The tools for this week gave the perfect excuse to dust off my Instagram account. I opened an Instagram account many years ago. I wanted a place to keep a journal, of sorts, of my kids events and activities but I wanted it to be for my eyes only. I didn't want to be "that mom" that flooded my Facebook feed with kid stuff. I'm not sure why I didn't just start another Facebook account or a blog, but I decided Instagram would be better for this purpose. Quite the contrary, I think I posted a few pictures and then didn't touch it again for years. Once my kids became more involved with Instagram I started looking at it more often, but still not posting. The amount of suggested content was just too much for me. I was getting follow requests from people I don't know and I'm quite certain they wouldn't be interested in my life anyway. I was also getting requests from friends and family that I left untouched because I wanted my account to be only for me. Fast forward to this class...my son thinks it is absolutely hysterical that there is a Wiki on how to use Instagram. I think it's wonderful that I'm not alone in my Instagram avoidance!
I've accepted some followers and followed them back. I've been sucked in to the mindless scrolling! I can see how this becomes addictive. Why am I watching a gender reveal video for people I don't even know anyway? I think I found our class using the #6414, but the only current post was from the professor so I will just wait a bit before I interact with that. I did see some posts that looked like they were from classes in previous years and I'm a bit intrigued by the challenges that will be posted for this class.
The RSS Reader is a very convenient tool that I can get on board with. It's like Facebook without the ads and "Suggested for you" posts. It was easy to set up a feed with all of the class posts. At first I wasn't thrilled with it because, although I could see posts from my classmates, I couldn't see the pretty backgrounds or any images they posted with their blog. Then I realized, that's exactly what I DO want! Less clutter. I can read the blogs all in one place and if I want to read further or leave a comment, it's just a click away. Last week, following the blog links from the main page worked, but I would forget which ones I read and the back and forth between pages could get old quickly.
OK, I'm off to read some blogs and see what my creative classmates have been up to this week in world of Web 2.0.
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