Holly, As I teach online journalism and new media, which in many aspects is a practical course, here are a few suggestions: - Get students to analyze how different groups (journalists, activists, politicians) use the same platforms - Twitter, Facebook, etc. - Get students to use Storify and similar tools to learn how to curate content - and to think about what this means for the communications sphere. - This is not something I do in my course, because I teach journalism students, but, depending on how broadly you define communications and which students you teach the course to, it might be worth looking at how people use social media to express themselves - emotionally and creatively; how people construct identities through using social networks; how using social media redefines the notion of memory; how generations interact on social networks. These areas could all be turned into very practical tasks involving content analysis and ethnography-like techniques. May I also suggest another excellent read - Tales From Facebook by Daniel Miller http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Facebook-Daniel-Miller/dp/0745652107 Cheers, On Mon, Feb 20, 2012 at 9:12 PM, Holly Kruse <holly.kruse@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm teaching a two-week long intersession short course called "Using Social Media" during spring intersession, and I'd love some ideas for assignments and topics to cover. It's not an online course. I've taught much more theoretical, historical, etc. semester-long courses on digital media/CMC, but this class is meant to be quite applied. I'm having the students read Nancy Baym's Personal Connections in the Internet Age and Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody, and the students will write a paper, but I need to fill three hours a day for two weeks, so any suggestions are most welcome!
Thanks,
Holly
---- Holly Kruse. Department of Communications Rogers State University 1701 W. Will Rogers Blvd. Claremore, OK 74017 918-343-7879 hkruse@rsu.edu or DrKruseRSU@gmail.com http://hollykruse.com or http://www.rsu.edu/academics/comm/kruse.asp _______________________________________________ The Air-L@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
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-- Tetyana Lokot Doctoral student in MassComm Head of New Media Sequence Mohyla School of Journalism National University "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy" 8/5, Volos`ka Str., building 4, office 404, Kyiv, Ukraine, 04070 mob: +380506611020 http://www.j-school.kiev.ua