a thaumaturgical compendium

How do you teach students to be critical users of information? Ban Wikipedia. At least that seems to be the answer for some terribly misguided teachers. One school district has gone so far as to restrict access to the Wikipedia website. Why? Because it is inaccurate.

The stupidity of this approach is manifold. First, it suggests that the other resources on the web somehow are accurate; that students need not be critical about sources. Second, it encourages not only a lack of media literacy, but a lack of search literacy. Go into any news room in the world, and you will find journalists making use of Wikipedia to get background and help them to find new information. Wikipedia is a wonderful way to start finding out about a topic. A ban also cuts students off from an important new way that people gather to collaborate and educate themselves. There are other reasons this is stupid (just as book-banning is stupid), but this gives us a good start. Frankly, if I had a kid in the Warren Hills Regional School District, I would pull them out of school, and give them a chance to get an actual education. I hate to think how these poor children are going to cope if they make it to college and have to learn how to research a topic—research that will often include going to Wikipedia.

To illustrate, what does a young student do when faced with a report on the city of Kamakura. In my day, the first thing students would do, often with the school librarian’s encouragement, would be to go to the “reference” section of the library where they would encounter an encyclopedia. Of course, you wouldn’t reference the encyclopedia, because your teacher or your librarian would tell you that this wasn’t appropriate: encyclopedias were not meant to be primary references, just a way to get started. Now that you knew the bare facts: that it was near Yokohama, that it was traditionally a producer of lacquerware, that it was the seat of the shogunate for a time, you would search for books or articles on these topics that would give you a more complete and authoritative understanding of the topic.

What does a student at one of these schools do now that Wikipedia is banned? If they search on Google for Kamakura, the first hit is japan-guide.com, which provides tourist information. They might follow that, and if they have been taught to evaluate sources, they might question the amount of advertising, and the purpose of the site. The second hit, Wikipedia, will be unavailable to them, at least until they go home and access it from there. (Here, we see that Warren Hills is doing more than just damaging the education of their students, they are disproportionately damaging the education of students who have limited internet access elsewhere.) Maybe they will go to MSN’s Encarta, a site that not only is (presumably) credible, but actually encourages student use, by having a “homework” link, and providing a citation students can copy and paste into their report. Apparently, unlike Wikipedia, Encarta hasn’t gotten the memo about encyclopedias not being good sources to cite. Even worse, they provide no indication of where their information comes from, or who has written the entry (often temporary student employees), leaving the student to rely on the word of Microsoft as to the truth of the two-paragraph entry.

What about the student who has access to the Wikipedia entry. Certainly, that student might simply trust what is written there, and cite Wikipedia, but only if that student’s teachers and librarians have been woefully inadequate in teaching the essentials of literature and web research. The good student will evaluate the information found. The very first sentence in each entry notes the location of Kamakura with respect to the modern Japanese capitol, Tokyo. One version of Encarta’s article notes that the city is “45 km (28 mi) southwest of Tokyo,” while Wikipedia’s has it “about 50 km south-south-west of Tokyo.” (Another version of Encarta doesn’t provide this distance.) It would seem one of these is wrong. 45 km is “about” 50 km, and from city center to city center it appears to be about 45 km. But as with anything, the truth isn’t black-and-white. Tokyo is a sprawling metropolis: do you measure from city center to city center, or from city limits to city limits, or perhaps in terms of the distance by train. These are the kinds of questions that comparing the two entries raises at the outset.

The Wikipedia article doesn’t tell you how to cite it. In fact, if you go to its “about” page, it pretty clearly spells out the strengths and weaknesses of the resource. Encarta provides no such help in evaluating the work, and provides a citation to use, incorrectly suggesting that it is worthy of citation.

Both articles provide internal links to further information, but the Wikipedia article also provides links to other sources. Of course, the quality of these links differ from article to article. The article on Barack Obama, for example, has 175 links to (generally) authoritative sources, while the article on Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine has only two links, one to another online encyclopedia. Encarta provides none of its sources for an article on Obama, and (ironically), a search for dimethyl hydrazine points the user to Wikipeida. Paid placement links on Encarta pages, we may reasonably assume, may mislead many students.

