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postdoc position in Social Impacts of Technology
by Shelia Cotten 16 Aug '10

16 Aug '10

Hi everyone. Please pass this along to other individuals that may be interested and relevant listservs. Thanks. Shelia Postdoctoral Fellowship in Social Impacts of Technology at the University of Alabama, Birmingham Dr. Shelia Cotten, a professor in the Sociology and Social Work department at the University of Alabama, Birmingham (UAB), is seeking to hire a Postdoctoral Fellow for a 1-2 year postdoc position. The position is available immediately but the start date is somewhat negotiable. The postdoc will work with Dr. Cotten to analyze data from existing research projects and to collect survey, interview, and observational data on upcoming research projects. Projects focus on technology usage across the life course and the social impacts of this usage, thus experience studying either specific age groups, and/or the impacts of technology use, would be preferable but is not required. Dr. Cotten, with funding from the National Science Foundation, is leading the largest study of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO laptop dissemination in the United States. She also has a large NIA grant studying the impacts on quality of life of training older adults in assisted and independent living communities to use computers and the Internet. A doctoral degree in Sociology, Psychology, Communication, New Media, or a related field is required before beginning the postdoctoral fellowship. Candidates must have (1) strong quantitative and/or qualitative analysis skills, (2) experience writing manuscripts, and (3) good organizational and time management skills. Prior publication and grant writing experience will enhance the application. The Postdoctoral Fellow is a 12 month, full-time appointment, with salary up to $45,000 depending upon qualifications. Benefits are also provided. See http://www.postdocs.uab.edu/ for more information on postdoc benefits at UAB. Funding may be available to support travel for conference presentations. Submit the following application materials as attachments via email to Dr. Shelia Cotten - cotten(a)uab.edu. Please use the following email subject line: Technology Postdoc Position. - Cover letter describing training, skills, research interests and how they fit with those described in the position advertisement, and why you’re interested in this position. - Names and contact information for three references - An up to date curriculum vitae Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until a suitable candidate is selected. UAB is a Carnegie designated RU/VH: Research University institution with a population of approximately 17,000 undergraduate and graduate students. UAB’s Medical School is in the top 25 in the U.S. The Department of Sociology and Social Work houses the Center for Social Medicine and is affiliated with the Lister Hill Center for Health Policy, the Center for Aging, and others. The Department offers Bachelor’s degrees in Sociology, Social Work, and Social Psychology, the MA in Sociology, and the Ph.D. in Medical Sociology. Metropolitan Birmingham is home to over 1 million people and is at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, with plentiful cultural and recreational opportunities.

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Examples of Successful Uses of Facebook in the Classroom?
by Michelle Everson 16 Aug '10

16 Aug '10

Hi Everyone, For awhile now, I've been toying with trying to incorporate Facebook into my courses as a way for students to talk about statistics they are seeing in the news (I teach statistics courses). My idea is to set up a group in Facebook where students could go to post things they are finding in the media related to statistics and to critique these items and comment on what others have posted. I would likely either set this up as an extra credit assignment (and have other options for students who do not want to use Facebook) or as a required assignment (again with another option for those students who might not want to use Facebook). I'm interested in trying Facebook because (a) I know many of my students use it and I thought this might engage them more, and (b) I like the layout of Facebook and the way you can easily link to things and share videos. I haven't found a blog interface that I like as much as Facebook. I do have some concerns, of course, related to privacy issues, and I would not want students to feel that I am doing this because I want to pry into their personal lives (my goal here is not to "friend" all my students but to get them talking about statistics they see in everyday life and sharing things with each other). So, I'm wondering if anyone on this list has tried to use Facebook and would be willing to share what was done and how it worked, or give some tips on "best practices" for use of Facebook in an educational context. Thank you in advance for anything you might have to share! Sincerely, Michelle Everson -- Michelle Everson, Ph.D. Quantitative Methods in Education Department of Educational Psychology University of Minnesota gaddy001(a)umn.edu 612-624-0691 http://www.tc.umn.edu/~delma001/CATALST/

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Follow-up on "Successful Uses of Facebook in the Classroom"
by Michelle Everson 16 Aug '10

