Date: 5/28/2013

Goals/Motivation: During this internship my main goal is to learn the back end of social media and all the work that gets put into it in order to attract people.  I also would like to see how it affects the students, new and current, and how they respond to it.  I am also greatly looking forward being involved in the planning and assessment of the pilot implementations this summer.

Relating it to my Professional Career: In marketing it has become extremely important to know the ins and outs of social media and how exactly it influences the consumer to buy certain products or respond to brands based on their social media and how a company uses the tools of it to promote their products/brand.

My Personal Experience: In the last three years that I’ve been a student at ODU, I’ve had the opportunity to work with a number of different students. I feel like I can bring a sense of what a student would like to see and what would influence them to use the services in the learning commons or go to the library period based on my own personal experiences here on campus.

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Date: 5/31/2013

Weekly Project Update: Tuesday  I attended the weekly meeting where we went over any issues that each of us had with Diigo, WordPress, and Zoho. We also got the chance to ask Shelley any questions that we may have been confused about in the last meeting.  We also talked about adding more articles/videos related to each of our topics we chose to Diigo. Some stuff that I personally worked on this week was getting a better hold on Zoho and figuring out the forum feature, and I also was able to find a lot more articles to add to Diigo, I’m well on my way to having about 20.  I’m also in the process of getting some more things onto my WordPress site. I also plan on beginning to research the Facebook assessment strategies and how exactly those work.

Struggles and Overcoming Those: I think that right no my struggle is with time management. I’m working and taking my last two classes this summer and both classes are online so it’s been a bit of a struggle to come up with a good schedule in order to be able to do all the work for those classes and do everything for the internship. I think I’m on my way to developing a good schedule though. Writing everything down is key, I’m finding.

This weekend I plan on finding more useful article for my topic of notetaking and adding those to the Diigo site, I also would like to grasp more of a hold on my WordPress site. Overall I’m having a good experience so far, just have to get everything aligned with one another.

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Date: 6/5/2013

Weekly Project Update: This week was heavily set on figuring out the project management site, addressing any issues we continued to have with Zoho, Diigo, and WordPress. I didn’t have too many struggles with any of them, I did however find it a little difficult finding my way around in WordPress but I’m getting the hang of it. I really enjoy these weekly reflections because it brings me back to why I’m doing this project and allows me to think about what I have done so far towards the project. My classes are also coming along well, and I seem to be OK so far managing the work for the internship and class work.

Struggles and Overcoming Those: I’m slowly but surely learning that time management is the key to getting anything done these days. I’m usually a big procrastinator, but with this project that hasn’t been the case. With only taking two courses this summer on top of my internship and working a part-time job I’ve been able to get a lot of things done if not early then definitely on time.

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Date: 6/8/2013

Weekly Project Update: We had our weekly team meeting on Tuesday and just went over wrapping up finding our material for Diigo and also talked a little bit about moving forward with the project.  I recently finished finding the articles that I felt would be the most helpful for my note-taking topic, I was able to find a great variety as far as videos, diagrams, and plenty of information to produce 1,000 tweets/facebook posts:). This week was a little crazy for me, I was able to spread my work for the project across a few days which ended up being a little bit more helpful.  I also was able to  find some great articles about Facebook assessment strategies, I found it very interesting how Facebook tracks specific things for you and the different apps you are able to download to track what they don’t, which isn’t much. Its week 3 of our project and I feel like I’ve gained a great sense of how to work Diigo and Zoho, I feel like I’ve figured out how to get around in each of them. As far as WordPress goes I’d like to add more pages to mine, but I know that will come once I’m able to screenshot some of my work.

Struggles and Overcoming Those: This week I feel like I didn’t have too many struggles, I’ve gained a better sense of what works for me and what doesn’t and I also feel like understanding the different programs we are using is helping greatly. I’ve also finally set up a schedule for when I’m going to do my online classes school work, and when I’m going to do stuff for the project. This coming week my schedule might get a little thrown off because I have a job interview on Tuesday and I’m going to NY on Thursday, but I will manage somehow.