We don’t know who wrote articles on either site, nor whether we can trust them, but at least in Wikipedia’s case, we can triangulate some of the sources and determine the degree to which we trust the sources provided. The sophisticated Wikipedia user is also likely to look at the discussion page and history page for an article to determine what statements in the article may be controversial. I fully recognize that Wikipedia is riddled with errors. Thanks to some of my students, a short Wikipedia entry about the ever notable moi, woefully misunderestimates my figjam. Nonetheless, if someone were to look for basic information about me, they could find far worse starting points.

“God created Arrakis to train the faithful.” Perhaps He created Wikipedia to train the researcher. Teachers who ban Wikipedia miss a massive “teachable moment.” None of the above should be read to suggest that Encarta should also be banned, though when you start banning sites, it is difficult to know where it will end. On the contrary, one wonders why a school would take the new global library and start burning particular books. Students should be wary of Wikipedia, and if anything should carry that wariness with them to other sources of information. We should be teaching our students to be curious and skeptical, not cloistered and credulous.

Obviously, I cannot talk about our current hiring process, but I can say that academic hiring is always a difficult process—all the more difficult because it tends to be fraught with administrative restrictions in a way most hiring in the private sector is not. This is the fifth academic search committee I’ve been on, I think (plus chairing one more committee for hiring an administrative university position), and so, I have some bits of advice to pass along. All of this comes from real applications, without going into specifics.

Read the job description. I understand that you are probably applying for any job even close to what you do. I never did that, but I know many who have. Can you teach eighteenth century hydraulic engineering practices in South Asia? Sure, why not? I, umm, have heard of the eighteenth century. If a department wants something general, the ad will suggest that. For one of our hires, we were pretty open: we wanted someone with an interesting research agenda in communication, particularly internet-related. We cast a wide net. But when it says, for example, the terminal degree is required, generally that’s really what it means. You may be impressed enough by your vita that you think we will overlook the core requirements, but at least drop an email to see whether the university has any interest in you before wasting their time and yours with a full application.

Know where you are applying. Your cover letter should reflect some knowledge of where you are applying and why you think you would fit in. It’s really obvious when you get an “Ad Libs” application letter “I have always wanted to work at X because it is one of the top universities in field Y.” Well, duh. We know we are awesome. We just aren’t sure you are :). If you really want to work here, you’ll have made an effort to understand what our school is about.

On electronic applications, remember the text of the email really does matter. Too often, we get a cover letter as an email attachment that is great, but the email says simply “see attached,” or worse, is an extremely casual or badly thought out message. Also, it’s always appreciated when you put your last name in the file name of your attachments: “smith-cv.pdf” is far preferable to “my-latest-vita.doc.”

Teach. Even for Research I universities, the committee usually wants some indication that you are not a total disaster in the classroom. If you are a graduate student, do whatever you can to get your own class. At universities where this is impossible—or if you are mid-career—get a class at a local college. You won’t earn much money, but you will demonstrate that you are capable of leading a course. Naturally, if you are applying to a liberal arts college or another institution that emphasizes teaching, this becomes much more important, but no one wants to hire a full-time faculty member for a position where they will be having their first substantial teaching experience. This represents too great a risk.

Indicate a research agenda. And, on the other hand, don’t assume that non-research universities don’t care about your research agenda. There are certainly some schools, particularly among the for-profit and corporate universities, where scholarship is not particularly important. But for full-time positions in most colleges and universities, a demonstrated engagement in an ongoing research program—or at least the promise of such engagement—remains important. This is particularly true as undergraduate programs at many universities are embracing research and original scholarship as a vital part of education at every level.

Spell-check! Seriously. Have someone go over your cover letter and vita. We all make mistakes in grammar and spelling, but you are trying to put your best foot forward here, and although I—like everyone—will claim to look past such small errors, they really give a poor first impression. Be especially careful with things like the name of the university (easier with “Yale” than “Quinnipiac,” to be fair), and the name of the chair. Luckily, my name is not listed as the chair for this hiring round, so that has been less of a problem, but in at least two previous hires, the letter was addressed incorrectly. A corollary here: if you send your document in Word, be sure that it is “clean,” and doesn’t include tracked changes. If you want to be safer, just turn it in as a PDF.

Send enough stuff. Our ad did not ask for enough documentation. Even if the ad doesn’t ask for it, consider including examples of your writing, a teaching philosophy, and other materials. Or at least make them available on the web as supplementary material. If we have to ask you for more, we may never get that far. Oh, and send it as a package, not piecemeal.