16 Aug '10

First, I wanted to thank those of you who responded to my query about using Facebook in the classroom. I have not been able to personally contact everyone who responded to that message, but I definitely will do that in the coming days. Second, I wanted to follow up that initial post with another question. I find myself struggling quite a bit right now in terms of trying to structure a particular assignment I would like my students to work on, and I was hoping I could pick your brains a bit. As I mentioned before, I teach statistics (mostly at the graduate level), and one goal I have for students in the class is that they become more statistically literate and they develop the skills to critically analyze statistics they hear about or read about in the news. This summer, I came to class every day and brought in a recent news story I had found that made use of statistics or presented statistical information (sometimes in a misleading way), and we'd spend a little time talking about that. Statistics are all around us all the time, and it was not hard to find things to bring to my students to talk about. I now want to give my students opportunities to share news stories they find with me and each other, and I have some ideas, but I'm not sure of the best way to go. Initially, I was wondering if I could encourage students to tweet about news articles they find that include statistics, or if I could set up a group in Facebook where students would come to post links to articles and talk a bit about these articles. I envision an assignment where each student would have to share a certain number of news stories AND show me that he or she has taken the time to critically reflect on the news story and relate it to something learned in class. Because of this, Twitter might not be the best option since we are limited in terms of characters, but I can see students sharing a short link and then including a question of some kind or a comment on the methodology used in the study (I actually did try using Twitter awhile ago as an extra credit opportunity for students and it seemed to work out okay). Of course, I know not all students will have Facebook or Twitter accounts, and even those who do may not be comfortable using those tools in an educational context. So, I was thinking maybe it would be better to set up a class blog of some kind. However, then I start thinking about the fact that not all of my students are going to be technologically savvy, and using a blog may be a frustrating experience for some of them, unless I can very easily show them how to post things to the blog and insert hyperlinks and videos if necessary. What makes things a little bit more tricky is that this fall, I am teaching two sections of this introductory statistics course--one totally online and one in the classroom--and I would like to use this assignment in both sections. I can easily show my classroom students how to blog, but I may not have the opportunity to meet all my online students in person, so I need to figure out other ways to show them how to blog. A nice thing about a blog is that it's something everyone in class would be able to contribute to, and therefore everyone in class will see all the postings and be able to comment on each others' posts. So, I'm leaning toward this, but I wonder if anyone has experience trying to set up a class blog and how that has worked. Do you have any words of wisdom to share? Or, can you think of any other ideas that I might want to consider? One last thing I am thinking about is setting up a "Statistics in the News" assignment but giving students several choices about how they can complete the assignment. The could (a) contribute to a class blog I set up, (b) post things in a Facebook group I set up, (c) tweet about statistics in the news, or (d) come up with their own way to share, given the caveat that they think of something that would incorporate technology in some way (e.g., maybe create a YouTube video, or set up their own blog or website, etc.). I like this idea in that I would hope that each student could find something that appeals to him or her (thus making this assignment something more interesting and engaging). On the flip side, it would be more work for me, and I'm not sure I'm up to that. Thanks again for your feedback! It's great to have this group to bounce ideas off of. Sincerely, Michelle Everson -- Michelle Everson, Ph.D. Quantitative Methods in Education Department of Educational Psychology University of Minnesota gaddy001(a)umn.edu 612-624-0691 http://www.tc.umn.edu/~delma001/CATALST/

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Re: [Air-L] Examples of Successful Uses of Facebook in the Classroom?
by Andrew Long 15 Aug '10