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Date: 6/12/2013

Weekly Project Updates: This week we talked more about the development of content and using Diigo, we also talked about how to break down the content we’ve gathered and how to formulate a good Tweet and Facebook post.  I am heading to NY tomorrow and wanted to get some thoughts down about the project before I left. Shelley also wanted us to look into assessment strategies for the different social networks and she assigned me Facebook, as of right now when you make a page for people to life or follow on Facebook you have access to all of your posts as far back as when you first made the page, but right now we’re trying to figure out some sort of filter so that we can relate it back to specific topics that we make postings about.

Struggles and Overcoming Those: My struggle for this week is going to be making time when I go to NY to give to the project in starting to develop my content. I have a general idea of how exactly I would like to do that but it’s just actually getting it into a document to start collecting ideas. Thankfully this is my only trip this summer so once I come back it’s all about giving as much time as I can to this project and also finishing out my other two courses.

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Date: 6/18/2013

Weekly Project Update: This posts is a little later than usual seeing as how I just returned from NY last night. Anyhow, this past week I didn’t have much free time to put towards the project due to leaving on Wednesday night for NY to go to a family reunion.  I have however started going through some of the content I’ve collected and started to come up with some ways of how I’d like to dissect and break down the content into those 22 weeks worth of Tweets and Facebook posts.  I also want to come up with some type of survey for ODU students to take that could possibly help us come up with better ways to get them more involved with wanting to view the ODU Learns Facebook page and to follow us on Twitter.  I was thinking I could come up with something in SuveyMonkey and somehow get it put on one of the other ODU Facebook pages that many students already follow. I figured this would begin to get us some exposure and allow for students to give us some feedback. This is something I was hoping to speak to Shelley or Megan about and get their opinions on this, and to also see if the group would be willing to help me come up with some good questions.

Struggles and Overcoming Those: This past week I struggled with finding the time to give to the project, as I was in NY for 5 days for a family reunion and I found it very difficult to opt out of family activities.  I did however have a lot of time to think on my long drive up there and was able to come up with a few things.  I finally made it back to Virginia and I’m ready to jump back into this project headfirst, as I am hoping to meet up with Megan and some of my other group members tomorrow to go over a few things. Overall I am looking forward to getting into the “good stuff” of this project and I can definitely see that so far we have been off to a great start!

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Date: 6/23/2013

Weekly Project Update: This week I was able to meet up with Megan on Wednesday and we were able to go over where exactly we are currently at in the project and what we should be working on. I had a bit of a struggle the week before just because of traveling and, but meeting up with her helped greatly. Shelley was also able to join in, I was able to go over some things pertaining to Instagram with her, something we didn’t get to talk about that just came about this past weekend is Instagram now has VIDEO!! which is very exciting. We also were able to talk about my suggestions for the survey I had spoken about before in a previous posts and we came up with me drafting an e-mail to Lisa Sinclair who is in charge of the University Web Communications, I will be drafting this e-mail this week and getting it to Shelley for her approval.

Struggles and Overcoming Those: Before meeting with Megan this week I was having some trouble coming up with “worthy” enough tweets that students would actually pay attention to and take interest in. She gave me a lot of good ideas as far as utilizing the 140 characters on twitter usefully in order to grab the students attention. This week I plan on creating more tweets/FB posts for note taking tips, and also figuring out if there is any way to track Instagram posts through Facebook.  Megan and Shelley have given me great guidance in succeeding with this part of the project, and I’m looking forward to presenting my tweets and FB posts to them in hopes of their approval.