If you are a grad student, list your work under review. It’s always a question, and I have been on a hiring committee where we have seen a lot of promises for work that was under review, but very little track record. That doesn’t do much for your case. If, however, you have presented a number of papers, and maybe even have things already published, you should indicate work that is currently in the pike. This is obviously the case for articles that have been accepted, but not yet printed, but you may also indicate material that is currently under review. We understand the publication cycle may mean that what you currently have published doesn’t reflect what your vita will look like next year.

If you are switching to (or back to) academia, get some coaching. A killer resume in the context of your industry may not translate neatly to an academic hiring committee, even if your professional experience is desirable. At my current university, we strongly value that professional experience, but it is important that it is laid out in a way that makes it fit in a scholarly setting. Even better if you have shown that you have kept a hand in the teaching and research side, to demonstrate that you have potential to shine there. Practitioners sometimes see teaching as the fall back (“well, I could always retire… or teach!”), and frankly, those are often the professionals who are least suited to an academic career.

Watch your web image. We’re hiring for an interactive communication position, and for something so closely related to the internet, you should expect that we are going to Google you. What do we find? Well, in some cases, we find a set of well-crafted websites by the applicant, as well as their appearance on other sites that are related, which gives us more to go on. In some cases, we only find references to their publications and presentations, which is fine; a solid second-place. Then there are applicants whose web designs leave something substantial to be desired. If you are applying for a job in interactive media, you shouldn’t have web pages that look like they were done by our least able undergraduates. They shouldn’t work only in Internet Explorer. They shouldn’t—if at all possible—be broken. (I realize, I’m throwing stones from a fairly glassy house here, but there it is.)

Who writes your letters matters. It’s annoying, but big names, or at least people who are widely connected, matter as much as the content of a letter. Like for applications to graduate school, letters are often an opportunity to scuttle an applicant rather than boost them. In some cases, applicants are damned by faint praise. It’s a bit of a game, and since we all write letters of recommendation, we can easily grasp when a recommendation is pro forma, or highlights what a great personality someone has, to the exclusion of any other praise. Some people read a lot into the lack of a letter from someone’s doctoral advisor or chair.

Be interesting. Nothing trumps a stellar publication record, awards, accolades, and having already made an obvious stamp on your area of study, but when you are looking at hundreds of applications, someone who has interesting life experience and has leveraged that experience is likely to stand out in the minds of the hiring committee. Again, being interesting alone will do little for you, but given that the short list is littered with really excellent candidates, being able to provide texture that gives some idea of why you would be an interesting colleague to have around is a good idea. Some of that comes in an indication of your non-academic career. That doesn’t mean we need to know that you worked at McDonald’s as a teenager—unless you are applying for a position at Hamburger U, this isn’t something you should leave on your academic resume. For jobs at universities like ours, where professional preparation is held in high esteem, such elements are particularly important, but even in research universities, interesting career experience may help a hiring committee get a feel for your personality and competencies. This doesn’t mean you should include something like “in my spare time, I enjoy the cinema and baking,” but if there is a way to indicate your service to the community or other passions, try to hint at that.

Great video via Shanghaiist about the “Crazy English” movement. The title refers to the last phrase, which gets a bit messed up. ESL teacher as cult leader is not an obvious progression, but some of the elements of his teaching style—granting disciple status to women who shave their heads to demonstrate their desire to speak perfect English, for example—sure feel a bit extreme. And it’s hard to believe that the choral response that has served people so poorly in language classrooms works any better when mixed with pop psych. Here he is leading a 6:30am session at the Hunan University of Science and Engineering.

On the other hand, there is a fine line between cultish leadership and energizing students. Undergraduate lectures were often really hard for me to stay awake in back when I was a student. This was even the case when the teachers were really good. I still remember Mark Petracca’s ability to engage a class full of apathetic freshmen at eight in the morning, and James Danziger’s very different style that encouraged students to bring their own approaches to political material. When I was a grad student, a new faculty member had a sign behind his desk that read “I want to inspire.” I thought that was nonsense: faculty are not here to inspire, they are here to instruct, to present the material in a sensible and approachable way, and be a knowledge resource for students. Of course, with time, I’ve changed my mind on that. Clearly, the best teachers are able to inspire students to achieve their best; there is no teaching, only learning. I am not one of those especially inspiring teachers—not yet at least. It doesn’t come naturally to me at all. But I hope to get there.

