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I have created an Infographic that sets out my personal digital strategy for curating my online presence. It covers three areas - My personal goals, My professional and business goals and Staying safe online.

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I have set up my Linked in account, made contacts and networked with other users. The link to my profile is www.linkedin.com/in/sean-nolan-a16b7a235

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I am a mature student, studying Linguistics and Information studies in UCD. I previously worked in the Revenue Commissioners, Ireland's tax administration service.
Over my career, I worked across many taxes: Value Added Tax, High Worth Individuals, Pay As You Earn, Capital Gains Tax, Stamp Duty, Dividend Withholding Tax and in later years, Relevant Contracts Tax, focussing on the construction sector. The work was varied. I worked with small teams, managed operational areas with responsibility for 60/70 staff, co-ordinated teams tackling shadow economy activity across multiple sectors and led project teams that modernised and introduced major policy changes to the PAYE and RCT systems. This involved collaborating with industry and senior policy makers across government departments. I have presented to industry representatives, taxation bodies, delegations and officials from other tax administrations and international bodies including the World Bank. I project managed the business element of online initiatives such as electronic audit, the Home Renovation Incentive and the Help to Buy Scheme, and worked on the development and improvement of Revenue's online offering, including MyAccount and the Revenue App. On the successful completion of my degree, I intend to become more involved in community work.

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Sean Nolan - University College Dublin - Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland | LinkedIn

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I am a mature student, studying Linguistics and Information studies in UCD. I previously worked in the Revenue Commissioners, Ireland's tax administration service.Over my career, I worked across many taxes: Value Added Tax, High Worth Individuals, Pay As You Earn, Capital Gains Tax, Stamp Duty, Dividend Withholding Tax and in later years, Relevant Contracts Tax, focussing on the construction sector.

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I have been looking at this for a while. My chosen platform is Spotify from a listener's not a creative's perspective. Their policy is fairly transparent but runs to over 4,000 words. I am aiming for something much shorter that will address some of my concerns such as the length of time data is retained etc. It is by no means short but balances I think it balances the supplier and consumer rights.

My rationale:
My key aim in drafting the policy is to increase transparency and to give the users more control over their personal data. This is in line with the “5 Rights” (Anderson, 2017), giving rights to know who has access to your information, the right to remove or edit your information, the right to understand who has control over what you create, the right to be safe and have access to supports and as part of digital literacy, to be aware of the monetary transactions underpinning the service. The platform must remind users annually of what they have signed up to and give an opportunity to opt out. For children and young teenagers the platform must be responsible for protecting them by monitoring their activity and intervening where inappropriate behaviour is observed. In addition to these measures, users have points of contact to report issues that will be considered by human agents rather than AI using algorithms.

My policy:
Background to this policy

Spotify is a digital streaming service. By subscribing to our services we are entering into an agreement. Spotify will provide you with a service under certain terms and conditions available here (insert link to T&Cs). As part of those conditions you are allowing Spotify to use your data in certain agreed circumstances.

Spotify wants you to enjoy the service free from any concerns that you might have over your privacy rights. This policy transparently sets out what information we collect from you, when and how we collect it, why we collect it and how long we keep it for. It also sets out your rights in relation to the information we hold on you.

Protecting your data

Spotify undertake to take all reasonable measures to safeguard your data from unauthorised access.

If your data is accessed illegally, either by outside parties or parties within Spotify, you will be notified within 48 hours, sooner if possible, detailing the breach, the steps we are taking or have taken to resolve the issue, and  advice on how you can further protect yourself online.

Understanding why we collect your data

The information Spotify gather is used

to provide you with the service you require,

to allow us develop and enhance our services by understanding better how you use the service,

to provide support for you when things go wrong,

to process payments you might make for any of our services, and,

to satisfy our legal obligations.

Our free service is paid for through advertising. With your consent we may share some of your data with third party advertisers who pay Spotify.

Registration:

Required registration data

When you register with Spotify we will gather basic information in relation to

your name,

your email address,

your date of birth (see below)

your login password and

your chosen username

from the information you provide to us.

This information is needed to set up a basic account for you in Spotify.

