doctoral candidate in rhetoric and scientific and technical communication
productivity/tools
which comes first?
01 year ago
Concepts of pedagogy are reflected in nearly everything I do that requires interaction with others, with technology, and with media in general. Having had a background in educational technology / instructional design/technology, I find that every decision I make in regards to technology comes down to a few basic questions that I ask of that technology:
- What is its impact on the targeted audience?
- Does it fulfill a need that is not otherwise fulfilled?
- Am I engaging technology for the sake of the technology, or for the sake of improving communication?
- Who does this implementation benefit?
- What is the purpose of the implementation?
I think some of these questions come from my technology background, some arise from my rhetorical training. In all dilemmas, I am thinking about audience and purpose. While doing so, I’m considering new ways to engage my audience (whether that is in the classroom, at a conference, or with colleagues).
It boils down to the question of “Am I using the right tool for the right situation?”
I think, with all of the tools at our disposal, we often rush in without considering the need or purpose of the tool. Why should we? It takes 2 seconds to make it happen.
But the ramifications are that we may establish a foundation that leaks. If that technology is not kept up, if it is abandoned mid-building, what does that say to the authority of the developer, the construction of a cohesive identity, and the ability of us, as rhetors and instructors, to anticipate the needs of our audiences?
I love technology. I often rush into it with abandon when applying it to my own desires. This often helps me define how it will be used in a larger setting. When it comes to implementing it on a grander scale, especially in the classroom or for colleagues, I’m much more restrained and thoughtful, using the knowledge I’ve gained from personal use and interactions, to determine its purpose within the greater network.
Finally, I adhere to the adage that “just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.”
toys
02 years ago
In case you haven’t heard me yell it from the rooftops, I got the Motorola Droid that runs the Android operating system. I’ve dropped my landline and am focusing my telephone life into my mobile phone.
Why? It’s simple. I got maybe 2 calls a month on my landline and they were mostly wrong calls or “approved” telemarketers. I don’t need to pay $40 a month for that. Instead, I can get a phone that does all of the things I would typically do on my mobile phone + my iPod Touch. Really, it’s as simple as that. I’m simplifying my input and output.
Now, anyone who knows me and knows my iPod behavior knows that I love my apps. First thing I do on my Droid? Oh, yeah, I’m hooking up the email accounts then adding some apps. The Android store has great apps, and I think it will only grow as more Android-based phones like the Incredible and EVO hit the market.
Best of all, I have everything in one place. And it makes me happy.
the looking glass
02 years ago
This is a presentation I’ll be giving on identity of the self in a psychology class this week.
I know, I know. I used Foucault. How could I not since he talks about mirrors? Damn him. ;-)
shameless self promotion
12 years ago
I’ve never been really good at promoting myself. It embarasses me. I have a hard time with it because I feel like it puts me in the spotlight too much, and I’m not altogether comfortable in that space.
That being said, I’ve decided this is the year I will try to promote my photography more.
A friend introduced me to RedBubble, an international photography site aimed at creating community and promoting sales. I’ve chosen to use it over all of the others out there because I like the size of the community, the feel of the site, and the way I can promote and sell my photography.
Two final items: 1) I’ve created a calendar, The Nature of Things, for 2010 of my favorite nature photography. You can find it at RedBubble; 2) I’ve created a sales site, inchoate photos, at RedBubble that will carry my favorite photography. If you don’t see something you’d like to purchase up there, let me know and I’ll upload it. RedBubble does all sorts of different types of prints, including matted framed prints, which makes for a nice package to purchase. While I receive much less on the profits side, it does take a lot of the work off of my hands.
Go check it out. Let me know what you think. I am interested in your feedback, good and bad.
why tweeting works
04 years ago
I just came across an article in the New York Times via Michael Faris‘ blog. The article is discussing the use of 
Twitter (and less prominently, Tumblr — one account I actually don’t have, mostly because I have this blog). In the article, the reporter discusses some of the dramatic uses of Twitter: one man threatened suicide and his subscribers called for help; prominent web 2.0 entrepreneurs have fights with their partners and subscribers give advice.
What the article misses is the connectivity. It’s not all about the drama or the minutiae of life. It’s about connecting with others who have similar interests or who share information that others may be interested in. Take, for instance, my interest in photography. I post links to my photographs. Other people started subscribing to me. I came to find out that many of them are in Flickr. Even better, some of them are from my hometown. Others are in the same field that I’m in and have given me some wonderful feedback on rhetoricians, theory, and have been cheering me on as I finish up my thesis. Still others have introduced me to new things in other areas of interest: I saw the progression of PodcampAZ; I have talked with GrammarGirl; I stay informed on technology, other students, other photographers, and more. None of this would happen if I didn’t use Twitter because I wouldn’t ever have gotten to know these people otherwise.
