January 2008 – Page 2 – Silence and Voice

Twitter in the Classroom

It is nice to see some college classes making use of current technologies that are all the rage in the private sector and amongst early-adopters. It is another thing for a professor to formally integrate this by having students sign up for their own accounts.

Such is the story in the recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, where a professor uses Twitter to interact with his students. Thankfully I saw this article in my newsreader on the Twitter blog. While I applaud the effort, it will be wonderful when non-technology or media faculty begin integrating these technologies into their syllabi for their educational value alone, even beyond the technical “wow” factors. This is a wonderful start, and reminds me of when I taught high school years ago and began using email with students to review for exams and work on assignments back in 1997. How times have changed.

I wish I would have tried this with my class that just ended. It would have been great to discuss current news stories, share ideas about upcoming assignments, and even debrief what was learned. This debriefing is where I believe much learning is done, yet it is the connection between what happens in the classroom and how that gets realized in life that formally gets overlooked in the race to “do the assignments.”

I would be happy to speak with any of my former students via Twitter.

Technorati Tags: twitter,communication,teaching

Jeffrey’s Twitter Updates for 2008-01-28

@rtanglao Tried the link but it was choppy. I entered my name, but could not add a message. #
Thought I was done for the night. Reading a contract, yet again. #
Sorting through email at work. So much over the weekend. #
Where is the day going?! #
Northern Voice 2008 now has the schedule for Internet Bootcamp http://wiki.northernvoice.ca/InternetBootCamp available. #
I will present a session at Northern Voice 2008 on Liveblogging 101 http://tinyurl.com/29ehjm with my colleague @RobinYap #
@macboyx Hate when that happens. #
@RobinYap Sorry about your MT problems. Another reason why I threw in the towel for MT and installed WordPress. #
@macboyx Always more difficult to do when you need it. #
Going to the opera tonight to see Wagner’s Die Walküre http://tinyurl.com/2aylf2 #

Target Does not Care About Bloggers?

It seems bloggers are not welcome shoppers at Target.

One of my colleagues at NYU Stern pointed out a disturbing article that is fit for a discussion within a communications course. Today’s New York Times reported that Target snubbed a blogger from Shaping Youth who complained to the retailer about its seeming insensitivity to women in one of its current ad campaigns. Rather than provide an informed and sympathetic response to this audience of concerned shoppers, Target appears to have replied that it does not communicate with new media.

Huh? With all the edgy commercials and friendly feel of its stores that it tries to promote, it seems customers who question innuendo within its advertising just do not matter. With all the work and cost involved in television media advertising, is there such a thing as an accident or something that is not planned? Doesn’t the Target symbol of a bulls-eye have several connotations? Since when is it good policy to offend your customer audience and then not want to discuss it? Smells like a potential public relations nightmare. Doesn’t Target realize how online communication can spread in ways far more widespread than traditional, static media?

Too bad my Business Communication course just ended yesterday, as we could have had a field day with this one!

Tagging: The Book

Well, it should not come as a surprise that a new book on tagging was just released: Tagging: People-powered Metadata for the Social Web. I have not read it yet, but thought the review on LibraryThingmade the book seem interesting enough to warrant my ordering it. As tagging is something about which I am both very interested as well as somewhat confused. Perhaps Gene Smith, the author, will be able to help me demystify it.

I wonder if he is planning to attend Northern Voice 2008, too?

Jeffrey’s Twitter Updates for 2008-01-27

Having a relaxing Sunday morning. First time in a while. #
@pinoyboy Like the new Twitter icon. #
Feel like I have been so busy I am behind on reading Tweets. #
I think I have to trim some of the Tweets I follow. Too many people talking about things I am not very interested in following. #
I think I will also have to trim the RSS feeds I follow (and list on my blog) https://silenceandvoice.com/blogroll/ #
I am having such trouble following them that I am beginning to get discouraged to keep up with them due to being overwhelmed. #
@macboyx & @pinoyboy Nice pic for such a small camera. Amazing how tech is changing simple things we do. #
@macboyx & @pinoyboy How do you both track and manage Tweets? #
@macboyx I tried that when I first joined, but found that I quickly approached my 1000 texts a month. Do you have an unlimited account? #
@howardgr That is partially my view of research, though Google is only one of many search technologies in the bag of tricks! #
@howardgr I do find my search terms at times are different than how others search. Perhaps that is why tagging is so imprecise? #
@howardgr That may be why I always struggled in libraries with the old card catalogs. I needed to search for keywords as well! #
Bought a new Timbuk2 bag for Northern Voice. #