15 Aug '10

A little more on Facebook and teaching ... There is no denying that Blackboard and its ilk offer no useful tools for interacting with students. Furthermore, they seem to work pretty hard to produce software to make what they offer (as cumbersome and unhelpful as they are) worse with each iteration. Sadly, our institution is stuck with Blackboard for the foreseeable future. Students have an expectation that all courses will appear here, which is not unreasonable from their (students') perspective. Consequently, I now typically add link(s) to the actual online services we use to run courses that encourage discussion, collaborative work, sharing, etc. such as locally hosted Wikis. With regards to Facebook, I think it can depend on what type of course you are teaching and how open you want the interactions to be. For example, I teach an online communities and social media course so using and evaluating a range of online services is pretty important. Requiring that students access these tools in this context makes sense and has been pointed out in earlier responses - these situations provide ample opportunity to examine TOS issues, privacy, etc. (with the added benefit that students are likely to be there already). For other courses that do not directly examine these tools, then I usually suggest Facebook (or others) as optional places to discuss course stuff (or indeed anything else community related). I tend to favour open conversation so in this regard, Facebook fan pages are good. They are easy to setup and administer, they are open, relatively optimised for interaction (the new questions feature could be handy), flexible (in as far as Facebook is flexible) can link with Twitter to document fanpage activities (some students prefer Twitter), students can drive interactions, and they are entirely separate from the whole "friendship" (social networking) mechanism in Facebook. Having said that, I do recognise that there are implications for students' actual accounts (undesirable friendship requests, classmate stalking, activity tracking, etc.) Has anyone had negative experiences using fanpages or groups on Facebook? _________________________________________________________________ http://andrew-long.name | Department of Information Science | School of Business University of Otago | NZ | +64 3 479 8319 | mailto:andrew.long@otago.ac.nz ________________________________________ From: Michael Zimmer [zimmerm(a)uwm.edu] Sent: Friday, 13 August 2010 12:46 To: AoIR-L Subject: Re: [Air-L] Examples of Successful Uses of Facebook in the Classroom? Alex is right to question the ethics of requiring students to join Facebook in order to complete course requirements (or create a Google Account to access Google-hosted content, or similar services). There are the privacy and behavioral tracking issues, and in Alex's particular example, the students are also compelled to violate the service's terms of service by creating fake accounts. The question is, however, what alternatives do we have as educators to best "reach" our students other than the popular social media they already use? Blackboard and D2L are clunky and often poorly supported, so it's understandable to want to find outside sources. Has anyone seen any university policies regarding the use of 3rd party platforms for coursework? -michael. -- Michael Zimmer, PhD Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies (Interim Undergraduate Program Director) Associate, Center for Information Policy Research University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee e: zimmerm(a)uwm.edu w: www.michaelzimmer.org On Aug 12, 2010, at 4:00 PM, Alex Halavais wrote: > I've used facebook for a course, organizing pretty much everything > through the site. This was at a time when the group functionality was > not as fleshed out, and I wanted to be able to use RSS feeds into it, > so I created fake "people" for the course that could be friended by > students. (cf. http://www.flickr.com/photos/halavais/1300239816/ ) > > While it was sort-of fine for students who already lived much of their > lives on Facebook, it was difficult for those who had no interest in > the site. I encouraged them to create fake personae for the site, but > even with that, I am concerned enough by the privacy implications of > requiring (or encouraging) students to use the site that I have > abandoned it. And once you go through the pain have having students > create "alts" for the site, it becomes a lot less about the course > content and a lot more about negotiating issues of privacy on the > platform. > > - Alex > > > > -- > -- > // > // This email is > // [x] assumed public and may be blogged / forwarded. > // [ ] assumed to be private, please ask before redistributing. > // > // Alexander C. Halavais, ciberflâneur > // http://alex.halavais.net > // > _______________________________________________ > The Air-L(a)listserv.aoir.org mailing list > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > http://www.aoir.org/

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Re: [Air-L] wrong about Facebook unfriending in Chapter 5
by Barry Wellman 15 Aug '10

