Random Fun // Wikipedia

 Today on LinkedIn I saw someone post (brag, really) about their new Wikipedia entry. I thought "hmmmm" and checked it out. I was surprised to see that they had a Wikipedia entry. I know enough about Wikipedia to know that you can't create your own entry, but you can suggest it to Wikipedia editors and see if you can get them to undertake it. I also know that you need to have a certain level of accomplishment in your field. (My father-in-law has a Wikipedia entry)

Somehow that got me to wondering what my Wikipedia entry might look like if I had one. I asked ChatGPT to create one for me. It's not entirely correct, but it's nice to see that ChatGPT thinks I have enough notoriety as a scholar to warrant a Wikipedia entry. 

If you want to see it, look below the fold.

I earned a badge, should I share it?

 Badges are all around once you start looking for them. 

Some of us don’t notice, or don’t care. Often that’s me. I know what I accomplished and I’ve no idea what I’ll do with the badge. Sometimes I get in a MOOD and want to be silly with such things, like the time I saved up paper “certificates of attendance” from a number of conferences and hung them up in my office. I thought that was funny (I have received them at international conferences, and it seems to be important to some attendees as proof to their institution that they were there).

I’m flying home from a conference today, a conference where I gave a talk. I noted that I received a digital badge through the conference platform (Whova … and that’s a whole post I could write)

Here it is! Should I share it elsewhere? Should I post it to my LinkedIn and see what happens? I mean, the platform provided tools to share it to socials — that’s the whole point, right?

 I typically present a at 5-7 conferences a year, so at this point it doesn’t feel like a big deal to me. I list it on my CV, and move onward. It’s just another requirement of my job. I might have found it special the first time or tow.

But I actually have a bigger question for y’all. Please feel free to weigh in here.

This time last year I embarked on a journey to become a leadership and performance coach. There are many whys for doing so, and I’m happy to share, but most importantly let me state that I am not leaving my job at FSU and switching careers.

I worked hard for my Level 1 certification, which I earned in March. I’m now working toward ACC level certification (need to get about 25 more coaching hours for that — I can coach students as part of my job at FSU and count the hours, so feel free to HMU if you want to try it).

Anyway, I got a badge and digital certificate when I completed my Level 1. I’m also really proud of my accomplishment. To me, this is much more meaningful than celebrating another conference talk.

When I finished Level 1 and got the badge, it was a super hectic time. I told myself I would update my web site for coaching and then share the badge on LinkedIn. I’ve not done that yet. Is it too late? Is it silly of me to even think about sharing this? Or should I go ahead and do it? 

Who knows, I may be in this dilemma again in a few months, after I get my hours, take my test, and get ACC certified.

And yeah, the badge is from Brown University, which amuses me because my husband did his undergrad there. I like to joke that now we’re a Brown family. :)

Social Media Fiction Challenge (I did it, too!)

 I read a YA book for the social media fiction challenge. 

Should I award myself a badge?

I chose The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler [on Goodreads]

This book was about a teenage girl who had just received a computer .. and her friend next door, who brought over an AOL CD-ROM. Yup, it’s set in the early 1990s, and the main characters use dialup to log in to AOL. How does this relate to social media? Well, through AOL they find a secret portal to a ‘website” called Facebook that shows them the future. Like, 15 years into the future. And they are confused (is it a scam? A virus? Is someone pranking them?). Over the course of a week they check in on their future selves, gleaning details of their adult lives through posts, relationship status, friend lists, etc. And when they don’t like what they see, they start to realize that they can make small changes in the present that affect what they see of the future on Facebook. They know they shouldn’t, but they can’t help themselves. I’ll stop short of giving spoilers, and just say that it’s an interesting view of how we provide information on Facebook.

Great fiction it isn’t. But it’s an easy and charming read.

Tech struggles are REAL

One of your classmates noted in a participation log that tech struggles are real.

I am here to confirm to you all: Yes, yes they are!

If I may break through the fourth wall (or maybe better in this case to say “pull back the curtain”) and share some of my process in this class … well, the tech struggles are REAL.

I’d like to think that I’m good with tech. I was using computers in the late 1980s, creating art, programming HyperCard stacks, etc. I was on email in 1991. I remember using FTP services to upload/download attachments, with fussy file naming conventions. I hand coded websites in html. All of that.

