I work at Perheentalo in Kuopio as an instructor. Perheentalo is a common meeting place for all families.  Kuopio Perheentalo aims to increase the well-being of children and families with children, a good everyday life and a sense of community. The goal is to strengthen parenting, promote the inclusion of children and families, and influence opportunities. In addition, we strive to reduce the loneliness experiences of families and parents. Perheentalo offers a play area for children and a living room for adults. Other activities include various group activities, trainings and preventive counseling services. If they wish, families can receive guidance on various support services. The activities are guided by the promotion of children’s rights, because every child is important!   All our activities are free of charge for families. 

The work includes supervision of volunteers and students, as well as various tasks related to communication and advertising, statistics, collecting surveys and feedback, and tasks related to the care and maintenance of Perheentalo. The work is very many-sided and requires extensive expertise.

In work we use various digital tools, for example:

– communication: e-mail, WhatsApp, Messenger, Melvio

– video-mediated communication: Teams and Zoom

– social media: Facebook and Instagram

– collection of information and feedback: Webropol, Google Forms, Melvio, Canva, QR Generator,

– making advertisements, announcements and instructions: Canva

– electronic calendars

– windows tools: office work

– ideas for crafts, etc.: Pinterest

– image banks, e.g.: papunet, pixapay

– trainings/introductions: Howspace

– guidance: Youtube

I also use several of the above social media tools in my private life and studies.  I use daily WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook and weekly YouTube and Tictok.

What I could use at my work:

MIRO

Miro is a visual workspace that teams and work communities can use for shared projects. It works as a design and innovation aid and uses artificial intelligence (AI). I have been able to try the MIRO tool a few times and I like its visual appearance. It seems easy to use and I think we could implement it in my own work community.

MURAL

Mural seems to be a very similar tool to MIRO. It’s a new tool for me and I’ve never used it. It also has artificial intelligence in the background, which can be used in work. I believe that MURAL would also serve as a common design platform at my workplace.

ChatGPT

I believe that the use of artificial intelligence will increase in the future also in my own work. Now it is still used very little. ChatGPT provides versatile answers to questions, but they cannot be trusted to be truthful. However, on a general, title level, it could be used for information acquisition and processing. The answers provided by ChatGPT can help to see the questions asked from several different perspectives.

TIKTOK

Tiktok is a social media platform that is especially popular with young people.  In Tiktok, users can share short videos they have made. Tiktok provides opportunities for very different uses, from entertainment to marketing products or services. It also enables interaction with potential customers. Tiktok requires creating your own channel but is very easy to use. However, appearing in videos is not natural for everyone, it requires courage. I think that Tiktok would work excellently in the marketing of our activities and through it we would certainly reach new, young parents. In marketing, short video ads reach people better than traditional Facebook and Instagram publications.

Linkedl

Linkedl is a tool that enables professional networking. It’s not an actual job search tool or site, but it can act as one. It allows you to bring your own work experience and skills and thus promote your own job search. It can also be used to apply for a new workforce.

I am not familiar with Linkedl, but completing the YAMK degree has made me think about my future job prospects. Linkedl could work to promote my career.

Social media – good or bad?

Social media is often thought of primarily as entertainment and as different communication channels. Social media is a quick and easy way to reach people quickly, often in real time. Social media enables contact and communication in situations where a face-to-face meeting is not possible for one reason or another. There are people for whom social media is the only way to connect with other people.

Social media also has its flip side. It is possible for people to communicate or message anonymously, and that creates an opportunity for bullying and hate speech. You also can’t be sure if the person communicating with you on the internet is genuine, or if he’s lying. Cheating is easy. You can be cheated, for example financially or emotionally.

Using social media requires medialiteracy. Children and young people are very susceptible to being misled. It is important to think about what can be published on social media. People have a desire and a need to trust other people. But it is important to realize that if something sounds too good, there is often something wrong with it.

Self-assessment

This section was the most fun for me to do. It was interesting to get to know different social media work tools and try them out. I was surprised by how many of them fit well with my own work as well. Introducing new applications and tools has always made me a little nervous or worried. This course inspired and encouraged me to try them. Learning something new takes time, but at the same time it gives new enthusiasm for working together in a work community. I think that trying new tools and methods can give new perspectives to the work and its implementation.

The topic of the course was well suited to be implemented in the form of a blog and made it possible to get to know the thoughts of other students. Reading the blogs of fellow students was interesting and educational.

Overall, this course was challenging for me because of the English language and translating texts from English to Finnish and vice versa was slow. The vocabulary was partly very difficult to me. However, the topic was interesting, and I feel that the course developed my English language skills.