15 Aug '10

Dear Colleagues, I'm urgently looking for analyses (ethnographic and/or survey) for adult use of Facebook. There's lots of good university stuff and the Ito-boyd et al enterprise on teens, but would like to know more about general population use. This would be grist for the Rainie-Wellman _Networked_ book. As I am on the road till Thurs eve, attachments would be great (especially by Monday AM), but pointers to articles would be fine too. Thanks Barry Wellman, from Beautiful BC and not Hot, Humid ATL. _______________________________________________________________________ S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director Department of Sociology 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388 University of Toronto Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 twitter:barrywellman http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963 Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php _______________________________________________________________________ On Sun, 15 Aug 2010, Lee Rainie wrote: > Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 13:38:54 -0400 > From: Lee Rainie <lrainie(a)pewinternet.org> > To: Barry Wellman <wellman(a)chass.utoronto.ca> > Subject: RE: wrong about Facebook unfriending in Chapter 5 > > Let's assume now that Chapter 5 is in your hands, so you make the next round of edits and changes. > > > ******* > Director > Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project > 1615 L Street NW - Suite 700 > Washington, D.C. 20036 > 202-419-4510 > Website: http://www.pewinternet.org > Twitter: http://twitter.com/lrainie > > -----Original Message----- > From: Barry Wellman [mailto:wellman@chass.utoronto.ca] > Sent: Sunday, August 15, 2010 1:24 PM > To: Lee Rainie > Subject: Re: wrong about Facebook unfriending in Chapter 5 > > Well, you happened to find the only chunk that Rhonda McEwen wrote. As you > know, I am FB ignorant. I would say scrap as an entire section, and leave > a still-relevant para. as part of the previous section. OK? Could you do > that, or should I? > > Pls try and answer by tonight, as may be cut off internet, and I want to > get Lilia moving on huge job of fixing cites/references in 5. (She's away > getting married after this coming Friday: I have a good backup, but less > experienced.) > Barry Wellman > _______________________________________________________________________ > > S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC NetLab Director > Department of Sociology 725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388 > University of Toronto Toronto Canada M5S 2J4 twitter:barrywellman > http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman fax:+1-416-978-3963 > Updating history: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php > _______________________________________________________________________ > > > On Sun, 15 Aug 2010, Lee Rainie wrote: > >> Date: Sun, 15 Aug 2010 12:49:53 -0400 >> From: Lee Rainie <lrainie(a)pewinternet.org> >> To: Barry Wellman <wellman(a)chass.utoronto.ca> >> Subject: wrong about Facebook unfriending in Chapter 5 >> >> Barry: >> >> I wanted to check on this before I got back to you, but I'm now sure that your passage about Facebook mechanics on unfriending in Chapter 5 is wrong. >> >> You wrote: >> >> "Unfriending brings a different dynamic to relationships that exist partially online. While network individuals often interact one-to-one, the act of unfriending gets communicated to the unfriender's entire network - similar to the situation when villagers observe one person shunning another." >> >> The reality is that nothing is communicated to anyone's network - the unfriender or the victim of unfriending - when an unfriending occurs. The "victim" can uncover the unfriending by scrolling through her entire list of friends to see if the unfriender is listed. If not, then she knows she's been unfriended. Under certain settings, the "victim" can also find out about being unfriended when she searches for her unfriender on FB and isn't given access to the unfriender's pages. But under no circumstances now or in the past has a blast message gone out to the victim's network when an unfriending occurs. Of course, the unfriender could post on her wall that she's shunning the victim, but that's very different from the auto-message mechanics that you described in this passage. >> >> It *used* to be that when someone changed her relationship status on FB, that message was automatically broadcast to her entire network, so there was lots of excitement when people said they were a couple and lots of drama when they broke up because everybody was immediately alerted to the change of status posting. However, that has changed in recent months as FB has tried to give users more chances to control the blasts of info. Now, people can change their status without it being announced to their networks. All of this, of course, is NOT related to unfriending, but it's enough of a comparable situation that I wanted you to know about it. >> >> So, this chunk of the chapter should be scrapped or rewritten. The fact is that FB mechanics do allow people to monitor others' network structure more easily than in the past - to look for common friends; to see who's in someone's network; to check someone is friends with someone else. But the implication that unfriending is a publicly broadcast act is not right. >> >> Lee >> >> ******* >> Director >> Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project >> 1615 L Street NW - Suite 700 >> Washington, D.C. 20036 >> 202-419-4510 >> Website: http://www.pewinternet.org >> Twitter: http://twitter.com/lrainie >> >> > >

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Air-L] Query on Research about "Too Much Communication"
by Murray Turoff 15 Aug '10

15 Aug '10

This was the first major field study (in the computer field) of professional people using message and conference systems on the internet and some of the resulting observations on using communication structures to reduce the problem (going back in some cases to early work on Delphi communication structures.) Hiltz, S. R. and Turoff, Murray, (1985), Structuring Computer-Mediated Communication Systems to Avoid Information Overload. Communications of the ACM, 28, 7 (July): 680-689. Reprinted by DATAPRO for Corporate Distribution. -- Distinguished Professor Emeritus Information Systems, NJIT homepage: http://is.njit.edu/turoff

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Query on Research about "Too Much Communication"
by Paul Frosh 14 Aug '10

14 Aug '10

At this year's ICA conference in Singapore Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht gave an opening keynote plenary called 'Infinite Availability: About Hyper-Communication and Old-Age'. It was a largely a (sophisticated) lament about too much communication (the "hyper-communication" of the title). It began with an anecdote about people texting their loved ones (who are meeting them at the airport) as their plane lands to say that they have arrived, then texting again at passport control, again at the luggage carousel, and again as they go through customs, until the moment of face-to-face contact. But I think that one person's hyper-communication may be another's phatic communion. Here is the abstract. I don't know if the paper is available yet anywhere, but ICA keynote plenaries are often published. Abstract: We have more opportunities to communicate than ever before in the history of Homo sapiens. This is the elementary fact that I am referring to with the word "hyper-communication," and I refrain from saying that hyper-communication is either a very good or a very bad thing. The frequency with which we talk to other persons face-to-face, that is in mutual physical presence, has most likely not increased - but it has probably also not dramatically declined during the past decades. If we have more opportunities to communicate than ever before, in the sense of conducting interactions based on the use of natural languages, then this increase is clearly a function of technical devices whose effects neutralize the consequences of physical and sometimes also of temporal distance. Some of us old ones feel that this is simply too much - and that, at the same time, it is not enough presence. If the process of Modernity has largely been a process of disenchantment, we have now written "Rational Re-enchantment" on our revolutionary banners. But I am fully aware that this is but another Gray Panthers' revolution. Paul Frosh, Ph.D Department of Communications and Journalism The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Mount Scopus Jerusalem 91905 Israel msfrosh(a)mscc.huji.ac.

