Synchronous Communication & Social Networking

A quick guideby

Ian Cole

Copyright © 2005 by Ian Cole

This quick guide will cover

• What Synchronous Communication is.

• Types of online chat– Commercial & Educational chat rooms– Messaging

• Online language• Blogging • RSS FaceBook & Myspace

This guide is interactive you will be able to click on live links to visit web sites

All references are available from the notes panel

Synchronous Communication

• Synchronous Communication means that you have to be on-line at the same time as the people you are communicating with.

• Synchronous meetings use chat room technology.

• It can be web cam, audio or text chat based.

• There are two educational chat rooms that may be available in Blackboard, the Virtual Classroom & a Chat Room.

Types of Online Chat

Chat, Instant Messengers and Online Communities

Commercial Chat Rooms

Oh no! Here comes the

Bunny Boiler!!!

Commercial Chat Rooms

Commercial Chat Rooms

• Usually you will have to register and become a member of the chat room.

• Full of people with strange names.• Full of people talking ‘Klingon’.• You may need to download software

and install it before using the chat room.

• Don’t use your own name.– Ian54678 or eon456

Sometime it seems like another world!!

Educational Chat Rooms

• Safe environment.• Can be used for study groups,

group work, tutorials or just chat.• May be moderated.• It is possible to save the text of a

session.

Chat Rooms

Source: Media Awareness Network: Young Canadians in a Wired World (2001)

Chat rooms tipsTips to communicating in chat rooms• Appoint a chairperson• Signal when you want to speak using a ?. The

chairperson then invites you to speak.• Send short messages.• If you want to send long messages - split them into

chunks and indicate that a message continues using a series of full stops….

• Don’t worry about spelling mistakes.• Limit your chat room sessions to an hour or 1 item.

– Most people find that a chat session demands higher levels of concentration.

Instant Messaging

• Definitions of Instant Messaging on the Web:– (IM) - a text-based computer conference over the

Internet between two or more people who must be online at the same time. When you send an IM the receiver is instantly notified that she/he has a message.mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/netterms.htm

• Types of Instant Messaging– ICQ (I Seek U)– MSN Messenger Service– Yahoo Messenger– AOL Instant Messenger– Trillian (integrates all of the above)

Source: Media Awareness Network: Young Canadians in a Wired World (2001)

ICQ

MSN Messenger

Welcome to Online Culture

Language Lessonor

A student guide to online communications

Commonly Used Acronyms

• BCNU– be seeing you

• BRB– be right back

• BTW– by the way

• FWIW– for what it’s worth

• FAQ– frequently asked

questions

• A/S/L– age/sex/location

• AFK– away from keyboard

• LOL– Laughing out loud

• ROTFL– rolling on the floor

laughing• LMAO

– Laughing my a** off

Commonly Used Acronyms (cont.)

• F2F– face to face

• FYI– for your information

• IMO– In my opinion

• IMHO– In my humble/honest

opinion• TTFN

– Ta Ta for now

• TTYL– talk to you later

• POA– point of advice

• IRL– in real life (not

cyberspace)• GGP

– gotta go use the loo• TNSTAAFL

– there’s no such thing as a free lunch

The World of Emoticons:-)

:-(

;-)

:_(

:-&

:-\

}-(((*>

~:0

@~)~~~~

O-\-<]:

- happy

- sad

- wink

- crying

- tongue-tied

- undecided

- fish

- baby

- rose

- skateboarder

:-Q

=^.^=

@¿@

@(-_-)@

:-#

^i^

//o-o\\

<l:0

(_8^(1)

- smoker

- kitty

- stunned

- monkey

- w/ braces

- angel

- john lennon

- partying

- Homer

Simpson

Language and Text Chat

• ds txt cht dmg ltrcy?– (does text chat damage literacy?)

• Some experts believe that text chat affects language development negatively. “The trend is damaging children's literacy because they develop the habit of squashing down words into the smallest possible space in order to fit messages on the screen. (Lodge, 2002, Wan2Tlk?)

• Others believe, “Text messaging boosts creativity” – (Ananova Website, 2002)

Blogging, Wiki’s &

Social Networking

Web 2.0Beyond Instant Messaging

What Is RSS Feed• An RSS is a family of web feed formats used to

publish frequently updated pages, such as blogs or news feeds.