Shelley Powers, who never seems to have positive things to say about this connectivity, but who makes a living off of it, states,
“He has a bummer day, talks about it on Twitter, it’s on Digg and then MetaFilter,” she said in an interview. She calls the entire experience “artificial intimacy” and wonders if people were “concerned about it, or were they titillated.”
People in the social networking world, she said, are in a quest for constant communication. “It began with blogging, then blogging with comments, then instant messaging,” she said. “It keeps getting a higher and higher level of interconnectivity, and it becomes almost addicting.”
And why wouldn’t interconnectivity become addicting? We are social animals. We have a need to connect to one another. Even as a self-avowed hermit, I like to be connected, to feel like I have a place within the social structure of mankind (albeit a removed place, but a place nevertheless).
In a time when people are feeling removed from everything, these tools allow us to feel like we’re a part of something bigger. They allow us to learn and grow and be a part of something larger than us: the world.
xtimeline
04 years ago
I happened across this web site yesterday in my feed travels. It’s a relatively new site that is geared toward making timelines. xtimeline allows you to make timelines for anything.
This started me thinking about the uses in education. History is a given, right? I mean, I have a few history classes that I’m working on and I can imagine a faculty member either using this or having her students use it to make a relative timeline to a paper or to what they think is the important information in the class. What amazing feedback that could offer.
But imagine that you’re a literature teacher (ahem, miss ashley, are you paying attention???). Say you’re teaching Pride and Prejudice. Well, we have two obvious things here (probably many more now that I really start to think about it). We have the timeline of the book itself. Can we track the characters and what they are doing, with whom and when? Also, we can look at Austen’s life and track where she was when she wrote it and where she lived, traveled, etc. while this book was being written, published, promoted, etc. But we could also track world happenings at the time that might have influenced Austen – what other books were published, what societal happenings occurred, what the weather was like, etc. We could track the literary criticisms of P&P over time and how those changed according to time periods, social influences, and political environments. This could get students thinking outside the box, which is really good when critical thinking is a new concept to them.
Physics, chemistry, geology, business admin, psychology — I can see this being a useful tool in any of those area. Getting outside of “traditional” education (those darned liberal arts), I could see this being used in forestry, recreational education, or even dental hygiene classes (track the progress of patients over time).
We use timelines in a lot of our classes. Typically an instructor will request a timeline to be developed and we do so according to their request. But what if the power was put back into the students’ hands and they created timelines to show what they are learning in the classroom? This is the kind of assessment tool that could be fun and interesting — and educational.
This is not a paid advertisement. I just found the site and thought it was cool and wanted to share it with my readers.
travel and safety
04 years ago
No, this isn’t a post about homeland security or TSA agents giving me the wand (although that always seems to happen when I travel, strangely enough). It is about two different online services that I’m curious about.
The first site is Tango Diva. It is a travel site for women, by women, and about women’s
issues in traveling alone. The about page states
Teresa took to the friendly skies to find some solace and inner peace, and this time alone. She hit London, Paris, and New York on a whirlwind summer tour, but with no guidebook for the solo gal available, she had to overcome the treacherous travels she encountered all by herself.
This got me to thinking…are there really treacherous travels in London, Paris, and New York? Especially for a single woman? I haven’t been to Paris but I lived in London and I traveled that city on my own for almost all of the time I was there. I never felt unsafe or that anything was remotely treacherous.
I’m heading to NYC in July (by way of Boston and Troy, NY). While I have a cousin there, I will be driving in on my own, depositing my car at JFK, and then doing a lot of things on my own while my cousin works. Out of any city that I’ve ever visited, NYC is probably the only one that carries a little fear for me…and mostly it’s because of what I’ve read or heard on TV. My friends and family have said that because I’ve traveled so much, I will be fine. I know how to act, how to check out my surroundings, etc. But…do I need a web site for women about traveling alone? Would it be wise to be a part of a community of solo female travelers? Have any of you or the women in your life ever used that site?
The second site is Clipperz. It’s an online password / secret storage manager. I thought this might be a good idea for several reasons, not the least that I have so many passwords and they aren’t totally secure right now. I know, I know — I should have them much more secure than they are. And I should know better (well, I do).
I’ve read up on this and other online password management systems quite a bit. This one was reviewed in Lifehacker and it sounds promising. It sounds like there are quite a few safeguards to protect me and my secrets.