Information icons will appear in each field to be completed. These icons will give access to why the information is being requested, how it will be used and how long it will be retained for.

Why does Spotify request your date of birth

Spotify will also ask for your date of birth.
You must be over 14 to register for a Spotify account.

This information will also allow us restrict access to digital content (including podcasts, music and any future content provided through Spotify)  that is not age appropriate.

Data on your age will also influence how Spotify will manage communication with you by

limiting prompts to keep you on the site,

removing or restricting your profile in advertising campaigns (Spotify will not advertise to under 18s) ,

remove prompts to sign up for the paid service, and,

provide age specific guidance on using the platform.

You may be asked to confirm your date of birth before accessing some services.

Clarity on data collected.

On completion of the registration details Spotify will provide you with a summary of the data provided, together with the explanation behind the information icons and request confirmation of your consent. Once your email address has been verified, you will be sent this summary as an attachment.

Registration information is stored by Spotify on our servers.

The data will be maintained for up to one year after you leave the service by cancelling your account, and will be deleted after one year unless there are legal constraints on this.

Use of the service:

Access and control of your profile data

If you are over 18, your user profile is visible to all users of Spotify. At registration it is automatically populated with the user name you selected at registration.

As a user you can update your profile by uploading an image, connect with friends or creating playlists.

Playlists and streaming activity will be shown in your profile. These will be visible to all users of the service but you can remove them at any time, and then they will be deleted from our servers after one year. This delay is to ensure compliance with any legal requests that might arise.

The profile of subscribers under the age of 18 will be kept private by default. They will however be able to share their profile with selected friends.
Our software will carry out checks before the sharing is permitted and refuse to allow the profile to be shared on specific grounds e.g. a disparity in ages.
Profiles will also be monitored for unusually high levels of contact between under 18 and accounts of older persons.

Spotify reserve the right to suspend accounts citing child safety, as set out in our general terms and conditions.

How Spotify use the personal data in your profile. How you can control this use. How long we retain this data.

Spotify will collect information on how you use our service. Data on your playlists and streaming and listening activity is gathered so that we can make appropriate recommendations for you and pay the creators of the content you have enjoyed As you use these aspects of the service, you will be asked for consent to share this data with third parties.

Spotify can earn an income from this data which enables us provide free services.
This will also allow us make the advertising we show you more meaningful to you and increase the value of your data to us.
You must be over 18 to consent. Your consent will be valid for 12 months from the date of consent and we may prompt you to renew consent before the end of the period.
If you consent, you can access our advertising assumptions in your account profile and amend them anytime. Otherwise the advertising we show you will be of a general nature and may not relevant to you.

You have the right to access the information that might be shared and a list of our third party partners.

How Spotify use your data on your devices and how you access our services. How long we retain this data.

Spotify gather information on when you use the service and what devices are used to access the service. This is needed to provide speedy and appropriate support to you if your service is disrupted, and to allow us analyse patterns and improve and enhance our offering.
This individual data will be held for one month. It will then be anonymised by removing any personal identifying data. This anonymised data may be held indefinitely and shared with third parties for analysis and research purposes.

Where your data is stored

As you use the service Spotify will record your location through your IP address. This will allow us provide services that are appropriate and legal to your location and prevent copyright infringement.

Your location will also impact on how your data is stored. If you are in the European Union, we will store your data on servers that are subject to European law. Note that the use of a VPN to access our servers while hiding your location may result in your data being subject to laws and protection other than the European Union.

Premium subscribers

Spotify will not share any individual data collected from premium users with advertisers, but may use the data in anonymised form to improve and enhance our service model.

Your rights

You have the right to access the data that Spotify hold on you and you will be provided a portal to allow this.

You have the right to edit the non-essential data that Spotify hold on you and you will be provided with tools to facilitate this.

You have the right to report any privacy abuses of the service that you feel impact on your human rights, even those that are not specifically covered in our general terms and conditions (insert link).
Your initial contact should be with your Data Privacy Assurance representative (see below).
Where another party is involved an adjudication panel will examine the issue and recommend appropriate responses. This does not infringe on any other rights to redress that may be available to you.