• Consumers of RSS content use special browsers called aggregators to watch for new content in dozens or even hundreds of web feeds.

• The initials "RSS" are variously used to refer to the following standards:Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)

Blogger and Web Logs (Blogs)

• A weblog (usually shortened to blog, but occasionally spelled web log) is a web-based publication consisting primarily of periodic articles

• A blog is a Web page that serves as a personal journal for an individual.

• Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.

Blogger website at:http://www.blogger.com

Blogger is a website designed to facilitate the creation and hosting of weblogs. Click on the white panel to visit Blogger

Del.icio.us

• The website del.icio.us (pronounced as "delicious") is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks.

Click here to go to the del.icio.us web site

Second Life

• Second Life is an Internet-based virtual world launched in 2003.

• 3D Chat room with flying avatars.

• It has virtual classrooms for colleges and universities.

Click here to go to Second life You tube video

An example of a wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/

What Is WikiA Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly.

Wiki is unusual among group communication mechanisms in that it allows the organization of contributions to be edited in addition to the content itself. Like many simple concepts, "open editing" has some profound and subtle effects on Wiki usage. Allowing everyday users to create and edit anypage in a Web site is exciting in that it encourages democratic use of the Web and promotes content composition by non-technical users.

MySpace

• MySpace is a free social networking website offering an interactive network of photos, blogs, user profiles, groups, and an internal email system.

• MySpace is the world's seventh most popular English language website with over 50 million users (Alexa Internet - Jan 06).

• Overtaken by Facebook in June 2008 (117 million users Myspace users)

Click Here to visit MySpace

Twitter• Twitter is a social

networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users' updates known as tweets.

• As of February 2009 Compete.com blog entry ranks Twitter as the third largest social network (Facebook being the largest, followed by MySpace), and puts the number of unique monthly visitors at roughly 6 million

Face BookClick on the Facebook page to go to the

web site

Facebook is a social networking website started in 2004 and has more than 130 million users worldwide (June 2008)

Social Networking Responsibility

• What about confidentiality?• What about bullying?• What about defamation of character? • 'Fat library man' bullied online

– http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/6912409.stm

• MySpace suicide town outlaws online bullying– http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/1

1/23/wbully123.xml

• YUSU The Dangers of Social Networking Sites– http://www.york.ac.uk/weboffice/projects/facebook.htm

• Bullying UK web site– http://www.bullying.co.uk/

Social Networking Responsibility

Click the UoY image to visit the

facebook site

Posted on a open Facebook Group site about exams by nursing students

– The exam is a pile of w**k. I refuse to go because I have better things to do with my time, like BE AT HOME! We rarely get time off as it is! The uni just want us to stay in sh***y halls for as long as possible.

– Yeh I complained but they said I had to talk to ‘Named tutor’ about the siuation but she told me to go away and she didnt want to discuss it anymore......And how is this aswell, if you want to talk to ‘Another named tutor’, YOU CAN'T, because shes on holiday!!!! YES HOLIDAY!!!! Why do we have to be here when the lecturers are on holiday??

University of York Facebook Group

• Name: F**k the VLE• Description: The 'Virtual Learning Environment' is one of the many

travesties at the University of York and surely must anger God himself.– At least you don't have to put up with the VLE AND an incredibly gay

Novell network like us biologists...

– I don't know whether this is true but I heard that the VLE cost something ridiculous like £80 million, or £18 million...or maybe £8million... anyways it was something in the millions with an 8 in it, which as far as I am concerned is money that could perhaps be better spent on...i dunno...maybe the porters' salaries?

– i f***ing love it how even the c**ts implementing it don't trust it, having to hand a case study in with a hard copy, email copy and f***ing VLE copy is a f***ing waste.

• Site not been used since April 2007

Facebook Group site

• Name: York University Nurses• Type: Just for Fun• Description: So we all can chat with out

Ian Cole reading our messages, so then we can talk about anything we damn well like. and post cool stuff about us.

Site not been used since May 2007

Interesting Facebook Groups

• I've fallen asleep in a lecture at the University of York...

• Ten reasons why you should date a nurse• Be nice to me...I may be your nurse some day!• Child nursing is much better than adult nursing!• Are you a stressed out nursing student?? (USA)• Nursing Student Help....Care plan's process

recordings...drug cards (USA)• Nursing makes me drink (Global)

END