I wonder, as our program moves more and more online, whether it is possible to inspire students the same way without having them there in person. One of the the most inspiring feelings is to “capture” an audience. It’s a deep-seated feeling of knowing that everyone in a room is hanging on your next word. On occasion, I accomplished this in a theater. Everyone in the audience perfectly still, perfectly quiet, as if their entire world depended on your next words. Silences were a weapon, and a shout went to the heart of each person in the audience. People’s hair stood on end, and they cried when you wanted them to cry.

I know the same thing can happen in text, and I know it can happen on a movie screen, but it’s just not the same thing, and it seems to be a lot more hit-and-miss. Who ever heard of an online cult? I am excited about teaching online again, but I need to find ways of making sure it’s not just to the brain, but also to the heart. I don’t know anyone who has really accomplished that yet. I don’t aspire to cultishness, but I do want to get students excited about what they are doing; that excitement is essential to the learning process.

Many (scores, actually) moons ago, I happily volunteered to write an article for the “Blogs for Learning” Nicole Ellison was putting together. I actually wrote this almost a year ago, while in Aruba, and then inconveniently forgot about it entirely. Blame it on the Balashi. Just ran into her again in Vancouver, and sent it along, and now it appears at the site.

Of course, these days, a “large class” is one that grows to 30 students, thanks to my switch to teaching a smaller private university. But I hope some of the hints that appear in the short article can be of help, especially if you are new to using blogs in lecture classes. Here’s the beginning:

In this short article, I hope to provide some examples of failures and successes in managing blogging in large classes, and some indication of where this might go in the future. Like many people, I started blogging in small senior-level seminars. This was in 1999, and at the time there were not really blogging systems available, and like many other people, I had to write my own. What I saw as a very simple way to replace email lists and bulletin board (forum) systems turned out to be an extraordinarily effective way to encourage conversation among students, and I have used blogs in most of my classes in the years since. Today, blogging in a small class is a fairly easy way to get started for both students and teachers.

And here’s the rest.

I haven’t given up on blogging, this has just been one of those semesters. I would like to be keeping everyone up to date, but I just can’t seem to find ten minutes to update my main blog—though I’ve been posting elsewhere. So what is it that is keeping me so busy? Here are the projects I’m working on through the end of the year.

Projects Midway

These are things that are in some stage of completion, though some still require quite a bit of work.

1. National Communication Association conference

I’ll be late for the start of the NCA conference because I didn’t want to miss another set of my grad seminars, but I’m on a flight at an ungodly hour of the morning tomorrow for Chicago to present a paper entitled “Cutting Paths to Political Candidates: Technologies for Social Findability.” I’m not at all happy with the paper (I haven’t been happy with any of my papers this semester), but I’ll decide over the winter break whether to overhaul this one and polish it or roll it into a comparison with the presidential election.

I probably won’t be blogging the conference, since my lappy is still not working properly.

2. Introduction to Interactive Communication Seminar

Tonight was the last “content” day for this class, looking at the effects of search engines. After the Thanksgiving break next week, participants are presenting their briefs on various topics. Like other semesters, the students are blogging. I’ve been pleasantly surprised about two things. First, although there have been blogs that started out good and were consistently good throughout the semester, and blogs that started out struggling and still are, the vast middle has generally gotten better throughout the semester, and I might go so far as to say that the blogs this semester are particularly good as a whole at this point. For a taste, check out I see ‘em, five O won, Brophblog, Waxing, or Graduate Interactive Communication.

The other surprise is a lot of use of video in the blogs. Not just original video like this response to a Smart Mobs reading by JennX:

(kudos for battling through the Japanese!) but also other videos from YouTube and elsewhere that are both relevant and appropriate to their work. This is great, since it suggests a crossover to true multimedia, which is really interesting. Having been taken a bit unawares this semester, I’m going to try to encourage students to do this next time around. Very much looking forward to what the seminar participants accomplish in their final projects and I will post the best of those here for my loyal readers in search of interesting stuffs.