The functionality for you to exercise these rights will be accessible to you from within your profile account.

Termination of account

Spotify have the right to close an account. We will advise the user of the reasons why. Personal information in such accounts will be deleted after 12 months, subject to legal requirements.

Where to go for help?

Spotify’s Regional Data Protection Officers  are listed by region and can be found here (insert link).

You can contact our Regional Data Protection Officers  about any issues, concerns, problems or privacy questions you might have. While Artificial Intelligence may be used to channel inquiries, all contacts will be responded to by a human representative.

Information on how to regulate your use of online services and protect yourself online is available here (insert link).

Privacy Policy Updates

This policy document will be updated as necessary, but in any event will be reviewed on an annual basis. Any changes to the policy will be signalled in the application and notified to you by email affording you ample time to delete your account if the changes are not acceptable to you.

(This version last reviewed [April 2022] and updated [April 2022]).

Archived versions of this policy are available here (insert link).

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I have been updating my Pinterest page with photographs I took in UCD on a sunny Spring morning. I took more snaps this morning and added those too. I have also used it to gather images for projects.

I also started a collection of my favourite album and single sleeves, with some notes on why they appeal to me.
https://www.pinterest.ie/seannolan0830/favourite-albumsingle-sleeves/.

I haven't found Pinterest as useful as I initially thought. (See Pocket V Pinterest on this board). Unless I am convinced otherwise, I cannot see myself using this tool very much in future.

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S Nolan (seannolan0830) - Profile | Pinterest

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See what S Nolan (seannolan0830) has discovered on Pinterest, the world's biggest collection of ideas.

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I have gathered and tagged articles in Pocket to organise my research on the Information Society, Linguistics and Gateways to Japan. I can easily highlight text and retrieve it later. It is easy to share articles. As I get used to its features I am enjoying it more and more and it is a resource I will use in future.
I've noticed that I cannot share a link to My List without a third party app. I have linked to one article and included screenshots in my submission.

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For years, writers, scientists and entrepreneurs have shown us visions of our future relationships with computers and robots. These vary from the devastation of autonomous robots annihilating us, to the marvels of superhuman enhancement in robot suits. While the Terminator and Iron Man concepts push those ideas to the extreme, they highlight a clear choice in our use of technology.

Should we aim for total automation with the target of greater safety and higher efficiency? Or should we aspire to augmentation - using technology to enhance our abilities without replacing us? As artificial intelligence and robotics mature enough to become integrated into everyday life, we need to start making this choice. We need to choose wisely, or we might just automate ourselves and the natural world out of existence.

Humans have always been fascinated by automation. Centuries ago, mechanical creations called automatons were constructed to mimic musicians playing, birds singing, or animals moving. Much of the Industrial Revolution was premised on the idea that automation is better: fabrics could be woven faster and cheaper. Never mind the pollution or the awful working conditions - the products are so much more affordable!

The idea continues in our factories today, where everything that can be automated is automated. Car factories are the largest adopters of robots, and today all welding and painting is done by robots, with ambitions for entire vehicles to soon be built automatically.

And while robots have been around for several decades, the last 10 years have seen an explosion in artificial intelligence (and specifically methods such as machine learning). These advanced computer algorithms inspired by the way the brain works provide the latest way we can perform automation.

Automating or assisting?

We can use artificial intelligence to drive our vehicles, to design products, even to compose music or make art. Artificial intelligence will soon be able to imitate our images and sounds perfectly, meaning that actors and performers can be computer-generated. Artificial intelligence can generate text in any style and content, so writing can be automated. It can understand our patterns of behaviour and influence us automatically - enabling the marketeers' dream of encouraging us to purchase or vote in ways we otherwise might not.

While automation is a commonly touted goal by those developing such technologies, it takes a certain genius to imagine something better. Instead of an artificial intelligence, the idea of augmenting our own intelligence with technology was first proposed in 1960 by an American psychologist and computer scientist called Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider, in an important article titled ' Man-computer symbiosis '.

Licklider went on to help create the modern computing world as we know it, from the ARPANET (which later became the internet) to graphical user interfaces. His ideas were revolutionary, for he believed that the new computer technology should be used for 'intelligence amplification' - not automation.