Has anyone used this one? What kinds of concerns or questions would you have about it?
startup countdown
04 years ago
When I lived in the Bay Area, I worked for a small startup. This startup (name not mentioned because it never went any further) wanted to become the next e-commerce solution, the shopping cart of all shopping carts.
The thing is, though, that they went too far, too fast. They started paying engineers with the big bonuses and the then coveted BMW z3. So this little company tried to keep up with the big boys and offered the same to prospective employees. The problem was that they didn’t actually have the capital to do that. We had nice offices in Palo Alto, just up the street from Yahoo, Intel, and Stanford. We had a kitchen filled with food and drinks. We had the top computers available. We had everything anyone could ever hope for. But it was too much. We were too greedy (I was only a peon, but still…).
Whether or not you use Zooomr, there are things to know about this up and coming company. They aren’t out spending money they don’t have.
CEO Thomas Hawk took out a second mortgage to finance this venture. Kristopher Tate spends so many hours working on the issues that he actually fell asleep, on camera, in the Technorati offices. Zoli Erdos writes
No status update anywhere on Zooomr’ site or blog: the only “information” available is watching Kristopher Tate sleep live on Ustream.tv. OK, he needs to sleep.. but when he wakes up around 11am, he spends another hour in bed chatting on Ustream.tv. Dude, your system is down, but now you have all the hardware you need get out of bed, do something!
Dude…the guy worked all friggin’ night to make sure your photos would be back up. Give him a little space. He’s not a machine. He needs downtime, too!
Yes, the site has been down for twelve days. Earl Moore writes
I have no sympathy for any IT shop/service letting themselves get into this mess. It’s unbelievable poor planning and management. It’s irresponsible and there should be some accountability. It deserves to fail.
But this is the thing…it is not just Hawk and Tate that would lose out on this if Zooomr were to fail (which I don’t believe it will). It would also be the community — a community that has strengthened as the going got tough. This community that has rallied around the live feeds has not faltered in their belief that this venture will succeed. I think, sometimes, this is what keeps Hawk and Tate going. Without that support, they wouldn’t have as much positive energy to keep going.
Thomas Hawk made a strong statement when he wrote,
It’s easy for people to take potshots at Zooomr when we are down. But we will be back up. We will get back online. And these growing pains will be a part of our history. But we will always remember the people who stood by us in our troubles and I think the support that they are giving us is something that you can’t understand because what they know that you may not is that we are doing this for them.
Indeed, Thomas…how many people, heck, companies, can say that? We know you’re doing it for us.
This is about community much more than about some guy getting lots of credit for something. Sure, Hawk and Tate are the names behind the company. But we, the users, are the people who make that site viable. We will be the ones that help them realize their dreams and, in return, our own dreams.
For that, I keep rooting for zooomr, the little photo sharing site that could…
my worth
04 years ago
I did it. I succumbed. I’m tweating on twitter. See…over there –> in the sidebar? Now you know what I’m doing. Aren’t you glad? I’m sure you are. :-)
I’ve also updated my links to include my del.icio.us, zooomr, facebook, myspace, twitter, and matador pages. I am officially huntable now. I’m hooked up.
Mostly, I started my facebook and myspace pages because I needed to understand those communities in order to continue with my academic research. I didn’t want to just blow them off simply because I had a professional disdain for them. They are ok. They suit a purpose. But I would still rather post here. This is my space.
And speaking of web2.0 applications (because that’s what we were doing up above there), how many of you use wikis? I recently did a workshop on wikis (it’s still not uploaded but will be in the future) and found that very few people understood the collaborative qualities of wikis. This video, done by Lee LeFever at CommonCraft, shows how wikis work in the simplest of terms. I think I may use this in future workshops.
Click To Play
I found this via maryam in marrakesh:
My blog is worth $465,180.96.
How much is your blog worth?
If only. I could sell my soul off and buy…ummm…well…some really nice lenses and a new MacBookPro. Yeah.
Because, you know, my blog holds my soul.
organization
06 years ago
by dawn
in productivity/tools
A few months ago, my brother told me about Inspiration. He told me that this software would assist me in the organization of my papers and help me do quick outlines, drafts, etc. Typically those aren’t things that I have difficulty with so I got the software but it has just sat on my laptop without being used.
Yesterday, a co-worker was telling me about a project on copyright materials that she was working on. She showed me some great organizational charts and then showed me how an outline was made from the charts. I asked her what she was using to create it.
You’ve guessed it. Inspiration. This software is pretty amazing. They even have a kids version to help kids do some cool things.
If you’re having difficulties with the organization of your resume, a report, a lesson plan, or various other things, you may consider this. In fact, my co-worker said her husband even used it on his PhD dissertation.