3. Virtual Worlds Seminar

This was intended as a projects-based course, and it’s been a rocky first-time through. I may re-offer it as a special topics course again at some point, drawing on some of the things we’ve learned this time about how best to approach things. Earlier in the semester, groups put together their first machinema from Second Life, like this one:

They are now working on several projects, including a furniture shop, an in-word presence for a school, and a mixed-mode organic T-shirt company. I’ll post links to the projects once we get to the end. After some prompting by one of the participants, I’m doing my own little project: a proof-of-concept for a judo dojo. I’ll try to do some videos of the process, though most of that work is going to have to happen when I get back from Chicago.

4. Internet Research Papers

I presented two papers in Vancouver, neither of which I was super-happy with. I got great feedback on both, though, and so I’ll probably take another run at them. One looked at comparisons of coverage of “localized” search engines, the other with the initial in-world wayfinding experience in SL. I’ll probably scrap the work on the latter for a more traditional usability study of SL for new users. But for now, these are both back-burnered.

5. Book about Search Engines

Working on a book entitled Search Engine Society for Polity Press. Still more to do with this, but once there is something more concrete to say, I’ll let you know. This is a broad overview of the effects of search engines on the information society, and how that relationship is evolving.

6. Association of Internet Research (AoIR) Stuff

I’m trying to make myself redundant here, but there are lots of little things that need to be done, from assisting in the upload of papers to upgrading the wiki, to supporting the creation of a new website. Trying to make incremental progress on those when I have little snatches of time.

7. Reviewing a paper for New Media & Society

Yay.

Early Stage Stuff

1. Hiring a new faculty member

This shouldn’t be so new, since we should be further along on this. I’m chairing a hiring committee for a tenure-track position in interactive communication Quinnipiac University. It’s not too late to contact me if you have mad skillz in the interactive industry and want to teach a group of interesting and bright (see above) grad students. If you want to chat about the position in Chicago, email me ASAP. We officially started reviewing candidates on the first of the month, but we still haven’t made a first cut.

2. Planning two online version of my seminars

We are moving toward an online version of our MS in Interactive Communication program, and to help facilitate this, I’ll be teaching two of my courses online next semester. The introductory seminar and a seminar on the effect of “wikinomics” on the communicating professionals both need to be sewn up shortly.

3. Two research papers

For now, these are under the working titles “Finding Tonto” and “Pavlov’s Blog.” I’ve wanted to do both for a while, but I’m going to try to get the preliminary research done before the end of the year. These may be sent off for the ICWSM conference in Seattle or HICSS. I was talking to a reporter this week about openly blogging my work, and this is that rare thing I won’t blog: ideas that I’m committed to taking on shortly, but I haven’t started the research on. As soon as I get started, I don’t mind writing about it, assuming that I actually have something interesting to say, and that it might be harder to catch up.

4. Walking

I was really doing well on getting to the gym and eating better until I ended up stressed out and overworked starting this summer. Need to recover (somehow) the time to bring this into my life. First step is back to 10,000 steps a day of walking.

5. Next book

As with the papers, I really ought to finish some things before taking on new projects, but I’m at the eary stages of planning for a book on the relationship between creativity and self-government.

Damn! I was aiming for the 7th grade-level.

(via AKMA, whose blog I am able to comprehend only when sober and undistracted ;).)

Yes, I know it’s been a while. I started this semester out on the wrong foot, and have been scrambling for the last several months. If I haven’t answered your email (and there many hundred that need to be answered), I am very sorry. I promise I will get back to you. I considered email bankruptcy, but won’t go that far. If it’s time critical, email me again, since I’m working through in reverse chronological order, and that will push you to the top of the queue.

I have declared a bit of blogging bankruptcy, and abandoned some ideas for blog posts. Here is a partial list of the things I haven’t blogged, but thought about blogging:

• I was in Vancouver for IR8.0. The Mac Book Pro has developed another problem, and it is not charming—so no conference blogging. Lots of people did, though, including my anagramic colleague. Lots of stuff on Second Life, which was fun.

• Inside Higher Ed has an article that strikes a little close to home, denigrating profs with avatars, blogs, and wearing Hawaiian shirts. I far preferred the Chronicle’s advice on how James Bond can make you a better professor.

• Mutating Pictures allows human viewers to determine fitness and evolves faces from symmetric distributions of triangles. It’s already doing well. I am amazingly curious about the final outcome.

• Speaking of genetics, I am ready for the cow man.

Unlike other semesters, I haven’t been dumping my other writing and activities to this blog, for a variety of reasons, but now that I have a day of breathing space, I’ll try to start doing that again.