His influence was vast and as computer technologies grew more advanced, most software was created to amplify our abilities. A word processor helps us write better, it doesn't write for us. A computer-aided design (CAD) package helps us design, it doesn't create designs for us. Likewise in our vehicles, technologies now exist to help us park, avoid collisions and keep us safe. The whole philosophy of augmented intelligence is to put humans first, and technology second.

And here's where we hit the turning point in history. Those who favour automation are increasingly squeezing the augmented intelligence solutions out. We've now got the technology to do it, so why not?

If my word processor can check spelling and grammar, why not let it reword the whole sentence? Or write the entire piece? If my car can avoid a collision, why not let it drive? If my art package can blur the background of an image, why not let it create a new background? Or a new image? If my medical software can suggest drugs, why not let it diagnose and treat me? Those who favour automation always use the same arguments: it's cheaper, more efficient, faster and better. But do these arguments always hold water?
Read more about artificial intelligence:
People first, technology second

When we fully automate systems, we put technology first and humans second. A fully automated factory is designed to make the robots work optimally, not necessarily to be safe or comfortable for human workers.

In the early days of Tesla, worker injuries were common. Elon Musk's solution? Automate further and remove the humans. "You really can't have people in the production line itself. Otherwise you'll automatically drop to people speed," Musk told his investors in 2016. "There's still a lot of people at the factory, but what they're doing is maintaining the machines, upgrading them, dealing with anomalies. But in the production process itself there essentially would be no people."

It's a classic geek dream, but it ignores the fact that customers are increasingly looking for customised options on their vehicles, making their manufacture increasingly difficult to automate.

People are the most flexible and adaptive part of any factory, so instead of trying to replace them with difficult-to-program and complex robots, perhaps it would make more sense to enhance the capabilities of experienced workers with robotic tools that they can control, combining the speed and efficiency of robots with the adaptability of people. The latest exoskeleton robotic suits from ULS Robotics provide exactly this solution - Ford and Hyundai are trialling such suits at the moment.

Research is also casting doubt on the idea of fully autonomous vehicles. Turn your car into a robot and you have to make the roads fit the cars first, and people second. Autonomous cars won't understand pedestrians. They won't have that human connection between the driver and someone crossing the street, the subtle body language that says, "I'm crossing now" and "I've seen you, go ahead."

They won't understand the strange contortions and undulations of Asian or European country roads under (increasingly) extreme weather conditions, or the changing fashions and products that make driving such a varied experience. So we must regularise all roads to make them fit the cars, spending a fortune on upgrading infrastructure. We must standardise all interactions between people and vehicles. We must change our environment to fit the needs of our robots, putting the robots first and the people second.

There are even warnings that autonomous vehicles may not reduce traffic. A recent study suggested that personally owned autonomous vehicles can result in more traffic as the empty cars shuttle to pick up their owners (or even pick up packages from stores), and one way to avoid parking charges is to tell your vehicle to keep driving around. Car-pooling may be a solution to these problems - but in the age of global pandemics, it's unlikely to be a popular solution.

Autonomous vehicles even have problems when we're behind the wheel - research shows we struggle to transition from autonomous modes to manual, and our driving skills will only deteriorate as we drive less, making us more dangerous on the roads.

But everything changes if we put people first. Instead of aiming for fully autonomous vehicles, why not aim for superhuman drivers? Technology that makes drivers better, safer, more aware and makes the task of driving more engaging?

The same artificial intelligence tech used in autonomous vehicles can be used to achieve this, providing drivers with more multisensory feedback. See the accident two miles away on a heads-up windscreen display long before your eyes could. Be alerted to invisible black ice on the road. See the cyclist dressed in black on a dark country road with no lights. Be warned by tactile feedback on the accelerator that there's a collision risk to give you time to respond, rather than have a frightening last-second automatic braking system.

No more blind spots, as your car will be able to see all around itself and show you exactly what's going on. No more falling asleep or drunk driving as the car can keep an eye on you and ensure you're fit to drive. New augmented-reality technology is becoming available to make windscreen displays feasible, and this use of artificial intelligence is a lot safer and more reliable than attempting to have it drive cars. Why shouldn't our technology make us better at driving, rather than worse?

