a thaumaturgical compendium

I am proposing a session for Internet Research 11.0 (Gothenburg, Sweden, 21-23 Oct 2010) that focuses on the role of attention in internet-mediated communication. The panelists will be asked to present very briefly on a topic relating to attention and networked technologies, with the aim of spurring a lively conversation.

While there are a range of potential topics, some might include:

• Has mediated culture changed to fit new regimes of attention?
• With an infinite number of channels, is it still possible to get citizens to talk about the same topic?
• How do marketers get attention when technologies, from TiVo to pop-up blockers, allow for filtering?
• Does the ability to work anywhere, thanks to mobile devices, break down the idea of attending to home or family within particular temporal and spatial blocks?
• How does a new disciplining of attention (or a lack of such disciplining?) affect learning inside and outside of schools and universities?
• Are “Lifehacker” and “Four Hour Work Week” just continuations of a long interest in efficiency, or do they mark a move beyond the workplace for such efforts?
• Is there a consensus regarding “multi-tasking” and “continuous partial attention” vs. task focus in terms of effectiveness?
• How do individuals create their own “situational awareness”? To what degree is our attention locationally based?
• How have technologies of social networking affected who we attend to and how we attend to them?

Presentations will be in “pecha kucha” format (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecha_kucha), and presenters are expected to abide by that formalism. These should represent positions and perspectives, or thinking-in-progress. Papers are welcome, but not expected. These presentations should be designed to create controversy and conversation.

If you’ve gotten this far, and are interested in presenting on the panel, please post your proposal to Twitter, using the #tldr11 hashtag, no later than February 1, 2009.

Please forward widely.

ReadWriteWeb listed 8 Things Every Geek Needs to Do Before 2010. As if I didn’t already have enough things to do! Anyway, I’m giving myself a bit of a reprieve, and some of these will be done by February 1 instead of January 1.

1. Edit your privacy settings and friendships.

This one is easy for me. I practice radical transparency. If I don’t want the world to know about it, I don’t put it anywhere. So, yes, I’ve tracked on some of the Facebook concerns, but since my “friends” know little more about me than other publics do, I frankly am not concerned. If someone decides not to hire me because they’ve seen me being a bit nuts in a classroom, or a bit tipsy at a party, then I don’t want to work there.

(I won’t get into the larger argument. I think there are worthy reasons to pursue certain sorts of privacy, but I think a common understanding of the idea of “privacy” is part of the residue of mass society and now it’s, well… it’s complicated.)

Status: COMPLETE

2. Change your passwords.

This one is long in coming. I’ve had a poor password regimen, and someone has put in a malicious backdoor on my Dreamhost account somewhere that leads to access to this blog among other things. I don’t think that’s a password issue (more likely a poorly protected application), but the damage is done.

I don’t like password managers, but I do have a set of relatively default passwords that I reuse at various levels of security. I’ve started replacing those–even for the very basic ones–with a unique password arrived at algorithmically. Replacing all those passwords is going to take a while–and probably won’t be done by 2010. But I’ve gotten a good start on it.

Status: STARTED

3. Own your name.

I don’t think there’s much more I need to do with this. Nobody is likely to confuse this Alex Halavais with all the others out there.

Status: ONGOING

4. Prune your feeds.

Truth is, my feed reader has grown so out of control that I stopped using it this year. In large part, Twitter and popurls have taken its place.

Nonetheless, I want to be a little more ahead of the curve. I’ll go back to the system I had before, of organizing reads into first, second, and third tiers. I’ll update here as I decide what those waves are.

Status: STARTING SOON

5. Find a better mobile.

All the chatter about the new Google phone and iSlate isn’t compelling to me. I found the Droid I was looking for. I’m glad I waited. Though I hate being tied to the Verizon contract, and I’m a bit uncomfortable with how closely it clings to Google services, it’s very convenient, and it lets me run my own home-made apps. Even if I never have time to write them, I like the idea of having that option. Looking forward to more locative blogging.

Status: COMPLETE

6. Update copyright notices on your website.

RWW is mostly concerned with copyright year, which isn’t really a big deal, at least for me. But (see below), I will be updating the footer to more clearly indicate the Creative Commons License.

7. Revisit your blog.

This one is a big one. I’ve set up an action plan for this blog, which has mainly gone fallow, and will be starting a second site for a new project.

Over the coming weeks, I will:

1. Blog the creation of my new class, of the work I’m doing on a paper, and of my work with the DML Hub and a research network here in New York.

2. Create a research page outlining my scholarship and providing links to as many of my articles (in draft form) as I can.

