I just wanted to say, thanks! Wow, what a trip, eh? That Canadian dude sure had us connecting, collaborating, curating, content aggregating, cooking. Wait, no, we didn’t cook, well, in one sense, yes we did! We were cookin’ all semester. Creating accounts all OVER the web, following more sites and streams than I ever thought possible. With a little help from Netvibes ;)
Oh, and guess what? I blogged. Yea, I expressed myself publicly. For me, a big step. So thank you to everyone in class and in cyberspace who supported me and commented. It makes you feel a little less alone out in the great big web when someone says a little something.
How can you not laugh? But how did we get here, to this?
Before we talk Memes, let’s talk about digital storytelling.
Michael Wesch’s project is a great example of modern storytelling at its best; he calls it Digital Ethnography. “The Vision of Students Today” video was a product of the “Introduction to Cultural Anthropology” course he taught in 2007. This video was viewed more than 1 MILLION times in the first month it was online!
In his article, “A Vision of Students Today (& What Teachers Must Do),”Wesch discusses how this video resonates with students and educators at a deep level and how he could not believe that this “disheartening portrayal” was accurate. Would he have received the same response if he had written a scholarly journal article?
Image taken from Michel Wesch’s video, A Vision of Students Today
The power of media is evident in our society. About $60 BILLION dollars is spent on Television marketing. Only about $30 BILLION dollars (same source) is spent on online advertising. So, yeah, media is king.
Voila! Memes are born.
Funny cats, cute babies, sad high school pictures, movie characters, and the most dreadful of all ,epic fails have all become iconic messengers. As Malcolm Gladwell wrote, “A meme is an idea that behaves like a virus–that moves through a population, taking hold in each person it infects.” And we love them, they are quick to read and if the modality is just right, effective and viral.
Do you have information overload? Are you tired of checking a million places for your social updates? I know I am. So I have been looking for a solution to help me improve my personal productivity which will also improve my professional development. I want to be able to see the important news feeds, twitter updates, linkedin info in one area.
First of all, lets talk Dashboards. What are they? According to several sources (Dendas, NetSuite, Wikipedia, SAP) dashboards are user interfaces that allow you to view real-time information, i.e. data, like “key performance indicators” (KPI) and real-time trends. Many times these are created very specifically for businesses to manage their productivity. They can provide analytics that are helpful in making decisions and monitor trends and they do this in a very visual, graphical way. One company, Data-to-Dashboard.Com describes a dashboard as a way of visually describing data in order to achieve goals.
The NetvibeDashboard we will be reviewing does have a similar high-level data analysis capability for their paid accounts; however, we will be looking at Dashboards as a way to control information.
Does your browser usually look like this with a billion tabs open?
Yes, when we are researching information our information flow tends to look like this; however, when we are “just” monitoring our professional networks, do we really want to have this kind of information system? Probably not, or at least I definitely do not. I am tired of information overload.
There are browser dashboards that can help manage this flow. The one I really like is called Netvibes. I am primarily interested in Netvibes for the following reasons:
to help control the way in which my many sources of information is displayed
to keep me connected to my social networks
Check out my Netvibes Overview Here:
Also you can check out another YouTube video by MrClarkYIS. He wanted to share how he is Using Netvibes for Teacher Blogs. He describes how Netvibes can be used to manage class blogs. Check it out!
To answer Mathieu Plourde’s question for #udsnf12 blog question, only in one regard have I encountered copyright issues that I felt were inappropriate in the classroom setting: lack of credit to the originator. I have seen numerous times where the presenter does not give credit to images or content. With that said, I still feel that the instructor was able to use the materials without infringing on copyright.
Based on the premise of fair use concerning the transformation of the content, I would argue that all educators who use any and all materials in their classrooms are transforming the use of the content. We are not trying to re-package it and sell it, we are trying to use the material to enhance, expand, support, promote, and solidify the concepts we are teaching. This is not the same thing as trying to re-sell it on the open market as our own creation.
In Kirby Ferguson’s, Everything is a Remix series he reminds us that to become proficient we need to emulate and practice others’ materials before we can become masters who create new works and ideas. “Copying is how we learn.”
I just wanted to say, thanks! Wow, what a trip, eh? That Canadian dude sure had us connecting, collaborating, curating, content aggregating, cooking. Wait, no, we didn’t cook, well, in one sense, yes we did! We were cookin’ all semester. Creating accounts all OVER the web, following more sites and streams than I ever thought possible. With a little help from Netvibes ;)
Jann Marie EDUC 