Links on the presenter’s name go to the abstract in the AoIR program.

Hugh Mackay presented part of what seemed like a huge amount of ethnographic data about the role of the net in “normal” households. It’s nice to get a good dose of reality in terms of how people are actually using the internet today. It’s easy to get caught up in the geek world and think everyone is like you. People are actually not using it for a wide variety of purposes, just a few well defined genres, and not very often, usually something quick and specific.

Sabryna Cornish, a UIC alum, presented part of her PhD work on how major print newspapers framed the internet between 1988 and 1994. She has found the words safety, security, and lost as the most frequently associated with the internet in news stories throughout the whole period. I was somewhat surprised at “lost” showing up so high, but safety and security seem to be a pretty strong theme even today. I wonder if the themes have stayed the same through say 2004? I’d imagine that there is more diversity, but these themes still might take the top spots. It’s an interesting finding, if you think about the exuberance about the early internet, but not if you think about the conventions of journalism and scare tactics.

Nancy Baym presented a study of how Ann Landers and Dear Abby wrote about the internet from about 1992-2002. This was very interesting partly because the ‘internet as home-wrecker’ theme seems so funny to us now. She found a major shift in 2000 where letter writers and columnists stopped talking about the internet as a common problem that we face, but as individual issues i.e. the problem is that your husband/wife is having an affair, not the internet.

Richard Smith talked about his experience using podcasts, live streaming media, and many more technologies in his courses. I’ve seen/heard a lot of “how to use podcasts/Web 2.0/etc.” in the classroom, but this wasn’t tool-focused or exuberant. He had actual experience and research to base this on, and focused on learning. He recorded the presentation itself (he walks the walk..).

My own session went well. Although it was fairly early on the last day of the conference I still got some good feedback and questions. I’ve held off putting my part of the research for IRB reasons, and it’s just a first draft right now. We’re clear with the IRB, and maybe someone will find it useful, so here it is. It’s about our experience using tags at AoIR 05.

* Steve Jones has played pinball with the Ramones.
* Las FARC generates revenue on the internet by selling t-shirts.
* The (rebuilt) Library at Alexandria, now called the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, is a cultural center of the city (concerts, lectures, etc.)

That’s a pretty good day for a variety of facts learned from people, but there were also lots of very interesting ideas and people as well.

Today was the first day of an intensive seminar class I’m taking this week about new technologies and business which is being co-taught by a prof in my department and one from the business school. It happens to be at the same time as the First Monday conference up stairs in the same building, so we’re coordinating and also going to some of the presentations there.

Today we saw Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia via videoconference. The interesting thing about that is that it actually worked well. I’ve never seen that happen quite right before – even the Q and A went off without a hitch. I couldn’t help thinking that this 2.0 feeling is not about new ideas, but about old ideas actually working.

I think I’ll be totally exhausted if every day this week is as intense (in a good way) as today was. Well, better get on those readings for tomorrow. It’s more pressure when the authors of whatever you’re reading for that day are going to show up to discuss it with your class of like 6 students. It’s great to be taking classes!

I’ll be presenting some of the background and extremely preliminary ideas from what I’ve found from the interviews on del.icio.us / social bookmarking at the annual conference between UIC and UIUC’s communication departments on Friday. I doubt my presentation will be much to speak of, but the lineup sounds pretty interesting and it should be a good time.

I’m glad to be getting out of my little communication department cave lately. (Nothing against my department, if you’ve ever been to the building it’s in an unnavigable cement bunker of a building.) Met some people at Purdue, been going back more regularly to Chicago Association for the Practice of Anthropology meetings, & this meeting friday with the Urbana department.

The thing I’m worried about right now is that maybe my method is too much to complete properly in the time frame I have. I’m proposing preliminary interviews that will help develop a survey and concurrently doing a content analysis. I’ve got a lot more experience doing interviews and participant observation, but I think this project calls for the survey and content analysis & I’d like to broaden my bag of tricks so to speak.

The other worry is if I’ve covered all the relevant areas of literature – or rather, planned to do so. It’s an impossible task of course, but I’ll just have to live with some ambiguity and ask my advisor, committee, fellow students, and everyone else I meet along the way I suppose. I’ll get that on my next actions list I suppose.

I’m getting some feedback Monday from my advisor so after I finish grading speeches for Thursday I should be back on track.

Participatory and Anti-hierarchical

A wiki can be great for teaching or just practicing responsibility and collaboration. If you’re looking for control over discussions, documents, or other features there are other tools that facilitate this better. That is not to say that your class wiki will turn into a free for all, but that if you’re looking to lock things down this is the wrong tool. Students and teachers are equal on many wikis, in a technical sense (like all voices are technically as loud in the classroom).

Progressively building knowledge

A wiki is excellent for progressively building knowledge over time, as different authors improve on the collaboratively authored content. This could be particularly useful in advanced courses or those where there are rapid developments. Students could work on different topics over time, or improve upon existing materials. The course could evolve around a project that was useful not just to the class but through the web, if so desired. If you want to use the same course materials, problems, and exercises, a wiki might not be the best tool for you.

Collaborative work

Simply as an alternative to the clunky and proprietary “track changes,” a wiki is a much more effective cross-platform open-source solution, especially where students are authoring new material. Also, it’s much more efficient than a simple document repository or emailing documents because the “master” can (depending on the wiki functionality) be simultaneously edited by multiple authors and the master copy is always in the same place. Without our wiki we would have never been able to produce an 11 author report in under a week with virtually zero logistical problems. (see prior post.)

Other ideas? How have you used your wiki in the classroom?