3. Create a teaching page that does the same, and links to some of the class sites I’ve created.

4, Work through the categories and a tagging structure, as well as effective search.

5. Rethink the layout, and bring in better archives, searching, and my twitter feed.

8. Back up your data.

This has also been a long-time issue for me. I had a box that I was going to turn into a NAS using OpenFiler or FreeNAS, but because of a number of issues, I gave up on that plan, and realized that the (eminently hackable) DLink DNS-321 was on sale for < $100 after rebate. That’s been loaded with a pair of 2TB drives in RAID1. This is a backup system in addition to another server that’s simply set up with a bunch of old drives. Now that the hardware is sorted, need to get the actual backups going (including an offsite backup for the most vital chunks).

Status: UNDER WAY

As you can see: serious New Years Eve partying this year :). Hoping that “ten” is your best year so far.

Thanks in part to Prof. Eco, and the model of the Pillow Book, my blog needs more lists.

Careers I might have enjoyed (and may yet), instead of being full-time faculty:

1. Inventor / Engineer
2. Architect / Urban Planner
3. Astronaut
4. Novelist
5. Stunt man
6. Ship’s captain
7. Actor
8. Intelligence analyst / futurist
9. Cult Leader
10. Blimp Pilot

Near-neutral-buoyancy + Goldfish crackers = fun!

Feel bad I haven’t had time to do a decompress on the Internet as Playground & Factory conference recently put on at the New School. I didn’t feel much up for live blogging, for some reason, or even Tweeting, despite enticements to do so.

As a theme, it was intriguing. I was a bit concerned in the discussion that preceded the conference that there would be a particular focus on fairly abstract critical theory. Over the years, my enjoyment of super-abstract cultural theory has given way to tolerance. Too often, I worry that the language has obscured the precision of the ideas. Luckily, the pendulum has swung back from the extreme end of this, where verbal gymnastics was valued more than real ideas, and theorist rock stars attracted audiences not because of what they had to say but how they had to say it.

As I look back on the conference I am definitely glad I got the chance to go. I think that there were times when the very long sessions made me feel like I needed to escape, and there seemed to be too many collisions of speakers that I did want to see. Some of the folks I really wanted to see were actually speaking during my own panel.

(As a quick bit of navel-gazing, I think our session was one of the most interesting, precisely because we explicitly made it a discussion. We decided ahead of time to limit the presenters to a few minutes of introductory remarks and then bounce back and forth with the audience. Yuri did a very nice job of keeping things as on track as at all possible, but folks were not shy at all, and it was an interesting and wide-ranging discussion.)

Was also happy to get a chance to chat with some of my biggest inspirations lately. Howard Rheingold and @academicdave, as well as touch base with a bunch of folks I haven’t seen in a while. And that was great, though I wish I’d felt like there was more time to relax with them. Long sessions + shortish breaks made things feel rushed. This perhaps even more so because our pre-lunch session went long.

I don’t actually like people, though, so I often rate conferences by how good they are at making me think and get excited about ideas. This one did this well. I was particularly taken by a few of the presentations. I was very taken by Sean Cubitt’s presentation, perhaps particularly because I came in not expecting much “there there,” and was very pleasantly surprised, to find quite a bit of substance (along with the style). Still not my ball of wax, but a good presentation, and prod toward ideas.

I had expected to enjoy Fred Turner’s presentation, and was not disappointed. Not to say I agreed with it (a paean to bureaucracy seems to treat it as a real thing and not a model–a lens for interpreting social organization), but that is part of what makes for an intriguing and interesting argument. He came dangerously close to my back shelf project of resurrecting the cyberneticists for a conversation on the network society, but that’s OK–someone needs to do it.

I was also pleasantly surprised by the breadth and discussion around Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. The Turk came up as an interesting synecdoche for many of the themes of the conference. The question of whether Turkers were an exploited underclass or were just engaging in an odd sort of repetitive play–or, most intriguingly, both–kept coming up in different contexts.

As I said, even though I was there, I felt like I missed as much as I saw. Perhaps it was just me, but there seemed to be a definite in-group out-group thing going on. Maybe that’s true everywhere, though. For me, the outgroup–the periphery–was particularly interesting. All in all, a thought-provoking topic, and a great group to address it. As much as I’m turned off by conferences lately, it was certainly worthwhile.

Will be interested to see where things go from here.

Completely redoing the required Web Programming course. Here is the draft syllabus. Obviously, still need to build the core site, exams, etc.