Still, the reality of my every day is that I’m not on Pinterest/Instagram/LinkedIn/X/every-other-platform daily, and even when I’m on the platforms I’m consuming more than anything else. New features come and go, the platforms themselves evolve quickly and are often unstable, and then each summer I get to this class and I have to set everything up again and figure it all out.

Folks: Tech struggles are REAL.

If by some miracle I’ve made it look easy, well … can I get a badge for that? Because each week I’m setting up tools again, fussing with features that allow people to join groups, clearing out old posts, setting up demos. And the tools are always changing, sometimes dying, sometimes being born. I miss Twitter’s good ol’ days, and I posted updates there a lot. It was a great hub! But no one wants to be there since the algorithms changes and a lot of the content took a turn for the more toxic. LinkedIn has really upped its game, but it’s a real-name professional platform, so we don’t want to use it in that way. Instagram just doesn’t work in that same way, even though it offers hashtags. Each week it’s a mess of setting up, testing out, copying over, etc. And I struggle.

That’s all. I just wanted to validate the struggle for everyone. If you’ve had moments of “why won’t this embed/upload/link/whatever” … we’ve al been there.

The Ultimate Challenge - Week 2!

Alas, we are in Week 2 of THE ULTIMATE CHALLENGE!

This week, we have a new set of challenges going on. Do as many or as few as you like. You don't have to do Challenge 1 on Day 1 -- it's entirely up to you how (or if) you approach the challenges. 

Here's a list of challenges for the week. Full details below the fold.

1. Digital detox
2. Exquisite corpse story [Easter egg]
3. Create your own story
4. License yourself 
5. Hashtag Ethnography 
6. Collaborative concept map [Team challenge]
7. Blog makeover

Virtual Vacation Challenge

 

Ultimate Challenge Days 5-7

It's the weekend, so it's a good time for the virtual vacation challenge.

Take yourself on a virtual vacation this weekend. Find a lovely spot (real or fictional) and imagine how you would spend a day there. Look up photos online and write a blog post about your day with the photos integrated.

This may not feel like much of a challenge, but here's the challenge part that relates to our class:

Include at least 4 photos that you've found online that include Creative Commons licenses that would allow you to share on your blog, and share them with proper attribution. 

How do you find these photos?  Flickr. Wikimedia Commons. Lots of places!

There's no absolute perfect way to give attribution, but here are photos I took this week and then shared on Flickr:

"Helsinki" by vpd6414
is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA

"Conference Badge - ISLS" by vpd6414
is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA

I used the Flickr embed feature to grab the embed code (I had the header/footer included), dropped it into the blog post in HTML view, and then added a caption underneath to provide complete attribution.

Refind Roulette Challenge

 

Ultimate Challenge Day 5

One of our tools this week was Refind. Why Refind? Well, it's a tool that engages in automatic content curation. Y'all have been writing original content here, but some people mine the web for content and reshare it. Alternatively, you might just be searching for inspiration. Either way, Refind could help.

The challenge:

1. Sign up for Refind

2. See what it finds for you!

3. Grab it, blog it, and tell us what you think.

I did my own Refind finding and I got this article on grounding. Apparently it's a TikTok trend. My life will improve if I connect with the earth. I have no plans to go out barefoot tomorrow.

Dig in to the Diigo Challenge

Ultimate Challenge Day 4

Diigo was a tool from last week, but we didn't really have traction there. It's understandable because:

1. I didn't get notifications when a few of you signed up, so you were stuck in a moderation queue (sorry -- I've cleared it now)

2. It's not really a sexy tool.

However, I promise to check daily for moderation now and I think it's still worth checking out. So how about a challenge to get some of us over there?

There's no better way to learn how to use Diigo -- a social bookmarking tool -- than by jumping in and adding, tagging, and annotating resources. So don't be shy! Hop on over there and give it a try! Info in last week's Canvas module tool page. Again, I may need to moderate/approve what you post the first time you post there, so just be patient while I make my way over there to approve posts. I will check daily.

For the challenge, you should:

1. Join the class group

2. Add a resource with tags and annotation

3. Comment on 2 resources that others have added (may be from the wayback -- we use this as a class legacy space)

4. Peruse what's been posted in the past. See how times have changed across the years this site has been used.

5. Write a post about your experience (and let us know what you shared and commented on)

Flickr Gallery Challenge

 

Ultimate Challenge Day 3

Tools like Flickr are surprisingly versatile.

