website assignment...

Mad Melbourne Weather

Hi fellow Melbournians

I was just sitting going over some studies and thought to myself, "This time last week I was studying in a sarong and not much else and was sweating like a pedo at a Wiggles concert.  This week I am in long socks, long pants, long sleeves and a scarf"  That's Melbourne for you, although I would much prefer this week to last weekend!



I am trying to find another RSS reader to use now that Google has announced it is ceasing Google Reader from 1 July 2013.  I think I have decided that I am happy with Feedly but in saying that I am having trouble adding my classmates Blog pages to Feedly.  This was easy in Google Reader, but I will not let Feedly beat me, I will prevail.

Suzie Bull and I went along to Swinburne during the week to attend the Academic Writing Workshop. 

We headed down early to get our student cards, woo hoo, cheap travel and movies!!!!, and to visit the library and bookshop.  Working in a library it is always interesting (and more than a little bit sad to visit a library on an afternoon off) to see how others do the same thing you do.  I was most impressed with the size of the place and the quantity of technology they have.  Mornington Peninsula is a relatively small library service with very limited technology available.  

After the library we visited the bookshop and brought a Swinburne t-shirt each, couldn't be a student without a university t-shirt! before heading to the workshop.

Liz Hooper was an excellent presenter and walked us through the differences between Report writing and Essay writing in a manner that was very easy to understand.  The Harvard method of referencing was also explained very well.  The PowerPoint presentation used by Liz is available on the Swinburne blackboard for anyone that did not make the sessions.

Well, I've been wondering for the last couple of days what my blog is going to be about, I mean after all who wants to read about what I am doing???  But I think I will make this blog a virtual journal of my travels through this Grad Cert at Swinburne.

I have joined the course to gain myself a management qualification to improve my employability and have started Semester 1 registered in two classes (Communications Management and Managing in a Complex World).  However, after commencing Communications Management and seeing how much stuff there is to get through and learn, and  having read all my classmates posts in various social media outlets, I think it is best to drop back to 1 subject per semester and complete the certificate over two years.  

Communications Management - gosh where do I start.......  Who knew there was so much social media out there??  I have always shied away from things like Twitter and , whilst I have had a Google+ account for quite a while I never used it as I didn't understand it and when I first registered all my friends were using Facebook rather than G+.  However, already after only 4 days I can see the instant benefits of G+.  Being able to filter out groups or "circles" so that I can concentrate only on thing relating to my course, or posts from friends etc. is a huge advantage over FB.  

Twitter - sorry Twitter lovers, I still find T very confusing.  It is simply too hard to read, all the @s and hash tags and being limited to number of characters.  Is it any wonder people's spelling is getting worse, you have to abbreviate so much that things are simply unreadable.

Gmail and Google + - I already have a gmail account so no problems here, although why do internet companies have to keep upgrading their software and changing how things operate?? And as I said above, I have had G+ for a while but I am now starting to use it properly and like it.

Google Reader and RSS - now here is something I do like and could come to use a lot in the future.  However, I do't have that many interests that I would want to have updates immediately sent to me, ie I don't watch the news or read news papers or magazines.  Watch this space to see how my use of GReader and RSS progresses.

Delicious - I think this is a very smart tool.  I love the idea of being able to log into any computer, lap top, smart phone or tablet devise and have all my bookmarks/shortcuts in one place - fantastic.  But thinking purely of my work environment, it is very difficult to download anything onto our work computers without our firewall etc blocking things.  Overnight updates are just as likely to wipe off personal downloads on a regular basis.  However, I will definately be making use of Delicious on a personal level.

One final thought for the day - HOW MANY USERNAME AND PASSWORD COMBINATIONS CAN ONE PERSON BE EXPECTED TO REMEMBER??????  Every online shop I use for work has one, every personal online service I use has one, now all of these for Uni.  I have set up a free online password remembering program but that is just another combination I have to remember.

That's all the social media I can handle for today, it's now over to Managing in a complex world, phew

Hello

Hello and Welcome to Gilbo's World - This is the first Blog I have created and the first post I have sent out into the big wide world. It is all very new and confusing to me, making me feel very old and very stupid so please bear with me as I feel my way around and learn what I am doing.  I am supposed to create social media blogs as part of my Swinburne studies so I hope I am on my way.  All feedback and help welcome :-)