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 Date: 7/01/2013

Weekly Project Update: This past week I e-mailed a draft of an e-mail to Lisa Sinclair in reference to current ODU social media statistics, Shelley went ahead and approved it and I am going to finalize and send it today. I also FINALLY got the chance to organize my note-taking content and go back through it and find the best stuff that I felt would be useful to ODU students this coming fall semester.  I also had the chance to sit down and talk to Jose this past week in reference to the project, he showed me some great information about #NYU. Looking into the information with Jose gave me some great insight on the level that Shelley would like to get this project to go to.  I also enjoyed coming up with the Tweets and Facebook posts that I felt ODU students would pay the most attention to. I feel like as an ODU student it’s only right that I somewhat know what would grab a students attention.

Struggles and Overcoming Those: This past week was a complete struggle for me, I procrastinated big time. I had 2 assignments due for one of my online classes, and for the other I had a tests on six chapters and a writing assignment due. I was stressed to the max with trying to study for that test and get assignments finished and making time for ODULearns. I managed to get everything finished and to get a B on my first tests for Psych 408. I’m pleased with how I was able to juggle all of that and still manage to do well on that test. I’m looking forward to meeting up with the group tomorrow so we can see where everyone is at with the project, and I also look forward to moving forward with the project and finalizing content and putting things into place.

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Date: 7/09/2013

Weekly Project Update: In Tuesday’s weekly meeting with Shelley and Megan we were able to address any concerns we currently have with the project and ask any questions we had. We also went over all the content that we would need to produce and what content we would receive from the different services in the library. It was a very informative meeting and it finally made sense that everything is slowly but surely falling into place for the ODULearns project.  A few concerns I have are with the different services who are supposed to man their own Facebook and Twitter pages, I am most concerned with them slacking and not keeping up with the weekly posts. I also am hopeful that these people in charge of those pages will take an interest like we have and will keep it up to date for those students who will take a great interest in the services at the library. This week I was able to product some content for test-taking and writing tips. I am going to meet with Megan in the MediaPark today before the weekly meeting just to get a better grasp on what their looking for in the content we are producing and if they need me to develop more content for other topics.

Struggles and Overcoming Those: This week I didn’t have too many struggles, I was able to wrap up one of my summer classes and I got an A- in it. Since that class is over it will not give me some more free time to put towards the project and producing the necessary content needed for the launch.  Currently I am trying to put as much time forward this month for producing content as I will be starting my full-time job early next month. I also was able to explain to Shelley that I want to finish out my duties for the project and give it everything that I can before we wrap up for the summer. I am looking forward to demo’ing (i know its not a word, but it sounded good;]) of the services towards the end of the summer with some of the Preview students, it’s going to be a great opportunity to get ODULearns some exposure and also some feedback from students.

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Date: 7/15/2013

Weekly Project Update: We had our weekly meeting with Megan and Shelley last Tuesday, we also were able to designate who was producing what content for the project, and we also did a thorough break-down of the rest of the project/summer and what else still needs to be done.  I was also able to get some good content produced on Tuesday in before the meeting for writing tips, and on Wednesday I produced content for punctuation and grammar tips. On Thursday I went to the lab and was able to finish out the rest of the content was assigned to produce. I felt very accomplished with being able to produce as much content as I did within those three days; currently I’m just waiting for Megan and Shelley to look over the content I came up with and then they will submit it to the necessary people in the library so they can review it and approve it if they like it and if not I’ll go back through and make the necessary changes to it. Tomorrow is our weekly meeting and I’m looking forward to seeing where everyone is with producing their content.

Struggles and Overcoming Those: So far so good, this week and last week were really good weeks for me. I’ve been able to put in even more time to the project due to one of my summer classes being over. I won’t hit any bumps until next weekend when I’ll be moving, but I still want to give the project my all and finish out strong this summer. I look forward to wrapping the summer up strong, and helping with the pre-launch of the project. This summer has flown by, It’s already almost AUGUST…

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Date: 7/23/2013

Weekly Project Update: This week in the team meeting with Shelley we went over where everyone was at with their assigned topics and what still needed to be done for the project. I was able to finish the tweets and Facebook posts for my assigned topics. I was also assigned the task of coming up with Instagram instructions for ODULearns, this assignment was actually fun for me because of the fact of how much I used Instagram and telling other people how to use it in step by step instructions was very interesting to me. I not only came up with directions in word form, I also was able to add images to go along with those directions which will make it a lot easier for people to understand in the event they don’t use the application on a regular basis.

