[Air-L] digital literacy takes a field trip to a farm

[Nicole B Ellison]

Hi,
I'd love to see more discussion of teaching on the list! I haven't done any 
logging-off activities to date, although it's a great idea especially with a 
population like undergrads in SF. The closest I've done:
1. Last spring I had my MA students keep a diary of their media use (which 
medium, who communicated with, what about, etc.) and then write a short 
paper analyzing the patterns that emerged. This was done as part of a 
research project Caroline Haythornthwaite and Lori Kendall were (are?) doing 
and they did a virtual "guest lecture" as well. Students enjoyed it although 
complained it was too time-consuming.
2. In my large undergraduate class on the social impacts of new media, on 
the first day I put the students into small groups and have them discuss 
what media (including f2f) they would use to accomplish various tasks and 
why. The tasks are things like: Lie to a professor about reason for missing 
an exam, give bad news to a family member, apply to a job you found listed 
on the net, etc. Then we debrief as a group: each group tells the class what 
they would do and why, and I link it to research and theory (CMC and 
otherwise) as a preview of the kinds of things we'll be learning about. (For 
instance, with the deception case, they will probably bring up non-verbals 
which of course lends itself to discussions of emoticons, SIP, deception and 
technology, gender-bending etc etc.) This has worked very well for me - 
students really get into it and it's a nice way to set the stage for the 
class in terms of student participation and academic content.
Nicole 

 


David M Silver writes: 

> aoir folk, 
> 
> late last week, i posted a message to air-l (msg title: "digital
> literacy takes a field trip to a farm") in which i suggested that barry
> wellman may have a "hissy fit" about the contents of the message. as
> barry notes in his reply to the list ("msg title: "hissy fit?") my tone
> was uncalled for and for that i apologize. 
> 
> i've been subscribed to air-l from the start, back in 2001, and for the
> most part the list has been interesting and engaging and useful. from
> time to time, flamewars develop, which are usually a drag, and i hope my
> post doesn't contribute to such an outcome. 
> 
> for the record, in his reply, barry mentions one of my blog posts (msg
> title: "barry wellman, that ain't right";
> http://silverinsf.blogspot.com/2007/10/barry-wellman-that-aint-right.html
> ), in which i question barry's attempt to stop a conversation on air-l
> about race. i strongly believe this field - as well as all academic
> fields, but *especially* this field since it is so new and young and
> can, conceivably, develop in directions we decide to take it - benefits
> greatly from conversations about cultural difference (race, gender,
> sexuality, age, disability, and class) and thought it was wrong of barry
> to thwart such a conversation. i not apologize for the blog post - and
> encourage all of us to work hard to make our list and conferences
> exciting, vital places for discussion, research, and teaching about
> cultural difference and digital media. 
> 
> my real mistake, however, was to direct attention towards barry wellman
> and away from what my post was about - about teaching internet studies
> and digital literacy, about encouraging students (and ourselves) to log
> off for extended periods of time, about sharing some learning
> experiences my students and i had while on a magical organic farm, and
> about asking others to share their teaching/learning experiences. 
> 
> so, with that in mind, i express my apologies to barry and to the list
> and extend an invitation for folks to post and share more about teaching
> internet studies in general and introducing logging off activities in
> particular. 
> 
> thanks, 
> 
> david silver
> http://silverinsf.blogspot.com 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> 
>> Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 07:38:00 -0400
>> From: Barry Wellman <wellman at chass.utoronto.ca>
>> Subject: [Air-L] hissy fit?
>> To: aoir list <air-l at aoir.org>, David Silver <dsilver at u.washington.edu>
>> Message-ID: 
>>
>> 
>> 1. Despite David Silver's astonishing assertion, I have no 
>> recollection of
>> objecting to teaching-oriented posts to this list. I, too, teach (and
>> Internet-Society to boot, and I welcome learning more about 
>> teaching the
>> subject. 
>> 
>> 2. I do object to gratuitous personal attacks on the AoIR list, 
>> such as
>> David Silver saying I will have a "hissy fit". I don't know where 
>> it has
>> come from, as David Silver and I have not had any contact for many 
>> months.And the last time was when David launched another gratuitous 
>> personalattack on me -- on his blog. 
>> 
>> 3. I don't know where Dr Silver's animus stems from. For the 
>> record, I
>> have not had anything do with any administrative or scholarly matter
>> involving him. 
>> 
>> 4. I wouldn't have thought it was necessary, but I ask AoIR leaders to
>> remind list members to avoid personal attacks on each other. 
>> 
>> Barry Wellman 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________________________________
>>  S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology, FRSC              NetLab Director
>>  Department of Sociology                        University of Toronto
>>  725 Spadina Avenue, Room 388                  Toronto Canada M5S 2J4
>>  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman            fax:+1-416-978-3963
>>  Updating history:     http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
>>         Elvis wouldn't be singing "Return to Sender" these days
>>            **** PLEASE NOTE NEW ADDRESS AND FAX NUMBER ****
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