Blogging Links

This week we will be talking about blogging. With that in mind, you should watch the Common Craft video on protecting reputations online. This video should provide you with an overview of the risks and rewards of writing online. Most of you have Facebook pages, I'd imagine, and you are likely well aware of the possible reputation risks involved in writing and posting content online. Even in contexts other than my class, you should be somewhat careful about what you publish. In fact, a professor recently hired by the University of Illinois, Steven Salatia, had his job offer revoked (after he'd moved to Illinois) when negative comments about Israel were found in his Twitter feed.

I do believe that blogging can be rewarding, so you should read and consider the example raised by Henry Jenkins in "Why Heather Can Write."I will also post a link to my essay, "Writing and Citizenship" on Blackboard (it's not freely available online). But if you're curious, you can read this review of my essay by Michael J. Faris from back in 2006.

Once you're ready, you should create your blog, make two posts with at least one hyperlink, and then you should publicize your blog on Blackboard. I'll create a links section in the sidebar and am happy for you to be known either under your real name or a pseudonym. Your first post should be a welcome post (you don't have to introduce yourself, but can just describe the blog and what you'll be doing). The second post should be a response to Jenkins, Tryon, or any other authors who write about blogging.

Uploading Podcasts

For this week, your reading load should be relatively light, as we've reached the point in the semester where I imagine that you are focusing pretty intensely on your Big Project (and if you're not, you probably should be!). As we approach Thanksgiving, we will be spending one final week (or ten days) working on learning a new technology, in this case, podcasts. There are obviously a number of options for posting audio and video online. Most smart phones contain tools that can allow you to post directly to YouTube at the click of a button. That said,video files can take a lot of bandwidth and may be difficult to upload quickly. You may also face situations where you'd rather post audio only. In this scenario, the ability to post a podcast can be helpful.

As you'll notice, one of the articles I've included is a Prof Hacker post I wrote a year or two ago when I first started teaching online. In order to retain a little more control over my podcasts, I decided to use the method described in the post, recording the podcast using Audacity and then converting it to an MP3 using the LAME MP3 encoder (for whatever reason, podcast recording devices can't convert or save files as MP3s). You may experience some trial and error using the LAME MP3 encoder, so please be patient with that.

Once you have your MP3 file, you can upload it for free to the Internet Archive, the free, non-profit site where I have been posting our podcasts all semester. This is relatively easy, although as you upload, the uploader will ask a few questions (some of them including what types of rights you'd like to assert over the video).

For now, you can engage with this material on your blog in whatever way you see fit, but for the final project, I'd like you to record either a podcast presentation or a YouTube video of your presentation. If you do a podcast, I'll have both your Prezi and your podcast open and you can direct me about when I need to click to the next stop on the path that you have created. If it's a YouTube video, you can present the material in whatever way you see fit.

I don't recommend procrastinating on either the Prezi or the podcast, so please don't try to put these together at the last minute.

Social Media Privacy Lecture

Here is my podcast for the Facebook and privacy discussion. One thing I'd like to highlight is the distinction between different kinds of privacy. When we talk about that term we often slip between notions of "social privacy" (the right to keep friends from knowing our business) and "institutional privacy" (the right to keep businesses from knowing our business. It's also worth thinking about the NSA scandal and the issue of government organizations knowing private personal information.

As you review these readings, consider some of the more recent controversies and how they might be changing how we think about the issue of privacy. Here is the lecture:

Updated Facebook Data Use

Just a couple of readings that might be of interest in relationship to Facebook's data mining practices. The first focuses on something that may appear banal: the ability of Facebook to literally "map" football fandom down to the county level. They were able to discern which football teams were most popular in which counties.

The second shows how Facebook shares data about political affiliation. This data is often considered more private or personal, but it can be used for a variety of purposes, including direct advertising and other forms of tracking (such as drawing correlations between consumer tastes and political preferences).

Facebook and Cyberbullying

Finally catching up after dealing with some personal matters the last couple of weeks. You should, at this point, be working on your research projects and should be planning the Prezi that will accompany it.

The questions about Facebook privacy and cyberbullying have been an ongoing theme this semester, and I have been especially interested in the practices of either liking or not liking anything for a specific duration (one week or whatever). I'm unsure what effects these experiments have, but they speak to some of our wider desires to have more control over the social media that we use. When you write your post, pick 1-2 articles and respond to any of the questions you see fit.

Next week, we will talk about recording and sharing podcasts. As part of your final project, I would like you to record and share a podcast or video to accompany your Prezi. If you do an audio podcast, you can tell me when to click through to the next "slide." On YouTube, you can come up with your own method for progressing through the slides. I will discuss next week how to make a YouTube video "unlisted," and will provide you some instructions for recording podcasts, although I haven't looked for private hosting sources, so I'm unsure whether that option is available.

Pinterest Podcast

Here is this week's podcast on Tumblr, image macros, and Pinterest.  Enjoy!



Looking forward to seeing your image macros.

Teaching Tools and Implications

In a couple of posts, I may have conflated some of the assignments. But for this week, you should read the week eight readings. The first reading, Lisa Lane's "Insidious Pedagogy," focuses on course management systems (CMS) like Blackboard. While you may not have CMSs available at your school, the article does raise questions about how our tools affect our pedagogy. Specifically, Lane is concerned that CMSs have the potential to confuse and alienate certain instructors and students.

Bollyut, meanwhile offers a somewhat affirmative discussion of the role of Google and Apple in shaping education. Now that you've had a chance to use some of Google's tools, it's worth considering what it might mean that so much of our education is now rooted in for-profit tools.

Finally, the "Exploring the Digital Nation" reading provides an overview of the trends in digital media use. As you read the report, consider issues of access and technological availability for students and others who might be (or might not be) using digital technologies.

Because I conflated two different weeks, I will make your blog post an "open" post. You can write on any topic related to the course. But I would also like you to contact me via email this week so that e can begin a conversation about your Big Project. I'd like you to send me a formal proposal by the end of week nine (the week after fall break).

I will also be skipping the podcast this week only.