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Take a look at my Pinterest and Pocket feeds!

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Pocket and Pinterest are two intriguing social bookmarking tools that can be useful in many instances. Both tools have useful features that differentiate them from one another. For me, the features that differentiate the two most are Pinterest’s photo-based user interface and pocket’s text-based user interface. Pinterest is an extremely captivating social bookmarking tool. Its focus is on providing new inspirations within the platform. It is laid out in a mash up/ collage format which is very striking. I find this layout highly engaging and almost entrancing. In this way I argue that Pinterest could be seen as slightly overwhelming and busy to a digital citizen who prefers a more focused and organised form of information presentation.

Pocket has a collection of striking features. It lets users keep website links and videos all in one place which allows for a clear and clean reading experience for the user. It also could be said that pocket provides a less consuming form of information presentation than Pinterest. Pocket provides a means of bookmarking and tagging saved content allowing the user to return to articles they deem useful or interesting. Pinterest on the other hand provides inspiration. It inspires users into producing ideas relevant ideas by visual means. It curates images for the user in order to provide and reproduce the exact type of content the user wants to see. It is essentially a bulletin board of images.

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Above is a link to my Mashup map. This piece of information is a map of the deaths in the Republic of Ireland during a period from March 2020 to February 2022. This Mashup map includes a scale, a colour scheme that highlights the counties with higher death tolls in a darker blue colour and gradually fades to a lighter and lighter green as the death tolls within specific counties decreases.

I find these Mashup maps highly useful in displaying information. They are interactive, vibrant and make it far easier to take in new information than if the numbers were to be presented in a list format.

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Covid-19 Deaths by County March 2020- Feb 2022

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The presented information is a map of Ireland showing the number of Covid-19 deaths per from a time period of two years from March 2020 to February 2022.

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When I first had a look at the assignment instructions on Brightspace for this E-portfolio, I was slightly worried that I had never heard of a number of the applications / software I needed to use to carry the out assignment. Pocket, Screencast-o-matic, Datawrapper and ARCgis were all completely new to me. Learning new skills can be quite daunting. However, upon completing this assignment I am confident in how to use each one of these applications and have learned several new useful skills and tools.

For the first part of the assignment on Pinterest I was very confident in my skills as I use it on a regular basis. Typically I use Pinterest for fashion and outfit ideas and inspiration or I may peruse the occasional random pin that pops up in my feed about healthy meal ideas or sometimes health and fitness exercises. As a casual user of Pinterest, this assignment allowed me to take a more methodological approach in understanding the application and its workings. I did so by reading a number of scholarly papers which opened me up to a different perspective on Pinterest. I learned that in recent years there has been an increase in the spread of misinformation particularly in pins related to health and fitness. In the following paper (Dedrick et al., 2020) it is discussed that a number of pins on Pinterest relating to fitness  contain misinformation. Often these pins often claim that if you do the exercises in the pin for a very short period of time you are guaranteed results. However, this paper discusses that this is pretty much entirely impossible. Learning information like the latter has helped me make more informed judgment and allowed me to be slightly more sceptical about these pins I see frequently on Pinterest. Before this assignment I did not frequently engage with other users on Pinterest nor did I create my own pins. However, I am now more interested in engaging with the platform in a different way and perhaps will try to create my own pins in future.

I found pocked to be an extremely simple way to collect, discover and manage articles I found interesting all in one space. Although I had never heard of pocket prior to this assignment I will definitely be using from now on. It allows the user to engage with the platform by sharing articles with friends and also recommends articles that are popular among users at the moment. I find this is a very unique and intriguing platform that is very simplified in its user design which is something that I find will bring me back to using it again and again.

Using ARCgis to develop a Map Mashup was one part of the assignment that I found slightly difficult. When creating a sample map on Poverty in Europe on the online Zoom class I found I was able to follow the guest speaker particularly well and could exactly replicate what she was doing. However, when it came to finding a dataset for me to use on my own Map Mashup I found I ran into difficulty. I tried to download and use a number of different datasets that ultimately didn’t end up working however, after a long run of trial and error I came across a dataset on the CSO that worked perfectly with no faults after I made several edits. Although I found this process slightly tedious and difficult, being able to work through the issues and figure out how to correctly assemble my Map Mashup was very rewarding and I now feel I have gained a new and highly useful skill.

How can I use the social media tools used to-date on this module to support my online engagement as a digital citizen, including finding, creating and publishing, curating and managing, and sharing information?

The social media tools I have learned in this module to-date will categorically change my approach to online engagement. I have learned an abundance of new information however, I found one tool especially useful and important. The tool that really resonated with me in regards to my online engagement as a digital citizen was the ability to spot fake news. In particular, within UGC (user generated content.)  With the influx of new technology, social media and news platforms online, collaborative content development is more relevant than ever. Digital citizens are constantly sharing, reposting and consuming content. However, it hugely important for us as digital citizens to be able to determine what  we read is correct / factual in order to prevent the spread of misinformation.

Before undergoing this module I had no solid idea as to how I should evaluate an article I see online if I am usure as to whether or not it is fake. However, after making it thus far in the module I have developed a great understanding of how to analyse the article to determine its reliability. I now know to check details such as:

1.     Who published the article?

2.     Is there any evidence provided to support the claims in the article?

3.    Does the article seem like clickbait? - Has it made some outrageous and unbelievable claims?

After learning this analysis strategy, I find my overall media literacy has improved which in turn will increase my safety as a digital citizen. Being able to ask myself these questions when taking in new content online will allow me to think twice about the things I read. I have also improved my fake news spotting skills by discovering websites such as Snopes which has a fact checking page and media literacy page.

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How to export a Microsoft Word file to PDF on an Apple MacBook! EPA

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How to export a Microsoft Word file to PDF on an Apple MacBook! EPA

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Linked above is my 'How to' YouTube video on exporting a file to PDF.

I created this video by downloading 'Screencast-o-matic' software and used this to screen record my laptop screen as I carried out each step.

I then edited my video on YouTube where I cut out long pauses and mistakes and added some music in the background. I think the music helps provide a more pleasant experience for the watcher and editing the video provides a more seamless presentation of the information.

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How to export a Microsoft Word file to PDF on an Apple MacBook