Done and dusted

As I have decided not to include a PDF file on my site, just about everything is finished for Task 2! Hooray! I hope it isn't marked too harshly. I had another student look over my instructions and join my social space, I also joined her social space and had a look at her layout and ideas. It's amazing how two people doing the same assignment can go in such different directions with it. If there's one thing I enjoy about this unit it's the creative licence we have in completing the tasks.
As I play the ukulele as a hobby, I wanted to make my site something to do with that. Something like a space in which people can post video tutorials, chord charts and plan music camps and other events, however it proved to be quite difficult to come up with an idea that just about anyone could contribute to. I also have a huge aversion to filming myself, especially if there's a chance I might have to sing as well! I also didn't want my social space to be too specific, I wanted anyone to be able to join and post and have an interest in the topic. I thought my party planning idea was a little silly and maybe too simple at first, but I quite like it now. I feel it's open to everyone and people can post from so many different sites through so many different medias - videos, playlists, social event planners, images, links or just plain text. I even have my first member from outside of the unit! Or at least I think she's from outside the unit....

I'm happy with my choice of Google Communities as well. The layout is simple and effective and the automatic hashtags are really handy. You can edit them by deleting ones that aren't relevant, however I wish you could also add your own - maybe you can and I just haven't figured out how yet. I'll work on it! I had a look at some of the other Party Planning/ Party Planner pages on Google Communities and none of them are quite like mine, which makes me happy. An idea that I originally felt was a little plain and simple has turned into something I feel could actually be a successful social space for anyone with an interest to join.

An assignment that had me baffled to begin with has become my favourite one yet from this unit. Social media is a huge part of the internet and oftentimes it is the only reason people go online. The ability to make use of the wide variety of social media sites out there and create a social space tailored to the needs of your followers is going to be a handy skill. It's easy enough to just create a Facebook event and add all your friends to it, but it's become so common these days with everyone creating an event for anything that happens to them. Using an entirely new social media site is refreshing and interesting and it also feels more professional.

So check out my Party Planning site and join in! Feel free to post whatever you find interesting. If you're from the past and signing in to Google+ and clicking the "Join Commnuity" button baffles you to no end, you know where to find the handy instructions on how to do it! You never know, your post might change someone else's party for the better.

Feedback

A combination of feedback from the peer reviews we did earlier this week and the poor mark I received for Task 1 have led me to believe that, regardless of what I feel to be efficient and convenient, my choice of instructions on my website - a series of screenshots, with descriptions and annotations made using Skitch and embedded into the Social Learning page of my website may not be satisfactory.
Though anyone born after the year 1950 should not have any difficulty accessing and following the instructions given on my site, it seems that they should be presented as an irritating downloadable PDF file which is likely to confuse, if not just annoy, anyone trying to post to my site. If they cannot understand the instructions I have posted they most likely have some technology issues and the need to open external applications and/or browser windows is likely to give them some sort of brain haemorrhage due to extreme technical complexity.
However I have looked over the marking rubric for this task multiple times and I can't see anywhere that states the instructions should be external to your website. In fact I've made use of my new skills using Skitch to make a little annotated screenshot of the rubric:

Now I don't want to be big-headed and say my work is excellent. I would like to point out, however, that it does not say anywhere in the rubric that the instructions should be a PDF or annotated screencast. I see no point in including the same information I embedded into my website in a downloadable PDF. You are clearly going to be online if you are posting to my social media site and therefore the instructions do not need to be accessible offline. I worry that the assignment is being marked solely on using of a variety of multimedias, rather than our ability to use technology efficiently and in a way that we feel is appropriate for the task. There is no point demonstrating my ability to create and upload a PDF file to my site (as already demonstrated in Task 1 with the poster) if it is not relevant or necessary for the task at hand.

Final Draft Complete

I finished my social space, it is now an official google community for Party Planning. I gave it a profile picture of balloons (relevant, right?) and posted some things onto the page myself, to make it look more interesting and to give any visitors to the page an idea of what they can post. I also completed the instructions on how to use my social space and added them to my website. I made my instructions based on how I prefer to receive information online. There are a few things that are common in websites that contain tutorials that I find are inconvenient and inefficient.

• Video tutorials/ narrated screencasts: These are irritating to me as they are often either too fast paced, requiring you to pause the video every 5 seconds and switch back and forth between the instructions and the task, or they are too detailed and slow, explaining every minor detail such as how to open and close a tab, as if they think you are from the 18th century. They are also inconvenient if you are at work or on public transport and are unable to play a video with sound, or you have slow internet connection that will only load 2 seconds of the video at a time.
  
• Downloadable PDF file: Although this is more preferable than the previous method, I find that these are also somewhat inconvenient. They either require you to open an entirely new window or tab, or they automatically download a file to your desktop. I find this intrusive as I don't feel it is necessary for a third party site to control your downloads or windows, when a site downloads to my computer I often just delete the download immediately and exit the site - more often than not it is spam, regardless of whether or not the site says it is "instructions on how to post to my site!" If my research on ICT told me anything, it's that you can't trust everyone online, especially if they're trying to convince you to put unknown file onto your computer. A final reason why these are inconvenient is that if you do choose to download the file and open it from your desktop, it requires the use of an external program such as Preview (Mac) or Adobe Reader (Mac and Windows), which may take time to open and cause your computer to run slower (not to mention having to switch back and forth between the external program and your internet browser).

I chose to give my tutorial as a series of annotated screenshots, presented on the same page of my website as the other information about my social space. I feel that this is the least intrusive, simplest form of online instruction. When people decide to contribute to my space, they will not be bombarded with my voice suddenly talking at them and telling them what to do from a narrated screencast; nor will they be put off by new windows popping open, downloads starting and external applications jumping up at them. All of these things I find to be major deterrents that, rather than helping me to contribute to someone's site as a kind gesture, encourage me to abandon the entire endeavour and just read a book.

New Assignments, New Ideas

Our next assignment is to create a public space online, which people can join and contribute their own ideas to. I've changed my mind a dozen times over what to make my online community about, and what website to use to host it. I have decided to use a Google Community to form my group. Google communities seem less formal than other websites used to host groups. They also seem easy to use and to join which I think is an important part of an online community, particularly one that anyone around the world can join. I don't know how many times I've gone to sign myself up for an online group or page and given up because of all the steps you need to complete - and that's just to be a member, not even to post anything! The second part of the assignment relates to this, as we have to have instructions on our website for people to follow so they know how to join your group and add their own information.

I've decided to make my community about party planning, where people can post recipes, themes, music playlists and stories from successful (or unsuccessful) parties they've hosted in the past.
I already have a Google+ account, so creating a community was easy. I just had to log in to my account, and click the button that said "Create Community" - simple!

Now that I have decided what social media site to use, which is the hardest decision, I just have to make my instructions on how and what people should post.