Enhance, not replace

Artificial intelligence can, in theory, enable us to replace all actors, singers, musicians and composers. But while this might be cheaper than paying their salaries, it's putting the technology before the people. Wouldn't it be better to ensure that all our art is created by artists, but that those artists have high-tech tools to help them create their works?

Don't automate the painting; provide the artist with a new kind of medium to work with. Don't replace the actor or disguise her skill through post-production; give her the ability to fine-tune her image as she performs, digitally altering her appearance and sound to suit her performance.

Artificial intelligence can already design for us automatically. It can do everything from creating radical new architecture from scratch, to optimising angles on wind turbine blades. But CAD company Autodesk has no intention of taking choice away from its designers. According to Tonya Custis, the director of artificial intelligence research at Autodesk, "Autodesk's mission is to amplify designers' creativity by using artificial intelligence to assist them with the tedious, routine and constraint-based aspects of their work so they have more time to focus on the art of designing."

For example, generative design solutions created by artificial intelligence are suggested as ideas for designers to examine and modify, and artificial intelligence modelling tools show designers exactly how the designs will behave, giving designers greater power, creativity and precision.

The misuse of some artificial intelligence methods has already caused major problems. Automated news curation has been designed to feed us more of the things we like, and sometimes prioritises messages that are more likely to cause upset, such as Facebook's automatic policy that prioritises messages that provoked bigger reactions. These automated learning systems result in our societies polarising around certain views, leading to radicalisation and distortions in the democratic process.

There are similar problems when automated systems are used to make judgements classifying faces, with discrimination being embedded within the software. Again, this is technology first, people second. Decisions that may affect people should be made by people. Why would we delegate our choices to machines? Isn't this removing one of our fundamental freedoms?

The use of augmented intelligence enables people to make these decisions in a safer and more informed manner. Instead of automated news curation, artificial intelligence can be used to present us with a balanced choice of different topics and opinions. Feeding a child nothing but sweets and ice cream makes for an unhealthy child; give them a varied selection to form a balanced diet and they become healthy and strong. Similarly, if we use artificial intelligence to help provide varied and balanced online media content, then the minds and education of populations become healthy and strong.

And instead of using artificial intelligence to manipulate the minds of voters, use it to provide coherent summaries of what voters are demanding to politicians and enable our elected representatives to represent their constituencies more effectively. This is how artificial intelligence can make us better.

Artificial intelligence is also used to feed addictive habits in gaming. Computer games (like much of social media) are designed to hold your attention for as long as possible, by any means necessary. It's resulted in a new epidemic of unhealthy children and adults. In China, a new law is attempting to tackle this 'spiritual opium' by limiting gaming to three hours a week for people under the age of 18.

But the same technologies can be used for good, as shown by the use of artificial intelligence in education. Using the techniques in games that encourage players to keep playing, Third Space Learning aims to monitor student reactions in real-time and provide hints to the educator so that they can adjust their pace and style to suit the needs of their class.

A leading panel of artificial intelligence experts at Stanford believes this is the future of teaching: "Over the next 15 years ... the use of intelligent tutors and other artificial intelligence technologies to assist teachers in the classroom and in the home is likely to expand significantly."

So how do we change things? The first point is to recognise that artificial intelligence and robots aren't evil or inherently bad technologies, any more than were the machines of the Industrial Revolution. When misused for poorly conceived automation, often in the name of efficiency improvements, profitability, or even safety, they cause great harm. But when applied for the good of people, these new, advanced technologies have the power to make us better than we have ever been.

Dumb automation is for the short-sighted. Augment your intelligence - use tech to make you better at what you do. The trick is to be aware that what you use will change you. So use solutions that put people first, solutions that enable you to make your own, more informed, decisions. Don't be a victim of bad tech. Choose technologies that make you a superhuman.
Read more about future technology:

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Augmented Intelligence: What it is and why it will be smarter than AI

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For years, writers, scientists and entrepreneurs have shown us visions of our future relationships with computers and robots. These vary from the devastation of autonomous robots annihilating us, to the marvels of superhuman enhancement in robot suits. While the Terminator and Iron Man concepts push those ideas to the extreme, they highlight a clear choice in our use of technology.

