Shifted Pace

By alex | Published: 6/23/2009

Got an IM from someone checking in a few weeks back. He had gathered that my work had “changed pace.” I wondered what that meant, and he suggested that I had slowed down.

Now, I am naturally lazy–a trait I am trying to more actively cultivate, but I gather he had figured that because I haven’t been blogging or tweeting or doing any of those other sorts of continual status updates I must be slacking. As usual, my blogging (including micro-blogging) is inversely proportionate to how busy I am, not the other way around. There is a small caveat: sometimes it is an indicator that I am procrastinating, and therefore should be busy. On very rare occasions, when the stars align, it is actually linked to progress on a project, but generally speaking, silence on this front should never be taken as indication that I am actually relaxing a little.

On the other hand, the number of hours I have each week to work on projects is somewhat limited by being the daytime parent (with some help) of Jasper. This remains my priority, and though it sometimes means sacrificing things I would like to do, there is never going to be another time to hang out with my six-month-old, so he wins. As it is, I wish I could spend even more time with him.

In what seems to be a perennial sort of post, here are some of the projects I’m working on right now, besides raising the future benevolent dictator of our solar system:

  • Writing Course at Quinnipiac University. I’ve been dragged–somewhat against my will :)–into teaching the “writing for interactive” course this summer. Actually, the content of the course isn’t what puts me off: it’s that (a) it is in the summer, and I would like to reserve summers for research and projects and (b) it’s 5 weeks long. It is hard enough to teach a course in 15 and have students not feel overwhelmed. When you compress that into 5 weeks–and it’s the same number of credits, so I think we should hit the material at the same depth–it is just impossible. So, dealing with that tension, particularly in a writing course, is going to be difficult. I also need to revise my fall seminars. I’m organizing one of my courses around reading and annotating Little Brother, as well as heavily revising my intro (ICM 501) course. (I have also felt a recent disruption in the force in the ICM program, which will probably require even more cycles being put toward re-keeling it.)
  • Digital Media & Learning Hub. I haven’t been talking publicly in any organized way about this, but some of you know that I have been working with the DML Hub, a group constituted to improve collaboration among researchers funded by the MacArthur’s Digital Media and Learning initiative. I’m working with a team to create a DML Collaboratory site for researchers, as well as an external site that will seek to gather the current state of the art in one place. I’m also in the early stages of working with a group to establish some norms of sharing data, particularly qualitative data. I’ll actually be blogging a bit about this latter project in the coming week, and probably tweeting a little about the Collaboratory and that process.
  • Twittering and Protesting. Happy to have the opportunity to work with Maria Garrido again, this time on a project that tracks the ways in which Twitter is being used to both build identity and coordinate action. This is one of two papers that I’ve promised for the AoIR meeting next year. Will be blogging a bit as it develops. This is also one of two Twitter-related research pieces I’m working on, both at early stages.
  • Association of Internet Researchers. In the short term, setting up a registration site, but I am desperately hoping that I can get the Exec behind using this in the long term as well. It would make my life so much easier, and everyone else’s as well! Still doesn’t solve the paper submission and refereeing system issues, but I really hope we are able to move to a different system for that next year. Looking forward to talking to next year’s organizers about how to make that work out a bit better.

A lot of other things are right on the cusp of needing to be done, but I’m trying to keep my head clear of them for the moment. It really doesn’t seem that bad when it’s spelled out as above. Of course, tthere are the other pending things: three book projects, whipping some old research together into publishable form, a grant proposal sometime later this year, various talks, digitizing my library, etc. But I’m trying to keep those things out fo mind, wherever possible.

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Why Spy?

By alex | Published: 6/20/2009

spymaster-logoSo, I like the idea of Spymaster, at least in some ways. I think the web design is great, and the writing is fun. But the gameplay–to me–seems to mix the worst of grinding with the worst of social network spamming. So, my question is: why do you play Spymaster? (I do–or have done–and have my own reasons.)

I’m curious enough about this to offer a bounty of $10 million in-game. Just include your twitter ID in your comments, and on June 30, 2009, I will choose a response at random, and send them the cash prize. Just to be clear, I am talking game money here, and not, say, US Dollars :).

