Lydia's Blog

 If you haven't heard yet, Taylor Swift officially owns all of her music! Wooohooo! Personally, I would say I'm a Swiftie. Now, I don't own merch or keep updated with 24/7 of her life, or know about all the easter eggs she has, but I still am a fan of her music and I'll watch the occasional Tik Tok that pops up about her on my feed.  Earlier this week, I decided that for our community assignment (the experience one), I was going to join two Taylor Swift communities. I had never interacted with any of them before, and I knew it was a community that would always be active and have lots of posts for me to look at and participate in. I chose to join the Taylor Swift subreddit, as well as two Taylor Swift Facebook groups as my two social media based communities. Crazily enough, Taylor Swift announced today that she officially owns her music now, after a looooooong battle to get them. With this announcement, both communities have gone off the wall CRAZY excited for her! The c...

 One topic I found particularly interesting this week was context collapse! Before this course, I had never heard of it before, but it makes sense that when one person has so many communities, interests, phases of life, etc. parts of it are bound to combine at one point or another.  While listening to the VoiceThread player about context collapse, I couldn't help but to think of a birthday party. Funnily enough, this is something that I've talked to about with many of friends. We all find it funny when our different communities are all together at birthday parties or birthday dinners. Especially back in high school, it felt like I had different communities that I interacted with well enough to want them all at any birthday events I had. I had my high school friends, my family-friends, and my middle school friends who I was still close to. For my sixteenth birthday, I had a small lunch party where I invited people from all three communities. It was weird to see them all togethe...

This week, I explored the tools of the week a little bit more.  First, I started with Instagram. Instagram is an app that I am very familiar with. It was my first social media account I ever made back in middle school, and is still an app I use almost on the daily. This weeks tool exploration didn't take me long at all. I already had an Instagram account that I had used for a previous class in my undergrad that I was no longer using. All I had to do was delete the posts, change my username, follow the class account, and I was good! I was even able to participate in this weeks mini challenge where I posted a picture to represent how I was feeling with the hashtag #eme6414. One new thing I learned about Instagram though, was how to delete multiple posts at once. I didn't want to take the time to have to individually delete each post, especially with there previously being over a hundred posts on the account. You can do this by going to your settings, clicking your activity, click...

Being a blogger is a lot more fun than I expected! At first, when I was going over the syllabus for this class and going over the requirements for our blogs, I was OVERWHELMED. I thought I couldn't possibly have enough to say to be able to post three blog posts in a week. However, once I start typing, it kind of feels like the words just keep flowing out of me. I am actually enjoying a blogger and sometimes I even feel like I'm Gossip Girl.  One thing I would like to eventually learn to do with my blog is to customize it more. I have been scrolling through others blog sites and have seen some customizations. Changes in colors, backgrounds, pictures, etc. I think all of these additions make the blogs seem so much more personable than the generic layout that I currently have. I think a goal of mine eventually is to take some time and customize my blog to make it feel more like me. I think having a blog (even one for class) can be so personal, because you can learn so much about s...

 I am a digital native! Before this weeks lesson, I didn't even know that digital natives and digital immigrants were a thing, but it makes sense that there would be a divide between those who grew up surrounded by technology, and those who didn't.  I can think of a couple scenarios off the top of my head where it really is present that I'm a digital native, while my parents are digital immigrants.  1) Whenever we order pizza delivery (or any take out that has to be ordered online versus over the phone) I'm in charge! My parents will ask me to pull open my phone and order a pizza for them, even when I'm hundreds of miles away at college.  2) I'm in charge of the Amazon account. This one is a little silly. Even though my parents have access to the Amazon account, whenever they want to order something, they'll tell me what it is and I'll order it for them. 3) I always set up the new technology around the house. The Alexa, the new phones, logging onto the s...

 I feel as if I created my LinkedIn pretty late to the game. I didn't create an account until the end of my senior year of college. I remember feeling so behind as I saw all my friends LinkedIn accounts with 500+ connections and all their posts and achievements laid out. I honestly found it anxiety inducing at first, having to connect with my peers and even asking to connect with with people I hadn't spoken to since high school. But, I knew it was important to build up my online social network.  As a psychology major, I never knew how important having a social network was. It wasn't until the second semester of my senior year where I was focusing on a minor in business, that I understood its importance. Having a social network isn't just about how many connections appear on your LinkedIn, but it's also about building connections and a good rapport with others. It's about having a group of people who understand your line of work and can offer you support on it. I...

Social media has grown to be a big component of my life. I made my first social media account in middle school on Instagram, mostly because all my friends had one. Back in middle school and high school, I would post just about anything. I even had a second Instagram account for my closest of friends where I'd post my thoughts, random pictures that didn't fit the "aesthetic" of my main Instagram account, or pictures and videos that I found funny and wanted to share with my friends.  Eventually, Instagram grew to Snapchat, and Snapchat grew to Twitter, and Twitter grew to just about everything else. I even had a quick phase of posting vlogs onto my Youtube account in hopes of being the next famous YouTuber. I even remember some of my friends making fun of me for having a TikTok account before TikTok became what it is today. Now, it feels like I have every social media platform that exists: LinkedIn, Reddit, Facebook, Goodreads, Discord, Pinterest, etc.  Nowadays, my soc...

 Hi everyone! Wow! The start of a new semester already! I first wanted to start my blog off by sharing a little bit about myself, as well as my thoughts on this upcoming semester.  Firstly, hi my name is Lydia! I graduated from FSU (go noles forever!) with a bachelors in Psychology in May of 2024 and this is my third semester in the Instructional Systems and Learning Technologies program. I currently am on a BIG reading kick. Over our (very short) summer break, I read six books. Right now, I'm currently reading Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry and am really enjoying it! Other than reading, I also love to bake. Bread, cinnamon rolls, cookies, banana bread, you name it and I love to bake it! Other than that, I also love going to the beach, hanging out with my family and friends, cuddling with my dogs, or visiting my boyfriend in Atlanta (soon to be Chicago in June).  Honestly, I am feeling a little nervous about this semester. The past two semesters I have only take...