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Both Pocket and Pinterest allow users to manage information. Personally, I find Pocket more suitable to my needs. I like the recommendations, tagging and highlighting features that are very useful for research. In some cases the recommendations are behind a paywall, but that is an exception. I note that from June 2022, you will need a Firefox account to use Pocket.
Pinterest is more visual than Pocket but I have found its features less useful. Searching within Pinterest was frustrating and seemed to feed an algorithm that fed me unwanted recommendations on a daily basis. I note that there is a push on to monetise Pinterest and this may be driving the algorithms that may also drive me away from the tool. If I was a business using the tool, I would need to be convinced of its effectiveness.

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Hello. This is my test post to my Padlet board. I think this could be fun!!

Gif from Doctor Who @doctorwho on giphy.com.

Doctor Who

@doctorwho

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I've started my Map Mash, but need to check copyright on material I have used. It's a work in progress. ...

I have now included 3 layers - old venues, current venues and places of interest. I have now reviewed all of the images and videos. I have placed links to online videos in the notes sections. I am pleased with the results. ...

This activity has opened up areas of potential that I hadn't considered before (even though I had unknowingly contributed to a a map by uploading images). For example, I have discussed with family creating a map of the areas we grew up in with photographs and images from the time, or updated. On a more practical level, I was impressed by the problem solving collaboration between scientists and gardeners as mentioned by Paulus et al (2011) and referenced in my reflection.

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Once a hotbed of musical activity, many of the venues that rocked in the 70s, 80s and 90s have closed. This map is dedicated to the Rock scene between the two Dublin canals. You can find the small, sweaty, but rockin' venues that paid host to a raft of local and international stars.

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From consumer to collaborator and creator

Digital literacy demands a change in mind-set, and willingness to adjust how we do things (Reedy & Parker, 2017). Ohler (2012) shows that social media tools are largely participatory, involving collaborative creation of media collages. Padlet, Pinterest, Pocket, Maps, and YouTube all engage us as digital citizens. We are at times consumers, creators and collaborators, opening up the digital world of one to many.  In using these tools, I feel I have been all three at different times.

I had only used two of the tools before starting this module.

I have used Padlet to present information visually, using links to supporting audio, video and research papers that I found online. I find it useful for group projects and sharing information with peers and lecturers and it is very useful in educational contexts. Digital platform The India Saga (2022) reports on children from India, Cyprus, Japan, Poland, Greece and England using Padlet as an online diary of cultural exchange, sharing experiences and social activities, facilitating their engagement as developing digital citizens. I like the visual aspects and the sense of accomplishment in looking at my emerging board.

I have used YouTube to share videos with family, friends and contacts where I would have created and burnt DVDs in the past. The editing options in Screencast-O-Matic and YouTube are easy to use but I found them limiting. The creation of a “how to” video showed me how easy it is to create useful content. I am intrigued by the growth of influencers and the growth of "influpreneurs" (Tait, 2021). Influpreneurs have large followings on YouTube and are building business empires that are disrupting established businesses. I am concerned, however, at how some YouTubers are driving visits to their channels by working the algorithm and human behaviours to keep citizens on their channels.

I had heard of, but not used, Pinterest. It is a visual platform and this element is essential to initiating user activity (Agrawal, 2017). I have published a number of pins on topics that interest me (football, music, photography) and one for gathering images for college projects. I find that this worked well but developing the pages took a lot of time and effort. Searching for relevant media on the site was not easy. Searches, even failed ones, are used by the algorithm to recommend other pins that were totally irrelevant. I am now getting multiple emails of content that I might be interested in. Some of the content I found had links to sites and pages that no longer existed. I have learnt that Pinterest can also be monetised and used to draw visits to retail websites or other social media and has introduced features that make it easier to shop on the platform (Sehl, 2021). One study on the representation of vaccines on Pinterest found that most of the pins (74%) were vaccine negative (Guidry et al, 2015). What struck me in this research was that negative vaccination posters made greater use of narratives, images, captions and links than pro vaccine contributors. In other words they made full use of the features of the site, an important takeaway for content creators.