One of the Flickr features is the gallery. You can create a gallery (collection) of photos that others have shared on the site, and then you can share that gallery.

This feature could be quite useful to teachers, who can capitalize on the photos of others.

Your challenge, should you wish to engage:

Identify a topic you might teach (or some other reason for creating a gallery).

Search for relevant images on Flickr and create a gallery.

Write a blog post about the teaching idea (or other purpose) and share the gallery by embedding it and linking to it on your post.

Help files from Flickr:

Gallery Overview

Creating and Sharing Galleries

Recreate Art Challenge

 

Ultimate Challenge Day 2

We're going to have some fun repeating what's known as the Getty Art Challenge and posting our results to Cluster (an image/video sharing tool -- the link to our class space is in Canvas, Week 5 Tools and on the home page).

I can't wait to see what you come up with! Learn more and gather inspiration here.

A GoodReads Challenge

 

Ultimate Challenge Day 1

I love to read. Who doesn't? And readers help each other out by offering reviews and recommending books, right?

Join our group on Goodreads (link on Week 5 Tools page) and:

1. Add a book to one of the internet bookshelves (fiction, non-fiction)

2. Add a book to one of the leisure reads bookshelves (fiction, non-fiction)

3. Comment on the genre discussion or start a new discussion

The Ultimate Challenge

   

Weeks 5-7 of this course are particularly good ones for challenges. We're not exhausted yet. We're not fixated on final projects yet. We're still exploring spaces, tools, and concepts. But we have a sense of each other by now, and that helps unite us. Yep. Perfect time for challenges.

With that in mind, I offer you (drum roll, please) THE ULTIMATE CHALLENGE.

What is it? Just a collection of smaller challenges.

What makes it ultimate? Umm, that it's multiple challenges?

Why should I care? Well, you can ignore it if you like. Or you can be a bystander. Or you can be a competitor.

Competitor? What's that about? Do the most challenges, get a reward. 

What's the reward? It's a secret (which probably makes it sound better than it is, but still there is something). I'll mail the reward to the top 3-4 finishers (supposing your are comfortable with me doing so). I'll also send a digital reward in the form of a badge. Imagine the bragging rights!

How will I know about the challenges? They'll be posted here (but there may be some easter eggs hidden along the way, too). They'll be posted on Instagram. We'll keep a running list on the home page of the class in Canvas, too.

Do it for the glory. Do it for the learning. Do it for the badges.

Who's in?

My love affair with Bloglines

 It was the summer of 2004. I was bored. I was lonely. I was sorting out a lot of change. 

I can’t really remember how it all started, which is the chicken and which is the egg, but long story short: I found blogs. I started a blog. Other bloggers found me. I wrote. I commented. I made friends.

By the end of summer, I was reading and commenting on a lot of blogs, and I needed help managing it all.

I met Bloglines. Bloglines was an RSS program.

'\

It had a clean design and was easy to use. I woke up in the morning and hit Bloglines to see what had been posted overnight. During the day, I checked in a few times. OK, sometimes more than a few times. Bloglines made it easy for me to know who had posted and where I could go interact. 

Although my fellow bloggers and I lamented that the RSS readers cut down on people actually visiting our blogs, and seeing our fine blog designers, we also recognized their necessity when maintaining a lot of relationships across blogs. We still visited each other’s blogs to comment. We still saw each other’s banners and sidebars, infused with style and personality. Heck, I could picture a blog’s design when reading in RSS after a while. It was just a matter of efficiency. 

At some point Bloglines was discontinued. We found others, never quite as good, but the blogosphere was changing, too. There were other platforms to play on, other places to write, and more people hanging around the watercooler. Conversations moved offline, people’s lives changed and they had less time to blog.

Bloglines was an era. Fond memories … 

What are your fond early internet/social media era memories?

Where do you get your news?

 I'm curious! 

How do you encounter news (newpaper? tv? web sites? social media?), and what is the originating source of your news? 

How do you know if your news is accurate?

Do you care?