Struggles and Overcoming Those: This past weeks meeting I was not able to make it in person, but I did however get to attend via Google Hangout which is an awesome app. I also had to go back and pull from my Facebook posts in order to formulate 10 weeks worth of tweets, this was a little difficult because at times I wasn’t able to say everything I wanted to due to the 140 character limit. I was able to reword some of the Facebook posts in order to make them fit the 140 characters, so in the end I was able to figure it out. In the coming weeks wrapping up the internship may become a challenge due to me starting my full-time job, but I am bound and determined to finish what I started with this internship and help Shelley in any way that I can.

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Date: 7/28/2013

Weekly Project Update: In this past weeks meeting we discussed further going through out Twitter and Facebook posts to make sure they make sense and that they meet the criteria for Twitter. I also chose to take on someone else’s work and come up with their Tweets and Facebook posts in order to help the project move along quicker. I was also able to have Megan look over my directions for Instagram and see if she approved of them. The instructions for Instagram was something Shelley allowed me to own this summer because of how much of an interest I had in using the application. I took great pride in coming up with those directions, and I made sure that a student or even the person who is going to be in charge of the ODULearns Instagram account could understand them in great detail.

Struggles and Overcoming Those: This week I struggled with the fact that some people weren’t as committed to this project as I have been. It’s been a little frustrating having to take over other people’s parts of the project due to them not taking it as serious as I have. I tried my hardest not to take this personally for the simple fact that I know that as long as I continue to produce what Shelley needs me to then I would not only be helping her but I would also be helping the project progress, so this indeed made me feel better about the situation=)

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Date: 8/4/2013

Weekly Project Update: This past week we were able to set up a time for the ODULearns group to meet on Wednesday for a couple of hours in order to go over already produced content and to kind of see where everyone was at with their part of the project. We went through most of the content that had already been produced by each of us and we read through each Twitter and Facebook post. We were looking for any errors or if something didn’t make sense we would change it, we were also checking the word count on the Twitter posts for each of them. We didn’t get a chance to finish going through all the content so Shelley and Megan assigned us to finish it by Friday. I managed to finished up going through the rest of the content and making any necessary changes, and I had also agreed to finish producing content for the topics of school/work life balance, and public speaking and presentations.

Struggles and Overcoming Those: Once again the struggle of keeping people dedicated to the project became even more apparent. Shelley has been extremely patient with us this summer thus far and she has been more than willing to work with everyone’s schedules but I feel like some haven’t been as willing back to her. My only hope that as she is coming up on making her transition into the fall semester that her interns take this project serious and help her as much as they can. I’ve definitely enjoyed my experience and am very thankful she allowed me to be a part of this project.

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Date: 8/16/2013 – Final Reflection

This is my final reflection to end out my Summer 2013 internship. I definitely learned a lot through this experience and working with Shelley and Megan this summer. I learned the in’s and out’s of social media and all that goes into setting up a Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter accounts in order to promote ODULearns. There is a whole lot more work involved then people would think, and you just go out on a limb to launch the social media pages and hope that students become interested and follow them throughout the school year. This social media project is important for ODU as far as keeping students more involved and giving them what their looking for. I learned the hard way that the college experience is what you make it, no to people are going to have the same experience with it. I enjoyed my summer with Shelley and the ODULearns team, and it has actually made my decision to go back to ODU for grad school a whole lot easier. Thank you so much Shelley for allowing me this opportunity and for showing me the importance of ODU and all that the college has to offer!!=)