So, to summarize, to be eligible for the grand prize, you need to indicate:

1. How long you’ve been playing (e.g., when did you start, or what level are you).

2. Why you started playing and/or why you keep playing.

3. Your twitter name, if you want to be entered for the drawing.

You can do this in the comments below, or by @halavais -ing me on Twitter. All three need to be included. If you just write “Gimme the cash!” you won’t get any.

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What do you mean, “open”?

By alex | Published: 6/18/2009

From very early on in my university teaching career, I’ve tried to make the materials in my courses openly accessible. This started by simply publishing my syllabi to the web, and has evolved to opening up all (or almost all) of the materials in the course, and more recently accepting non-registered participants into courses. That is, most of my courses are “open.” Few have taken me up on this more active opening process, and so I thought I should explain it in more detail.

Materials

All learning is, in some sense, autodidactic. This is particularly true of reading: one of the best ways we have to communicate with the most brilliant minds, even when they are long dead. I don’t pretend to be one of those brilliant minds, but I am happy to talk to whoever will listen. So, as I build courses, I try to include materials that can be viewed by as many people as possible. This means creating video and audio lectures that are free of charge to watch, and available out on the web in various ways.

These are intended for you to use to learn more about a topic, and to teach others. My restrictions, expressed through a Creative Commons license, are that you shouldn’t profit from the materials by selling them, and you should make clear that I am the author. While part of the reason I do this is because access to knowledge is an important contribution I can make to humanity, it is also a selfish act. I’m hoping that the widespread distribution and use of these materials will bring glory to me and to my university. But I also hope they will bring something equally important: good conversations.

Participation

I also invite you to come into our classroom, at least the part of our classroom that is online. (If you try to come into my physical classroom without a direct invite, you are likely to be tackled by overzealous security guards.) I believe not only “the more the merrier,” but “the more the smarter.” Now, you might say, shouldn’t classes–especially grad classes–be the purview of the intellectual elite?

I’m not sure I am in the best position to judge how smart anyone is, but I do know that the best students I’ve had are the ones who are interested in learning the material of the course more than any extraneous (grades, credit) rewards. So, I figure that if you want to be part of the class, you are welcome to, within the bounds of any limited resources. What does that mean?

Well, obviously QU students come first, and occasionally those courses are already way bigger than they should be. In that case, I may not have time to look at your work. These are, after all, donated cycles of my time, and therefore I can’t guarantee them. Likewise, if there is something (other than my time) that the university provides directly, I clearly cannot pass that benefit on to students in the class who are not matriculating at QU.

As a practical concern, I’m sure that there are other reasons someone might not be included, but I can’t think of them now. I guess, although IANAL, I can fake it: you’re part of the class only insofar as I decide you are, and I can boot you at any time.

Credit

While I know you are the sort of person for whom academic credit just doesn’t matter, for some people it does. Luckily, there are two options for doing work in once of my classes without becoming a student at QU. The first is to sign up through QU Online to take the course as a non-matriculating student. This makes you a bona fide member of the course from QU’s perspective, and gets you credit that you may be able to transfer to another graduate program. (Note, most graduate programs have a limit of transfer credit, including ours, even if you take the courses here. That is, there are only so many you can take as a non-matric student and still have it count if you decide to apply to the degree program.)

The second way you can do this is to reach an agreement with your supervisor to take directed study credits from her at your home university, while engaging in the coursework in my class. Show her the syllabus and other materials, and she will check your progress. I’m happy to coordinate with her directly on this, if you like.

Please do not hesitate to contact me or comment below if you have questions. I hope to see you in my courses!

Update 6/20: Had a couple of requests for “what courses are you talking about?” I actually wrote the above with the intent of linking to it from future courses, including a writing course next month, and my “Intro to Interactive” and a course based on extrapolating out some of the issues from Little Brother that I’m teaching in the fall. However, the two courses I taught in the spring were open as well:

Web Programming (ICM 505)
Search Engine Society (ICM 542)

I’ll be revising and teaching the former again this spring, and the latter is in a bit of limbo. I’ll link to future courses when they are ready.

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Federal Consortium of Virtual Worlds

By alex | Published: 6/15/2009

Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds from Eric Hackathorn on Vimeo.

AL

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