In a recent poll by YouGov.com (a market research company), it's clear that Americans don't trust a lot of news sources, and also access a lot of news on social media: https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/52272-trust-in-media-2025-which-news-sources-americans-use-and-trust

As far as news sources go, The Weather Channel is by far considered the most trustworthy. And least is The National Enquirer.

And for platforms, most is YouTube followed by LinkedIn. 

There's a ton of data in their report, and if you're a news wonk or a data wonk, I think you'll find it interesting.

Pinterest Vision Board Challenge

 

Pinterest Vision Board Challenge

Make your own vision board on Pinterest. Here are some theme ideas to get you going:

• Your ideal home office space
• Your ideal classroom (physical or virtual) space
• Your career vision
• A dream class you might design and teach
• A vision for pedagogy
• A vision for technology integration in education / the workplace

Have fun with it, and when you're done blog about it (with a link) so we can find it and give you a badge.

Create a Pin Challenge

 

What to do:

Create an original pin on Pinterest and share it on the legacy class pin board!

Look for the big "+" at the bottom of the screen and click on it to create a pin.

Your pin content? A post on your blog -- so think about what you might want to share via a pin. Maybe it's a post you've already written. Maybe it's a new post that you write just for this challenge. A lot of people do "how to" blog posts and then create pins, but think more broadly. Imagine having a pinboard for a class to explore that is linked to various compelling web pages/stories? 

You'll need a post (so you have a link), a visual to associate with it, and a Pinterest account.

Show us the receipts by posting it to your blog as an embed on a post (my example is below):

I made a pin about this challenge: https://pin.it/7FfIntlbP  

It links back to this post.

And here it is as an embed:

Tour de Blog #1

Make the rounds to some of the blogs with me. Read interesting posts. Say hi! Let people know you were there.

• Jasper offers some thoughts about starting a blog. Now that you're a few weeks in, do you have any more ideas to add in the comments?
• Calling all Swifties! Lydia's focusing on Taylor Swift communities, and I just know some of you will have some thoughts to share on that.
• Over at Echoes of a Higher Ed student we have a fine reflection on the many different types of online communities we join. Go share the ones you belong to.
• Lurk if you like. Rose shares how it's a legitimate practice.
• And Jack lurks a lot, although sometimes posts as well.
• Most importantly, as MJW notes, we can use online platforms to support both formal and informal learning. And many other activities ...
• Aastha shares how she met her spouse online -- and I think many of us can relate these days. I sure can!
• Over at Ctrl+Alt+Learn there's a great post on platforms and demographics.  I keep saying that Facebook is for old people and poking fun at myself -- so go chime in over there. And then go visit our resident Facebook Grandpa.
• And another older platform ... Twitter, now X. We're not officially over there, but India's talking about it. Do y'all want to use X together?
• In her daily brew, Zhongyu's embracing the personal in her online learning environment. 
• Adam also has a great reflection on his PLE.
• At From Scrolling to Learning there's some reflection on how ... well, how teens aren't just scrolling but are learning. And a question about the role that teachers might play.
• And what do middle schoolers think about it all?
• Felipe points out that there's a lot of learning happening outside of school in the social media realm, including content creation.
• And yet people are also online watching each other play games, right, Greg?
• But game platforms are not just for gamers, right HB?
• Aya's not debating online .... but others are, and she's reading it.
• Gatsby's doing his own version of a tour de blog -- love it! See if you got a shout-out over there.

Now head on out and leave some comments for folks!

Instagram Scavenger Hunt Challenge

Need something fun to do this weekend? 

Beat the heat by being cool: Do the Instagram Scavenger Hunt Challenge.

By the way, this is an actual activity you could modify for your own
class -- just think of course-relevant items for students to find or document, whether online or in the real world.

We have two versions (because I'm extra and I like to encourage choice):

1. Social Media Challenge

2. Long, Hot Weekend Challenge

Play along with one or both. The directions are the same. The two lists are below.

Badges

Badges are available if you're interested. To earn a badge, you must complete ALL items from a single challenge list. If you don't want a badge or just want to do some of the photos, that's fine as well.

Complete one? Earn the Instagram Scavenger Hunt Challenge badge.

Complete both? Earn the Instagram Scavenger Hunt Challenge Superstar badge.

What to do:

1. Make sure you have an Instagram account that is set to public. Use the one you have already (if you have one) or create a new one. Instagram allows multiple accounts, and you can link them to the same app, which is super convenient.

