Being a follower

OK, I've had fun looking at colleagues' blogs and opting to "follow" them. I hope I get some followers as well.

I've found that recently, I've been dividing up my social media writing energy. Basically, I use 4 social media sites:

Facebook--for quick checks on friends and acquaintances (Jane Claspy Nesmith--friend me!)

Nesmith Family Blog--for sharing longer "essaylets" about things that I'm interested in or things my family does

Twitter--for short outburts/soundbites about my life (I'm @jcnesmith)

Ravelry--for musings, questions, and lists pertaining to my crochet projects. (Again, jcnesmith on ravelry)

I don't want to spend TOO much time staring at a screen (and as a freelance writer, I have to use the computer for work, too), so I'm finding that my posts on our family blog have become less frequent.

Does anyone else sometimes feel like their life is being swallowed by Web 2.0?

p.s. thanx for the reminder to add tags! I often intend to do this, but I forget.

Becoming a wikipedia editor

13 Things blog suggested that we go to wikipedia and look up a topic we knew about:

look up a topic you have interest in or know something about (it can be anything...knitting, dog care, astronomy, Greek mythology...there are over 3 billion articles, you are sure to find at least one you are interested in or know something about). Do you have anything to add? If so, click "Edit" on the upper left hand side and add your knowledge.

So I went to . . . amigurumi, of course!

The entry was quite short. . . I wondered what would bulk it up. One could write about the best type of yarn to use (cheap acrylic is best), or about the eye/mouth placement (low on the face for highest Kawaii quotient).

Of course, one could even write about Kawaii--cuteness in Japanese. 可愛い

(The amigurumi entry is linked with the "cuteness" Kawaii entry . . . )

But I noticed that each statement had a footnote. I wondered if one could add statements without footnotes. I mean, using cheap acrylic yarn is . . . common knowledge to those of us who make amigurumi. The mighty "F" hook is always used with worsted-weight cheap yarn--everyone knows that. But is that OK in wikipedia? I've noticed recently lots of "citation needed for this" notes in the entries.

And maybe these details are too technical.

I liked that the amigurumi entry noted that amigurumi "have no practical use." Or, as I always say, they are "totally useless items."

Wacky wikis

I used a wiki for the first time this past spring term. I felt my Advanced Writing Workshop students needed to learn about professional writing for Web 2.0, and I figured it would be better for THEM to do the research than for me to do it and give it to them. So the students brainstormed various topics--professional writing for Facebook was the most popular!--and divided them up. Then they did some web research on the topics and created wiki pages for each one. First they just dumped their info on the page; later, I had them integrate and synthesize the material so it wasn't just a patchwork.

That last part was the hardest: synthesizing all the material. Students seem to think if they find, copy, and paste material, they've "researched" it. Always has been that way, but web 2.0 makes that process really easy. Synthesizing the material is still hard. I need to think more about how I conduct that assignment if I do it again so that it's not just a patchwork of cut and paste.

I use Wikipedia as a "first source" when I'm finding out about something I know nothing about. Like pop culture!

Google Calendar

I put an item on Google calendar, and got an email notification. I wasn't actually ON the computer at the time, but I still made it to my ballet class on time :-)

This should be very useful if I am working on the computer and not aware of the time (happens quite often). So many times I look up and "OH!" I'm late for something!

I wonder if I could combine my Google calendars from both of my gmail accounts. Right now, I am "sharing" calendars between my two personae. I sure would like them to be combined somehow, and for email notifications to go out to both email accounts.

Anyone have any ideas?

Maybe it would just be easier to log on to and use one!

In the clouds!

I enjoyed thinking about Web 2.0 apps I use this week. There's one other I just found out about this year--from Lisa--it's Piknik, which allows you to edit photos very easily. My students in journalism used it for our web stories.

As for Google Docs, I'm not crazy about it. It does something funny to the formatting, which is often an important part of documents I'm working on (syllabi, etc). Also, until recently, I guess, it didn't want to upload docx files. It seems to do that now.

But I am going to use it today! I started on an assignment for a fall class yesterday at Coe, and will work on it from home today.

As for the other apps, ScribD was interesting. Nice that the site allows users to categorize the docs so that other like-minded writers/readers can find it. But probably they don't, unless they're looking for it, or it's somehow viral.

Like most of the rest of the web, there's no editor, so anything can get published--a good and bad thing. I like the idea that you can use it for civic participation like the city of Marion did.

I couldn't get logged on to Zoho with my Google account, so didn't get to explore that one too much.

Why I signed up, part 2

I'm hoping to get more insights about Web 2.0 from this self-directed course. I need to talk about it in my classes, and I'm always looking for new resources to help my students think about the Web.

You know, our students may be "digital natives," but in many ways, they are very naive about Web 2.0. They use it for facebook, shopping, texting, etc., but most are really un-savvy. As I sometimes put it, they are not in the driver's seat! Most of the time, they ask ME questions--me: a digital immigrant! But I have learned to "drive" a bit more--to create blogs, websites, to work with digital video and images, to tweet and use del.icio.us (social bookmarking site). Pretty much they just socialize and shop.

So I don't think we need to be intimidated by our students' seeming "nativeness" on Web 2.0.

Speaking of students, I've challenged my two sons, ages 13 and 15, to do "13 Things" along with us. I told them if they did the assignments (including creating a blog), I'd reward them with a $20 gift card to the store of their choice! We'll see what happens.

My older son is definitely in the driver's seat with Web 2.0. He knows some html code, creates games on the web, has an Opera website, and is pretty savvy. And both my sons occasionally act as my tech support guys!

Learning and Teaching Social Media

I just joined facebook in December, but I started blogging in 2005 when I started my first blog, Tae Kwon Do Mom.

I have a Twitter account, but I don't use a cell phone.

(OK, I own a cell phone, a VERY basic pay-as-you-go Virgin Mobile

but I don't carry it around with me.)

I teach online writing in my journalism class, (here's our latest site!--check out their slideshows and the interactive map of "summer at Coe")

but I read the paper versions of the New York Times and the Gazette every day.I want my Rhetorical students to understand the rhetoric of the web . . . but I also make them read Plato, Aristotle, and Quintilian.So I guess I'm interested in this summer project because Web 2.0 is a big presence in my classes and in my life as a writer.

As you can tell, I use social media and enjoy it--but I also love old-fashioned paper stuff. Also, I'm not always crazy about the changes web 2.0 has brought.

I think having this approach makes non-natives better at thinking critically about web 2.0. We CAN teach digital natives a thing or 2.