Overview and Objectives

The aim of this course is to provide you with the skills needed to implement your designs and create a standards-compliant, functional web site. In particular, you will be learning:

• how a web site works, and how it comes to be displayed in your browser;
• how to create xhtml code that will structurally represent your documents on the web;
• how to use CSS to apply design choices and layout to your document;
• the basics of using PHP to provide some dynamic content that is stored in databases or content management systems;
• a little about how javascript and jquery can be used to enhance the functionality of your site.

Given how much we hope to learn during the semester, it is perhaps equally important to understand what this course is not intended to do. It is not intended to teach you:

• how to organize a website–that is, elements of information architecture, writing for the web, or taxonomies;
• how to design a website–that is, choices relating to color, type, layout, creating graphical elements, etc.;
• website usability–that is, how to specify, test, and work with users to create a better site;
• non-standard extensions of the web–in particular, things like Java applets and Flash;
• development tools–most particularly Dreamweaver, which may be useful under certain circumstances, but is not a necessary part of standards-based development.

That is not to say that we will entirely ignore these things, or that they won’t have any bearing on our discussions. And, in fact, you will have to make design and usability choices as a part of the work in the course. But our focus is on implementing those choices: moving from the ideas you have on paper and in your head to a functioning website.

Communicating with the Instructor

My name is Alex Halavais. Many of you have already met me in the Introduction to Interactive Communication course, but in case you have not, I am an Associate Professor of Communication here at QU, and have taught here since 2006. You can find out more about me at my blog: a thaumaturgical compendium.

The best way to reach me is often by email: Alexander.Halavais@quinnipiac.edu. I generally try to reply to emails in less than 24 hours, even on the weekends. If it has taken me longer than this to reply, do not be shy about resending.

You should install the most recent version of Skype on your computer, so that we can have text, audio, or video chats. It is important that you are running the most recent version of the software, as it includes the ability to share your screen, which can be invaluable in looking through problems or code. My Skype account is “halavais”. You are welcome to chat with me whenever I am online, though I may not be able to engage in a full conversation if I am working on (or with) something (or someone) else. But I am always happy to set up an appointment to talk, if I am not immediately available.

I will have regular office hours at the Mt. Carmel campus in Faculty Office Building 23. [More about in-person meetings.]

Texts an Other Materials

There is no required text for this course, other than the materials you will find on course site at WWWti.me. However, many people are more comfortable with a physical book or other text in front of them. Therefore, I will include links to relevent pages at w3schools, as well as pages in:

Elisabeth Freemen & Eric Freeman, Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML. O’Reilly, 2006.

This book is a pretty solid overview, and subscribes to a similar philosophy to mine in terms of constructing sites for the web. There are a number of other books that are also good, and I’ve also used this one for previous courses:

Elizabeth Castro, HTML, XHTML, and CSS, Sixth Edition: Visual QuickStartGuide. Peachpit, 2006.

These will lead the student through the first half of the material covered in the course. The development of Wordpress themes and other advanced topics will be linked to other resources both online and off.

There are some pieces of software that are useful for this course, including a good text editor and FTP program, but these are all free.

You will need access to a web server that can support PHP, as well as access to a MySQL database. Note that this means that the QU student webspace is not suitable for some of the work required in the course. If you are a regular ICM student, you should already have an account on the quicm.net server. If you don’t–or if you don’t remember your password–please get in contact with me.

Course Structure: Instructional Content

Unlike other courses I teach, online and off, this course is largely self-paced. The idea is to work through the core materials in time for the end of the course, and ideally beyond the core materials. As a result, you will be engaging in three areas.

First there are a series of posts, with both video and text components, on the companion site for the course: WWWti.me. These are divided into a total of seven units, as follows:

1. Creating a Website with XHTML
2. Styling Elements and Basic Layout in CSS
3. Advanced CSS and Layout
4. Forms and Basic Templates
5. Basic CMS Installation and Use
6. CMS Theming
7. Databases and Javascript

These must be mastered in order, but may be completed at whatever pace you like. If you already have some facility in some of these areas, you may be able to move through the instruction more quickly.

When prepared, your knowledge of the material in each unit will be demonstrated by completing an exam and practicum. The practicum usually consists of a simple variation of the work included in the instructional component, and is completed before the timed exam. To continue on, students must provide an acceptable practicum, and answer at least 90% of the questions correctly on the exam. If they do not pass the exam or practicum, they may retake it 48 hours later.

60% of the final course grade is based on how much of this material, in total, is completed. Completing 1 results in a D, completing 2 results in a C, completing 3 results in a B-, completing 4 results in a B, completing 5 results in a B+, completing 6 results in an A-, And students who complete all units successfully will receive an A.