2. Go about your regular weekend activities and see how many items in the scavenger hunt list you encounter. Take photos of each item you encounter. NOTE: DO NOT TAKE UNNECESSARY RISKS. BE CREATIVE!

3. Share your items on Instagram! Use the hashtag #eme6414 so we can find your photos. You can share them individually as you find them (and if you do, please add captions for each one) or you can wait and upload them all at once as a multiple photo post (you can upload 10 at once; it's a good idea if you don't want to fill your regular Instagram feed with all of these photos). If it's not obvious which item you're trying to share, definitely use a caption or edit the photo and include some text or at least the photo number from the list below.

4. Collect and submit the receipts: Write a blog post about your Instagram Scavenger Hunt Experience. Bonus points if you can figure out how to embed your Instagram posts into your blog post.

The challenge will officially end at 9 pm Sunday June 1, Tallahassee time. 

We'll announce our winner(s) here on the blog on Monday or Tuesday (give us a little time to sort this out). The winners will also receive digital badges. I know ... exciting, right?

Be creative! Stay safe! If your plan was to stay at home, stay at home and find these items around the house and/or online.

SOCIAL MEDIA SCAVENGER HUNT CHALLENGE

What to find:

1. Business card with social media contact info
2. Book with social media contact info for authors
3. QR code that leads to a social media channel
4. Social media from a celeb or citizen incorporated into a major media outlet news story
5. A business (restaurants, retail, etc.) that prominently displays its social media channels
6. A hashtag appearing on TV
7. A public space where social media is being used to promote access to educational materials
8. A place where you think social media should be involved, but isn't (e.g., a missed opportunity)
9. An overt encouragement to post to social media from/about a specific location.
10. An unexpected social media channel (e.g., “I can’t believe NASCAR is pushing SnapChat!”)

BONUS: An innovative use of social media seen in a physical environment

LONG HOT WEEKEND CHALLENGE

Some of these items are vague. Enjoy interpreting them through photographs!

Have a full weekend, as best you can. Try to work in all of the essential elements. If you so desire, you can do it without ever leaving home. In fact, some of the best submissions for this challenge were done during the height of stay-at-home orders in pandemic summer #1.

1. Sports

2. Nature

3. The arts
4. A concert
5. The movies
6. Fine dining
7. A barbecue
8. Relaxing
9. Hanging out with friends
10. Big night out

BONUS: Post a challenge photo to the rest of us using #eme6414 (create a visual with your challenge and post it)

Thinking about online community

 How do online communities intersect with one's day?

This is a question I set out to answer for myself yesterday, exploring a day in the life and then also considering what didn't happen during that day that might happen on other days.

Before I get into it, I want to talk about what a community is (and isn't). The baseline definition is that it's a group of people who share something -- interests, geography, values, experiences. There's always something uniting a community. If the shared thing is too broad, general, or vague, it's difficult to perceive community. Marketing companies have tried to create brand communities, for example, but I feel no particular kinship with others who eat Siggi Skyr. I breathe air, but so does everyone else. We're not community. ISLT feels like community to me. Just this week I got a message from an advisee who just graduated, who met one of my advisees who graduated a decade ago. They're collaborating! The ISLT community helped facilitate that.

Narrowing to online community, it can be a space where people belonging to a community in the physical realm congregate, or it can be an entirely online group -- people who've never met.

Here we go, day in the life:

