Sunday, December 28, 2008

Facebook, Twitter revisited.

Smith, J. (2008, Dec. 18). Facebook now growing by over 600,000 users a day - and new engagement stats. Inside Facebook. http://www.insidefacebook.com/2008/12/16/facebook-now-growing-by-over-600000-users-a-day-and-new-engagement-stats/. Accessed 12-08.

Helzerman's Odd Bits. (2008, Dec. 25). Facebook accounts hijacked to send spam in phishing scheme. http://helzerman.com/oddbits/1407. Accessed 12-08.

Sitting at a laptop during the break, I check in to FB again and notice dozens of friends are popping up, becoming active, adding friends, writing a new status every day, etc. I forget how to check in to CESL's group (I'm a fan of CESL) because it's not obviously linked from my profile; I'm not savvy or adept at finding these things. The lightning speed at which FB gathers people's activity makes me pause. Why am I hesitant to tell this private company my deepest inner thoughts? Not sure; I'd tell blogger (Google) any of them.

It radically changes the world's social spheres, and one of the biggest ways is with its chat. It's always there, at the bottom; sometimes I'm "offline" and sometimes I'm "on," but sometimes I don't even notice and somebody pops me a note. It's interesting, how I can just start talking to any of my friends, any time. And I do. My sister, an old friend in Scotland, a student, my daughter, my son; I've had several long conversations over the break, now that I can afford the time.

This alone makes chat more accessible, more mainstream, more ordinary, less seedy, less suspicious. An interesting social shift.

"Twitter is a fad, but Facebook is a way of life." I encountered this quote somewhere, just recently; don't remember the source right offhand. I don't know if I agree. Twitter is unique in its own way, and has caught on strongly with people for whom it has specific and enduring uses. FB has caught on much more widely, with a huge range of people, and is now being found by marketers and spammers of all stripes, though these folks for the most part have not found me, or my corner. It still eludes me, for the most part, how to use FB or Twitter with my classes, though I know others have started, and I have started collecting information on both, just because, ultimately, I know i will.

Facebook bibliography
Twitter bibliography

a happy New Year to all! I'm working on my resolutions; how's this- I resolve not to drown in the current of events. As the Buddhist said to the Christmas shopper: Be the present!

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Tuesday, December 23, 2008

happy holidays!

http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/12/18/media-republic-the-future-of-news-in-a-digital-age/.
Media Re:Public- future of the media in a digital age, from Ethan Zuckerman's blog

http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/12/22/la-times-followup/#comments
LA Times followup- about a newspaper experiencing changes in its web section

This is something I'd like to explore, and to show my son, the journalism major. But my usual web activities have slowed to a crawl due to the holidays...happy holidays to all!

Saturday, December 13, 2008

webmail won't open...

so I have to store it here.

1. http://mashable.com/2007/06/23/photography-toolbox/
online photography resources

2. http://www.k12opened.com/wiki/index.php/Open_content
open ed wiki- open content

3. http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/resources/publications/code_for_media_literacy_education/
code for media literacy education

4. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-schwartz/facebooks-face-plant-the_b_149497.html
web 2.0 is dead

5. http://twittgroups.com/group/edublogger
edublogger twittergroup
scroll down, click "member tweets: show recent"

6. http://twittgroups.com/group/elearning
elearning twittergroup
apparently you can click "member tweets: show recent" on all or any of these, but you can't keep doing it!

Most of these links come directly or indirectly from Carla, active in the ed-tech world, who, every time I get onto Twitter, is filling hers with useful resources and thus sharing them. There's also lowercase dave; his resources tend to be related to Carbondale, Greyhound Bus, streaming music, Phillies, you name it. What am I trying to say? I'm not sure. Finally put my twitter resources here, but it's nothin', I just started. I have no idea how I'd use such a resource as Twitter in the classroom, thus have only an inkling of why I'd save these resources. All I can say is, web 2.0 isn't dead, it's alive & well, otherwise why would people like the guy in #4 be so steamed? It's a kind of sea change, like it was when they invented the phone, in that we really have no idea where it will lead.

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Friday, December 12, 2008

bubbleshare salukis

BubbleShare: Share photos - Easy Photo Sharing

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

things to do over break (?)

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2008/12/web2rights.aspx
New animation: Intellectual property rights in the web 2.0 world

Invitation to the Social
Media Classroom and Collaboratory


Kirkpatrick, M. (2008, Nov. 27). One year later, too many people are still using tinyURL. ReadWriteWeb. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/too_many_people_use_tinyurl.php. Accessed 12-08.

Rowse, D. (2008, Nov. 30). Construct your own 'Top 10 Must Follow' List as it relates to your own niche. Twitip. http://www.twitip.com/construct-your-own-top-10-must-follow-list-as-it-relates-to-your-own-niche/. Accessed 12-08.

Friday, December 05, 2008

more fanerpop





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Monday, December 01, 2008

A recent story of a vice-presidential candidate who did not know that Africa was a continent, not a country, reminded me that at this very university, many years ago (I've been told), one of our African international students told an American student that he/she was from Africa and was asked, "What is the capital of Africa?" Such general ignorance of geography in the USA is not especially uncommon; stories like this actually abound. But a story I heard today beats all; it comes from the Sociology Department, and people who know me can easily guess its source.

Students were asked to make presentations on social problems, and one group was given the task of exploring the underfunding of schools as a social problem. One student in the group began the oral part of the presentation by telling about how schools were being forced to eliminate the past tense from instruction. In the back of the room, people started conversations; the group members were horrified. The teacher suppressed laughter but said nothing until the presentation was over. What? Eliminating the past tense? It turns out the source was a story in the Onion; the student had not only believed the story, but also had not heard of the Onion, or, in any case, did not suspect that it was satire.

I often point out that grammar and geography have one thing in common, besides the fact that I like them both: both were shortchanged by being included in larger subjects in our education system; thus many Americans today are weak in both. My students, by the way, have no problem with past tense; they have it pretty much down pat, but can't, for the life of them, produce a present perfect. More about that later.

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of passing interest

Phillips, S. (2008, Nov. 11). Can MySpace make better writers? Miami Herald. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/education/story/756156.html. Accessed 12-08.

Brogan, C. (2008, Nov. 29). Cafe-shaped conversations. Chris Brogan weblog. http://www.chrisbrogan.com/cafe-shaped-conversations/. Accessed 12-08.

McDonald, J. (2008, Dec. 1). The uncertain future of blogging. Fastforward blog. http://www.fastforwardblog.com/2008/12/01/the-uncertain-future-of-blogging/. Accessed 12-08.

Nelson, C. (2008, Oct. 18). How not to use blogs in the classroom. Explorations in Learning. http://secondlanguagewriting.com/explorations/Archives/2008/October/HowNotToUseBlogsintheCla.html. Accessed 12-08.

Barenblat, R. (2008, Nov. 23). What if we give it away? Velveteen Rabbi. http://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2008/11/what-if-we-give-it-away.html. Accessed 12-08.

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