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Re: [Air-L] Air-L Digest, Vol 73, Issue 11
by Julian Hopkins 13 Aug '10

13 Aug '10

Hi Juan, 1) Can one treat a blog as a case, chiefly considering the difficulty of delineating the boundaries of the blog? --> Don't see why not, a blogger usually sees their own blog as a clearly delineated, personal, expression of themselves or an important aspect of themselves. For example see: Reed, A., 2005. 'My Blog Is Me': Texts and Persons in UK Online Journal Culture (and Anthropology). Ethnos, 70(2), 220-242. Bloggers in my research often argue: 'It's my blog and I'll do what I want with it!' It's what I call the 'Independence principle'. 2) Is it feasible to look at 14 blogs, even though I won't be examining every little component? How many would be "enough" for a dissertation? --> 14 blogs is already quite a lot of data to follow, depending on the frequency of posts and how long you want to follow it, it could even be overwhelming. 3) Isn't it rather ambitious of my part to analyze texts, visuals and the content of the webpages which are connected to a given blog post by means of the hyperlinks embedded in that post? --> Similar to above, it could result in too much data. It depends how many links there are, and how much time etc. you have. If you wanted to do a detailed analysis of every linked page, you will probably have too much to do. If you just wanted to categorise them into broad categories (news, Spanish, English, Canadian, Mexican, government, other blog, etc.) then that would be more realistic. 4) If I just looked at one mode of semiosis (e.g., written texts), what would then be the point of looking at these texts online if one does not attend to the words or stretches of text which fulfill the double function of being part of the text and nodal points? --> Just looking at the written texts would be ignoring much of the multi-modal affordances of blogging, and internet media in general. Using photos is an important aspect of blogs, and I imagine a blogger new to Canada, learning about their new environment, would use photos as a powerful way of representing their experience, and of communicating back to their friends and family from where they came. I would question your decision to ignore the comments on the blogs. Comments are a fundamental component of blogs, and the discussions that arise in the comments may influence the "representations of language, immigration and integration" that you are intending to look at. Also, as Carmel noted, bloggers frequently meet up offline, use backchannels, and so on. These would surely be important in understanding the experiences of the new immigrants, and how they make sense of them. All bloggers in my research have told me that what they put on their blog is never the full picture; it is a more or less calculated presentation of aspects of themselves. If a family member or friend is unhappy about something they blogged about, they may adjust their practices. If they have regular commenters whom they come to appreciate, or not, they may adapt their style or content. If they develop a larger audience, they shift in what they are willing to put online. If they decide to try to monetise their blog, they may shift again. In principle, it's just the same way we act offline. Hope that helps a bit, Julian ++++++++++ Blog: www.julianhopkins.net Twitter: @julianhopkins Skype: julhop ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 11:09:56 -0400 From: "Abrile Juan" <juan.abrile(a)umontreal.ca> To: <air-l(a)listserv.aoir.org> Subject: [Air-L] Blogs for social science research: Dilemmas Message-ID: <B865C162CF25554C8C1264E3F1645AB745AE11(a)MAPIUDEM.sim.umontreal.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Hola, I'm Juan Abrile, a new arrival in the the AIR-list serv. I'm a doctoral candidate in an interdisciplinary program at Universit? de Montr?al. My dissertations will be about the representations of language, immigration and integration on the blogs of Spanish-speaking Latin Americans as they prepare for immigrating to Quebec and experience the early settlement in Montreal. Currently, I'm in the process of revising my thesis proposal...and it is in the midst of this thinking process that I'm confronted with certain issues which I am not sure how to deal with. That's why I'd really welcome your thoughts, comments, suggestions etc. This is, in a nutshell, where my thinking is at in terms of methodology I have formed a corpus of 14 blogs, each of which I will consider as a case. Within each blog, I will focus on the blog posts whose content (e.g., oral and written texts, visuals and hyperlinks) has been created by the author of the blog and explicitly refers to language, immigration and integration issues. I will not look at the comments of other blog readers and neither will I look at the content displayed elsewhere on the web pages (e.g., links to Facebook, clickable ads, etc. which are part of the general configuration of the blog). I am, however, interested in looking at the websites / web pages which are "external" to the blog under analysis and which can be accesed by means of the hyperlinks included in a post. For analyzing written and oral texts, I'm drawing on Faiclough's CDA (1992, 1995, 2003) approach, chiefly his way of analyzing discourse representation and assumptions. For exmining visuals, I'll be using Kress and van Leeuven's (2006) stance on visuals as ideological statements advancing a particular representation of the social world, social actors and social processes. Finally, for coping with hyperlinks, I'm considering Burbules' (1997) view of links as rhetorical artefacts, which may tie in well with Myers' (2010) taxonomy of links (I'm also aware of Lemke's) Now my questions: 1) Can one treat a blog as a case, chiefly considering the difficulty of delineating the boundaries of the blog? 2) Is it feasible to look at 14 blogs, even though I won't be examining every little component? How many would be "enough" for a dissertation? 3) Isn't it rather ambitious of my part to analyze texts, visuals and the content of the webpages which are connected to a given blog post by means of the hyperlinks embedded in that post? 4) If I just looked at one mode of semiosis (e.g., written texts), what would then be the point of looking at these texts online if one does not attend to the words or stretches of text which fulfill the double function of being part of the text and nodal points? Thank you so much for taking the time to read such a long e-mail. Looking forward to your comments, Juan Juan Abrile Doctorant en Sciences humaines appliqu?es Universit? de Montr?al ------------------------------