• Bleary morning Facebook check. Two communities of note:
• My "Fake Internet friends" - a group of women I met online in 2002. We've traveled across platforms together. We're about 250-strong. Some of us have met in real life (I think I've met 4-5 of them). I feel like I know many of them, and their families. Our group is a private one. There's a Monday check-in and I reviewed it on Tuesday morning.
• Gardening group - it's a local online group. I don't know these folks, but we share geography (or should I say growing region, weather, and nurseries?)
• At the desk:
• 9-11, my online writing group. We're all FSU-affiliated, we meet on Zoom, we co-write and commune. These are sort of pop-up groups, and this one will last at least for this summer. We already seem to have some in-jokes.
• Slack - checked in to see if my research group folks had anything to share. It connects us when we are apart.
• Taking a break:
• Back on Facebook (I'm old ...). I'm in local groups (geographic community) but largely ignore them. Still a useful source of info from people I'll probably pass on the street but never meet. I also see a message from a subgroup of my Fake Internet friends (those of us who talk about our teens and the road to college)
• A high school friend has created a new group focused on wellness and has invited various of us into it. I finally clicked accept on the invitation. Why not?
• Professional groups:
• Checked in on a proprietary tool space for a group I belong to. I don't know everyone, just a smaller cohort, but we share a bond. I like to see what people are posting, and specifically I was looking for some book recommendations.
• Checked on a group space for another professional group, just seeing if there were updates.
• Checking email:
• It occurred to me that two listservs that have been active lately are online communities. I checked out some calls for papers shared on one, and on the other there was a conversation going on about ethics. People say listservs are dead, and I know the tech is old, but it's an easy way to keep a group that shares a professional interest connected. The opt-in nature of these lists and the groups they represent makes them quite different from employee email groups I'm a part of.
• Nextdoor. Sigh. Train wreck, I know, but I get email notifications and I just can't stay away. It's neighborhood-based and city-based and for the most part I don't know these people (although you get familiar with the names of habitual posters). I can't say that I feel like it's community, but at the same time it claims to be?
• Got an email from my neighborhood group. Folks are rallying to protest changes to city zoning. I don't really know that many folks who are active in the neighborhood group, although I know most of the people on my block and recognize others (yay, walking the dog). I see that there was a post in the neighborhood Facebook group, too. It's weird ... we all interact more there than anywhere else.

That's it. In about 16 hours, those were my online community interactions. I didn't really post, just read. I will post in the Fake Internet friends group on Thursday (another check-in of sorts). I'll probably be in slack, and I'll meet with the writing group. Else, I'm feeling pretty lurky right now in terms of my online communities. (Not counting classes, which are temporary communities.)

I think I have less energy for the groups because of how much energy I have to devote to email. I really want to do more with one of those professional groups, but being an active member takes time.

The Social Butterfly Challenge

  

A challenge! Earn a badge!

This challenge is deceptively easy. For some of you, it may be really easy, but many of us are kind of shy at heart (hi! that's me!). Still, we also tend to like a little interaction as well as recognition for our work.  Every performer needs an audience, right?

With that in mind, let's practice being social butterflies.

WHAT TO DO:

To earn this badge you must:

1. Comment on at least 3 different peer blogs (the class blog doesn't count) that you have not yet commented on previously.
2. Engage with people in two other spaces (Instagram, LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube ... even X if you're a user), whether people from this class or elsewhere.
3. Write a blog post on your blog that refers to and links to those same three blog posts and embeds, links to, or otherwise provides the receipts for the interactions on other platforms (without violating privacy -- be attentive to public vs private spaces). 
• Weave your evidence into your narrative on that post or tell us why we want to check out these posts or accounts.

BADGE AWARDING

Vanessa and Shiyao will be monitoring blogs for the posts. Help us out -- title the post "Social Butterfly Challenge" or otherwise indicate that you're doing the challenge at the top of your post.

NEED HELP EMBEDDING?

On a lot of social media platforms, if you click on the "..." menu one of the options will be to embed a post, and you'll get a bit of code you can drop into your blog, Canvas, or wherever else strikes your fancy. 

Challenges and Badges in EME6414

  Week 3 is almost here, and that’s when we will begin challenges and badges.

To get a full sense of what we’re doing, I encourage you to review the Zoom recording (it’s only about 15 minutes long, you can watch it at 1.5 speed if you like) and learn more about what will be happening. 

You can find it under the Zoom link in the Canvas sidebar menu [look for Cloud Recordings] and I put the link in the Module 2 file list, too.

The brief version is:

Entirely optional and just for fun, I’ll be issuing “challenges” here on the blog. I’ll announce them on Instagram, too, but the full details will appear on the blog. You can complete the challenge if you want, and if you do you’ll receive a digital badge. The challenges vary, but are designed to give you things to try out using different platforms. Engaging in challenges and earning badges will count toward participation in the course. Again: you do you, but I look forward to seeing some of you play along.

And until we actually begin the real challenges, here’s an informal one. Consider it a soft challenge (like a soft opening of a business):

If you do the challenge, leave a comment here so we know to go look for it.

When you start noticing ...

 ... it's everywhere.