I reserve the right, if a substantial number of students are unable to complete the entire set of instructional material, to adjust this grading criteria, but in no case will it be made more strict. That is, if every student receives an A, that is perfectly acceptable, but if none do, I may adjust the grading.

Course Structure: Final Project

In addition to engaging in the didactic content, you are expected to create a substantial website demonstrating mastery of the skills learned in the course. In order to effectively create this site, you are expected to provide the following materials.

1. A sketch of the site

At least five weeks before the end of the course, you are expected to provide a sketch of the site you plan to implement, including an outline providing the number of pages, an inventory of the assets you will need for each of these pages (graphical elements, text, etc.), either a sketch or graphical comps of the layout for each of the pages, and an indication of the back-end you may be using (if any). At this point, you should indicate the difficulty level you are aiming for in the site.

2. HTML comps

At least four weeks before the end of the semester you will be asked to provide a core version of the site, not including any styling necessarily. Real text and images need not be present at this stage, even if they will be included in the final version of the site. The site should load and link appropriately, and each page should produce valid code.

3. Full comps

At least a week before the final deadline, a fully functional and styled site should be presented. This should include all specified functional elements as well as any content (if part of the original plan).

4. Redraft

If there are elements missing from the full comps that would result in it not meeting the initial specification, you must fix these by the project deadline. If they are fixed (or already present in the full comps), you will receive the full agreed grade for the project.

Again, this is a mastery project, and the grade on the project will depend largely on the difficulty of the work undertaken. When proposing your site, you will be asked to indicate the grade you are seeking to achieve. It may seem odd to aim for a grade lower than a B on the project, but difference in the effort, expertise, and time required between a B and an A is substantial, and for those who would prefer to do less, the “B-level” project may be an attractive option.

Any project that does not meet the requirements for a B will receive a zero (F). The only way to receive a grade of D, D+, C-, C, or C+ is if you miss a deadline. Late projects’ final grades are reduced by one-third letter (e.g., from B+ to B), and then another one-third letter for each subsequent 24 hour period.

To acheive a B grade, the site must function correctly, and not produce any errors when run through a validator. It must make use of standard XHTML, and a CSS stylesheet, but that stylesheet need not be at all extensive or include layout. The site must consist of a minimum of three different pages, appropriately linked to one another, and must employ at least one image.

In addition to those requirements, for a B+, a site must include some form of CSS layout (e.g., be multi-column), and styling of a menu of some form. It should make conscious use of appropriate fonts and the textual content should clearly be visually differentiated in different sections.

For an A-, in addition to the elements already described, the site should make use of Wordpress, Drupal, or Joomla for the backend, and should employ an original theme. This may be layered on top of existing content (e.g., the student’s ICM 501 blog), if desired, or “lorem ipsum.” However, the templates for the pages should be substantially altered from their existing form.

For an A, in addition to the above elements, the student should employ both jquery and draw in extensive external tools, plugins, or modules to extend the core functionality of the CMS system.

The grade on the final project constitutes 30% of the final grade.

Course Structure: Participation

Generally, participation is measured simply by the comments on the lectures. Simply asking a clear question will increase your participation score. Providing a clear answer will increase it more. Ideally, your contribution here allows me to effectively improve the “text” found on the site. If you actually do a substantial rewrite that I can incorporate as part of the text, on several of the pages, that would constitute a clear “A”. If you merely ask a few good questions, that is enough for a B. Your participation makes up 10% of your final grade.

Policies

Help. You are strongly encouraged to draw on each other for help and support. Indeed, part of your grade (participation) is based on how much you do this. There are three caveats here. First, you must write every piece of your final project and be able to explain why it is there. Second, you may receive no help on exams, or discuss the questions openly. Third, you may not pay anyone to aid you in developing work for the class.

Attribution. You should not make use of copyrighted material without permission. When you do make use of work, whether or not it is copyrighted, you should acknowledge the source. When others help you to understand something or make your site work, you should clearly acknowledge that help in the site itself.

Work for other classes. You are permitted to make use of any prep work you did in ICM 501 or 502 to build on in this course. It’s likely that other classes will explicitly allow you to make use of your final project in 505 as well. However, unless such explicit use is allowed, you must have permission of the instructor in order to get credit for the same work in multiple courses.

Incompletes. As noted above, your grade in the course is largely determined by what you manage to complete in the given time period, and for the final project, there are substantial penalties for late work. Please bear this in mind, and recognizing that unexpected events always occur, do your work well in advance of deadlines. Because of the structure of the course, incompletes will not be available.