Abstracts

Distribute This: online identity, presence & practice

Josie Fraser¹, Frances Bell², Helen Keegan², James Clay³
¹josiefraser.com, United Kingdom,²University of Salford, United Kingdom,³Glocuestershire College, United Kingdom

This practical workshop will engage participants in an overview and discussion of digital or online identity, particularly in relation to developing, connecting to and participating in distributed learning communities. Participants will be introduced to and supported in using a range of online tools and services to establish an online identity. Participants will be supported in using and syndicating micro-blogging, social bookmarking, photo and video sharing sites. The wrap up session will allow us to raise issues including privacy, professionalism, search engine optimization and folksonomy (Van der Wal 2006) in the context of their own examples. Participants will explore the most effective approach to building presence and networks. By the end of the session participants will have a practical and strategic appreciation of online identity and presence management that can be used to support individuals, projects or organisations http://mashable.com/2009/04/21/protecting-online-identity/.Presence, Technologies and Getting Noticed (20 mins)Presenter 1 will give a brief presentation framing identity and presence in an online context, with examples from the Emerge Community and ALT-C 2009 Crowdvine.Presenter 2 will conduct a brief walkthrough of the technologies used in the session, demonstrating their potential and risks with evocative examples.Presenter 3 will demonstrate the power of aggregation and the benefit of a strategic approach to Search Engine Optimisation in online identity management.Applying the Technologies (50 mins)If they wish, participants can bring personal CVs or project documentation but may use a social or anonymised identity if they prefer. They should ensure that they have access to a Web mail account.The workshop presenters will work with small groups to support their use of the following technologies:1. Microblogging - twitter2. Photo sharing - Flickr3. Blogging - wordpress or Lifestream - using Friendfeed or iGoogle4. video site blip.tv - Video sharing5. Social Bookmarking - deliciousPutting it all together (20 mins)In the wrap up, we will showcase aggregations of participants' work and discuss possible future directions/issues and questions that arise, face to face and on twitter using #disthis tag.Van der Wal, T. (2006). Folksonomy to Improve IA Paper presented at the OZ IA, Sydney, Australia.