For example, blogs are past their prime, and yet they set the stage for so much of what we see online today and they still pop up everywhere.

Today I got an email from our local coffee shop, Lucky Goat, saying I should check out their new blog.

Now, clearly it's not 100% new because there are posts from the last little bit. But then again, they are trying to generate some attention and traffic while providing some coffee education.

See for yourself: https://luckygoatcoffee.com/blogs/news

What blogs have you noticed lately?

Who are we?

 Just thought I'd share a bit of data from the survey you all completed last week.

What tools do you use?

No surprise here that Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube are topping the list. Still, consider our numbers: We are 19. We have one non-user (at least in the moment last week) and also a few folks who don't use these big 3. 

Looking at the other end, we have no Bluesky users (perhaps because it is new? To be honest, I just cranked it up for this class), and just a few blog, Threads, and Snapchat users.

These numbers are dynamic. I know there are not only never-users among the uncounted but also former users. 

For me, in the non-EME6414 moments I would say that I use: Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Reddit, Blogs. And others not named there. Maybe sometimes Pinterest? Does it count that my kid shows me TikToks? I have used Twitter, but stepped back from it when accounts, algorithms, and other stuff started to change.

I also know I should have LinkedIn on the survey. Why didn't I? Not sure, really. 

What concepts are familiar to us?

Memes! And no surprises there. 

Many of the concepts that folks considered unfamiliar may actually be known in your brains but not labeled as such. And ... well, we're going to learn about all of this stuff along the way.

So what are your thoughts? Any surprises here?

Trivia: The things you learn online

 So, when I was a teen a really big thing was the game Trivial Pursuit. How to win? Answer lots of questions across different categories. You could make teams (so this is sort of like how bar trivia games work, I think) and pool strengths. The main point seemed to be showing off how much knowledge you had about things that didn’t seem to really matter in any other corner of your life. Trivia. Otherwise unimportant knowledge.

Back in those days, you picked up trivia in school, from reading magazines and newspapers, maybe watching your TV. You remembered random things your Great Uncle Al would say. It added up.

Now I pick up trivial knowledge online, through incidental encounters. 

Today I share with you a random thing I saw this week. A point of curiosity. Yes, on Facebook (because I’m old) I learned about the Callin’ Oates hotline set up by Hall and Oates fans. You call, you can request to have a song played. Here is an NPR story about it from 2011. 

How delightfully random and trivial! And how bizarre that people are still running a hotline like this in the 2020s, when most people would just go to Spotify to hear a song.

Slightly more useful information I learned the same way this week: Planting citrus near oaks is a good idea. 

What trivial things have you learned online this week?

The Choose Your Own Adventure Course

We're only one day into this course, and hopefully you're starting to see that this is a choose-your-own experience course.

 

Do you remember choose your own adventure books? Where you got to make decisions about what would happen next?

You are in a dark hallway. The only light is seeping through the crack of what may be a door at the end of the hall. You walk down the long, dark hallway toward the light. When you near the end of the hall, you pass a narrow table with a phone on it. Just as you reach the door at the end, you see an envelope on the floor. The envelope is halfway under the door. The phone begins to ring. You:
a. Answer the phone
b. Pick up the envelope
c. Open the door

I loved those books! The idea that I had a choice and could be immersed in the storytelling was so much fun.

I feel like this course is a similar experience. It's not entirely scripted, but it's also not entirely unscripted. You can be your own protagonist here. I'm going to use this post to highlight some of the choices you have and explain why (pedagogically speaking) I'm giving you this choice.

Welcome to EME6414, Summer 2025 Edition

Hey there! Hooray! You made it! 

We've been waiting for you since last August, when the 2024 edition of EME6414 ended.

This is the blog I will be using to share links and small tidbits of interest throughout the course, as well as to provide some links to and highlight content from your blogs (sort of a "best of"). Through the sidebar, there will also be links to various class-related tools.

Your TA and I will be posting to this blog, and we encourage your comments and conversation.

Just a reminder -- if you don't want your name appearing online in this context, don't use your name. You may write your blog under a nom de plume, choose a Twitter pseudonym, and so on. I will link to your blog and refer to you in this space using whatever online name you choose. I just need to know for assessment purposes that "Mary Smith" is posting as "Wonder Woman."

Catch the wave and let the wild Internet ride begin!