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Re: [Air-L] Examples of Successful Uses of Facebook in the Classroom?
by Gabriella Coleman 13 Aug '10

13 Aug '10

>>> >>> I do have some concerns, of course, related to privacy issues, and I would >>> not want students to feel that I am doing this because I want to pry into >>> their personal lives (my goal here is not to "friend" all my students but >>> to >>> get them talking about statistics they see in everyday life and sharing >>> things with each other). ?So, I'm wondering if anyone on this list has >>> tried >>> to use Facebook and would be willing to share what was done and how it >>> worked, or give some tips on "best practices" for use of Facebook in an >>> educational context. Privacy concerns aside, Facebook is good for keeping in touch and networking, not so much for collaboration. The best tool I have found is Crabgrass, which makes use of social networking features, but is foremost a tool for long distance or group collaboration: http://crabgrass.riseup.net You can post material, add tags, have threaded discussions, there is an internal chat area for each group, good searching, a wiki, task list management, and more. It has a pretty nice UI as well. You can learn more about it here: http://crabgrass.riseup.net/about/ The problem: to get all these features you need to download and install the software or use their demo site, which is a bit slower than your own install. http://crabgrass.riseup.net/demo/ The newest version will soon be up on their hosted (they have a version up there but it is an old version when the UI was totally different and honestly pretty bonkers, I would not advice using it). The upgrade will happen this fall and once their hosted site is up and running, I will send a note. I used it once for a group project and after that experience will use it for all my future classes. It is just so much more interactive and user friendly than Blackboard and does not have the privacy problems of commercial sites. All best, Biella **************************************************** Gabriella Coleman, Assistant Professor Department of Media, Culture, & Communication New York University 239 Greene St, 7th floor NY NY 10003 212-992-7696 http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty_bios/view/Gabriella_Coleman

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Query on Research about "Too Much Communication"
by Dan Ryan 13 Aug '10

13 Aug '10

A related topic is "information overload." In my work on components of new information behaviors that are recapitulations of existing forms I came across: The Fatal News: Reading and Information Overload in Early Eighteenth-Century Literature by Katherine E. Ellison and here's a bibliographic essay on information overload:. Martin J. Eppler and Jeanne Mengis "The Concept of Information Overload: A Review of Literature from Organization Science, Accounting, Marketing, MIS, and Related Disciplines." The Information Society, 20: 325–344, 2004. Dan Ryan I work at Mills College o 5000 MacArthur Blvd o Oakland, CA 94613 o 510-430-3242 I write at http://djjr.net/papers/index.html I blog at http://soc-of-info.blogspot.com/ I innovate at http://www.innovationexchange.com

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