Pocket allows me to save online articles to read at a later time. I use the tool to save articles for college and personal use. I prefer it to pinning articles in Pinterest. I like the organisational features that allow me to add tags so I can group articles by topic. I use the highlighter feature that extracts highlighted text to a side panel, and the sharing features are very useful for research and collaboration.

I have used Google Maps often, but not to create personalised maps. I recently uploaded photographs to a Google Map run by an accommodation provider and have been surprised at the number of times these images have been viewed online. Using this tool has opened up a new horizon of possible online collaboration. Paulus et al (2011) cite the example of scientists collaborating with amateur gardeners concerned with minimising water usage, sharing a Google Maps interface to save details of how they have organised their gardens to save water. Other gardeners can see the location of the gardens online, view photographs, rate the gardens, and share ideas and comments. Using layers to add information to maps could be used to track the spread of viruses and follow the impact of vaccinations.

I have mixed feelings on Peer Scholar. Two independent reviews by students working on the same assignment could potentially be very useful. In my experience, however, engagement with the process is poor. This semester, as last, my work was only reviewed by one student. The feedback was useful and informed my revisions. Of the two I reviewed, it was clear that one, a piece of less than 100 words, was just ticking a box. Positive engagement with the process as a whole helped me to focus more clearly on my reflection and make it more personal and real.

I am pleased with my progress during the first part of the module. As a consumer, I have sometimes been overcautious online, but the module has opened up the potential for me to collaborate and be more creative online.

Reference List:

Agrawal, V. (2017, January 14) How to Use Pinterest to Supercharge Your Social Media Presence. Search Engine Journal. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/use-pinterest-supercharge-social-media-presence/179889/#close

Guidry, J. P., Carlyle, K., Messner, M., & Jin, Y. (2015). On pins and needles: how vaccines are portrayed on Pinterest. Vaccine, 33(39), 5051-5056.

The India Saga (2022).Literacy India’s Students connect with a wider world through International exchange programs (2022, February 23). Retrieved from https://theindiasaga.com/saga-corner/literacy-indias-students-connect-with-a-wider-world-through-international-exchange-programs/

Ohler, J. B. (2010). Digital community, digital citizen. Corwin Press.

Paulos, E., Kim, S. & Kuznetsov, S.  (2011). The Rise of the Expert Amateur: Citizen Science and Microvolunteerism. In  Foth, M., Forlano, L., Satchell, C., & Gibbs, M. (Eds.). From Social Butterfly to Engaged Citizen: Urban Informatics, Social Media, Ubiquitous Computing, and Mobile Technology to Support Citizen Engagement. (pp. 167 – 196). MIT Press.

Reedy, K. & Parker, J. (2018). Conclusion. In K. Reedy & J. Parker (Eds.), Digital Literacy Unpacked (pp. 203-204). Facet Publishing.

Sehl, K. (2021, March, 25) 23 Pinterest Statistics That Matter to Marketers in 2021. Hootsuite. https://blog.hootsuite.com/pinterest-statistics-for-business/

Tait, A. (2021, December 26). Meet the ‘Influpreneurs’: The new breed of YouTube influencers staffing up and building business empires. GQ Magazine. https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/culture/article/meet-the-influpreneurs-youtube

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I have had some minor experience creating and editing videos and was looking forward to this part of the assignment. To be honest, I found the tools in ScreencastOMatic and YouTube Studio limited my creative flows, but they are good starting points. I stuck to the remit however, but found it difficult to stick to 30 seconds and create a relevant video. While trying to refine ScreencastOMatic my videos over multiple attempts, the software crashed on me and there is no "save as you go" option. Eventually I had to start afresh on a separate device. It wasn't too big a problem on a short video, but would be worrying if it happened on longer one. I will continue to use the software I already use to create videos for YouTube.
The activity showed me how easy it is to establish an online presence with YouTube, with basic tools and minimal training. This really opens the door to anyone to become a "star". Having used "how to" videos myself, it was uplifting to think that I could create a resource that others can use.
I have included a link above.