In the digital age, we have more ways of communicating, collaborating and sharing than ever before. This video from the University of Derby offers a brief introduction.

Social media and online sharing tools are also used widely for learning in formal and informal ways. You will probably find yourself using many of these sites throughout your years of study.

Social media

Social media is a term used to describe websites and services where participation and interaction between friends, family and like-minded strangers is encouraged. Social media allows us to make connections, share information and stay up to date, and each site or service has it's own unique purpose or approach.

Popular sites include:

Facebook: a social networking site that shares information, events, pictures, videos and ultimately memories with friends and family.
Twitter: an information-oriented site that shares users' text, links and images in short 'tweets'.
LinkedIn: a business networking site that shares information and allows recruiters and colleagues to find those in similar lines of work.
Snapchat: a multimedia messaging app that erases messages after a short time.

Social Sharing Tools

In addition to file sharing (discussed in the next section), there are many social sharing tools that are specific to a particular medium or purpose. These are some of the most widely used:

Instagram: an image-oriented social media app that shares pictures and short videos.
Pinterest: an image-based bulletin board for creating and searching groups of images.
Padlet: An interactive bulletin board for groups of people to post text and images.
Wordpress and Blogger: the two largest blog publishing services.
Tumblr: A microblogging and social networking website.

"Keep up-to-date with new technology and practice, practice and practice before starting University so you can concentrate on doing your course." Alex, 1st-year student