How to Change Communication with Social Media

Social Media is leading the way into the future allowing more people to communicate and be social again. No front porch. Social Media has become our front porch. Our neighborhood. We pick our neighbors. We pick where we want to shop. We pick our reading. We learn online. We teach online.

We no longer want order takers. We want response. Rating books, videos, hotels, services, and writing we are helping each other. Facebook brought me into the social media communication during graduate school. Career counseling from Capella U. demonstrated using social media as a way to build your network and your portfolio with Facebook, Webpage, blog, and professional connections on Linkedin. Creating a Fan page on Facebook with a topic centric theme.



At Photoshop World Rod Harlan and Jeff Revell broaden the topic of social media of marketing yourself; to marketing your business by opening up communications. Companies who want to use social media to market their business need to realize as Rod stated: " If your product 'sucks', social media will not fix it". People are discarding junk. They are fighting back with rankings.



Twitter is part of the strategy with daily postings and/or links to focused topics from the Internet or material you've learned or tutorials to teach. Write your tweets as headlines. Giving is the key. What do you know that you can give and help others? Post your links using " bit.ly " to shorten them and track clicks.

How do you keep up with all of this information? Suggestions mentioned at the PSW session:

• Pull all your content or results to one place
• iGoogle,
• TweetDeck,
• Follow blogs in one place with Google reader.
• What are people saying about you? Search your name with Google blog.

Information on Social Media and communication is found on YouTube, Dogpile searches, your friends, and of course by communicating with others who are using these forms of media. Jump in. Start now. Build. Teach what you learn. Research and share. I have heard of people getting book deals or blogging jobs or other communication opportunities by being on social media.

Take your Photographs and set them to music and upload to YouTube. Tell a story. Communicate. Search the HDR section on Photography and see what others have done. California Dreaming by Eileen Ludwig

How to Discovered Second Life by a Newbie

Researching and Learning Second Life to use in teaching online courses and discovering a whole new World. Finding many resources and knowledge among current colleagues and past graduate students. Knowledge and learning is available within the SL environment. One of the best ways to learn Second Life is to jump into the World called “inworld” by signing up for a free account http://www.secondlife.com and create your avatar and download the client application to explore the World.

There are a number of free things to do within the World and places to visit around the world while interacting with other avatar’s you meet.

Teachers abound in Second Life both as teachers and users http://slexperiments.edublogs.org/2008/11/27/second-life-residents-creative-people/ Educators find the 3D world helps keep students engaged in learning http://www.youtube.com/user/draxtordespres

Women are part of making the World move and the field of building, construction, and architecture becomes open to women explorers http://2ndlifeexplorer.blogspot.com/

Computer programmers or graphic designers are making their way here and learning scripting to make the World respond. Virtual World Conferences bring together liked minded people for the 3rd annual conference http://www.vwbpe.org/

Video tutorials within the World http://secondlife.com/my/whatnext/video-tutorials/?lang=en-US and on YouTube http://www.youtube.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zAb4XxnVMM and College websites http://www.valenciacc.edu/oit/ltad/secondlife/default.cfm help the beginners, begin.

Signup http://www.secondlife.com and become a discoverer, create your avatar or use customized ones to start with but begin, today!

Eileen ...

Podcasting: A begining part 1

Which do you want to create? A podcast or a vodcast (video podcasting)? Are you wanting to tell someone something or show them something? What device do you think your audience has?

Podcasting is like a radio broadcast but with the ability to download with RSS ( Really Simple Syndication) feeds. Don't let the jargon scare you. There are a lot of names and acronyms in any subject topic whether you are a teacher, psychologist, or a technical person. Sometimes we think we want to create something because we hear it is the latest buzz, instead we need to go and see what is already being done and how and why we want to do. Just jump in after getting an idea.

Ok, so what is a podcast or vodcast or video podcast. Well it is a way to keep up with the latest by subscribing and downloading information on specific topics to your computer or whatever device you are using to be on the go. This might be a mp3 player, a ipod, blackberry or some other storage device where you can play and hear or see the casting.

Go to iTunes and see what people are doing or www.techpodcasts.com or other directories of podcasts. Many are finding podcast (free downloads) are a great way to advertise or show off who they are and what they have to offer.

There are programs like iTunes or Juice for making podcast Audacity another free program can help with recording and editing audio.

Hardware needs are a microphone with noise canceling so it doesn't pick up all the noise in the room and a computer. For the video you can use a Web Cam or get a video camera.

Next you need to make a plan

!st item
Who is your audience? Why are you making the show? What is the topic? Keep it simple
Remember this has to be easily download so keep it short.

Resources to get you going!

A place to post your video cast or photos is Upload UNLIMITED photos and videos to SmugMug! Free Trial.


Juice - http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/index.php
iTunes - http://www.apple.com/itunes/
Audacity - http://audacity.sourceforge.net/




Travel W Me

August with a few words from Apprentice Storyteller

Start with screen writing or even digital storytelling. Search books and the web to see what is already being done and how you want to present your material to help others. There are many free software programs or hosting to get started. The biggest thing is to start or as they say, just do it!!!!

Celtx is a free program to get you started on telling a story. Character descriptions tags help get you on your way to describing and getting to know your characters. Creating dialog is easier once you know who the character is and what they are made up of and do they have chutzpah!

http://www.celtx.com/ - someone has created a blog to help http://blog.celtx.com/ and there are wiki's to help on using the program http://wiki.celtx.com/index.php?title=Character_Details Discovery is a big part of learning and the Internet allows us to get lost finding so many things.

Finding music can be more difficult or create for Windows machines (adobe audition) or buy a Macs to use Garage Band where you can put together your own little band made up of different instruments. It can be useful to have both platforms for creating your stories, podcast, and video cast

At this point you can see you are taking off into becoming your own little production company with a need for knowledge of either programs or people who can help you create your stories. Video, web design, music, podcast, mp3, flash, powerpoints, ipods, mp3 players, blogs, websites, and many, many more ways to tell a story with multimedia.

Find the free places to start while you are practicing: blogger.com, feedburner.com (rss), geocities.com for hosting, gmail.com for email, YouTube.com and so many places to use and search to help you on your way to storytelling.

http://www.smugmug.com/artisticgeek for posting pictures and videos (10 min) that has unlimited storage for a small annual fee your photos are backed up in other states and protected depending on the level of service you decide to sign up for. Check it out.

Apprentice Storyteller