Page 143 - Trust in ICT 2017

Trust in ICT 2

Facebook offers a range of privacy options to its members. A member can make all his communications
visible to everyone. He can block specific connections and keep all his communications private. Members can
choose whether or not to be searchable, decide which parts of their profile are open to the public, decide
what not to put in their news feed, and determine exactly who can see their posts. For those members who
wish to use Facebook to communicate privately, the messages closely resemble e-mails.
Facebook represents a potentially useful tool in educational contexts. It allows for both asynchronous and
synchronous dialogues and supports the integration of multimodal contents such as user-created
photographs, video, and URLs to other texts. Furthermore, it allows students to ask minor questions when
they might not feel like visiting a professor during office hours. Facebook is one alternative means for shyer
students to be able to voice their thoughts in and outside of the classroom. It allows students to collect their
thoughts and articulate them in writing. In addition, it can encourage more frequent student-instructor and
student-student communications.
Twitter (as a kind of social media)

Twitter is a free social networking microblogging service that allows the registered members to broadcast
short posts called tweets. Twitter has been called "the SMS of the Internet". Twitter members can broadcast
tweets and follow other users' tweets by using multiple platforms and devices. Tweets can be sent by cell
phone text messages. Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone and Noah
Glass and launched in July 2006 [31].

The default settings for Twitter are public. To weave tweets into a conversation thread or connect them to a
general topic, members can add hashtags to a keyword in their post. Tweets, which may include hyperlinks,
are limited to 140 characters due to the constraints of Twitter's short message service (SMS) delivery system.
Because tweets can be delivered to followers in real time, they might seem like instant messages to the
novice user.
YouTube (as a kind of social media)

YouTube is a video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States [32]. The site
allows users to upload, view, and share videos. It makes use of WebM, ITU-T H.264/MPEG-4 advanced video
coding (AVC) [50] to display a wide variety of user-generated and corporate videos. Available contents
include video clips, TV clips, music videos, and other contents such as video blogging, short videos, and
educational videos.

Most of the contents on YouTube have been uploaded by individuals, but some media corporations offer
their materials via YouTube. The unregistered users can watch videos and the registered users can upload
videos to their channels. YouTube is the most frequently used social media tool in the classroom. Students
can watch videos, answer questions, and discuss contents. Additionally, students can create videos to share
with others. YouTube also provides an opportunity for peer learning and problem solving since videos keep
students' attention, generate interests in the subject, and clarify course contents. Additionally, the videos
help students recall information and visualize real world applications to understand course concepts.
Both individuals and large production companies have used YouTube to grow audiences. Old media move
into the websites that witness early content creators and perceive audience volumes larger than that
attainable by television. Online video will dramatically accelerate scientific advances. It can do for face-to-
face communication which has been "fine-tuned by millions of years of evolution". However, at the time of
uploading a video on YouTube, the copyright issues are controversial since there are still many unauthorized
clips of copyrighted materials.
Key features of social media

In comparison with other media, social media has a variety of business opportunities to engage into
marketing, research, communication, sales promotions/discounts, and relationship development. Social
media are a blending of technology and social interaction for the co-creation of values. People obtain
information, news, and other data from electronic media. They enable anyone to publish information as a
type of user-generated contents. Social media have provided an open environment where people are free to
exchange ideas on technologies, applications, brands, and products.

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