Yesterday, Brian Russell (audioactivism.org) spoke to my blogging seminar about podcasting. His talk discussed a number of topics including the use of podcasting for activism, not journalism. I, however, was most interested in his discussion of media literacy which describes the ability to understand the the structure and presentation of content in mass media. This is clearly a very important skill for an informed public in an age with so many different types of media. I certainly see this as highly related to information literacy. While librarians train patrons to evaluate information on the web and in print media, it seems that the evaluation of audio/visual forms of mass media, such as TV, are often left out of information literacy curricula designed for college and adult students. I am not sure if school media specialist’s are trained to teach these skills to students. One important aspect of media literacy seems to be empowering individuals to understand how mass media communications are created and designed to influence viewers. I think all too often librarians, myself included, focus too much on how users can evaluate the end product and don’t go into enough detail on how websites or journals are actually created. Stepping back and examining the structure of something can often add a deeper level of understanding. For example, learning algebra adds an additional layer of meaning to simple arithmetic. Brian will be podcasting the entire discussion soon and I will add a link then.
Author: Michael C. Habib
The 2005 Ig Noble Prizes were awarded last night
I may just have to dig up a few of these papers. The winners and their accomplishments are listed here and the video of the awards ceremony is here.
New report: “The Responsive PhD: Innovations in U.S. Doctoral Education”
The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation released a report (.pdf) today offers a number of ideas for reforms. Its 80 pages, so I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. Some key points highlighed in the press release are:
more robust support for interdisciplinary scholarship; training that prepares Ph.D. candidates to teach in many settings and apply their expertise beyond the academy; better recruitment and retention of doctoral students of color (a theme addressed more fully in the June 2005 companion report, Diversity and the Ph.D.); and dynamic connections between Ph.D. programs and the corporate, government, and nonprofit sectors.
Update: Leslie Burger’s visit and the Kerouac scroll
Thank you very much to the Graduate and Professional Student Federation for their generous sponsorship of this event. Interestingly, their site is a Wiki. Maybe it was good luck that Jimmy Wales was visiting when they made their decision. Thank you also to all the other folks who helped in this process.
We have also gotten confirmation on when her flight will be arriving which makes it possible to continue with planning the details of her visit. It looks like she will be arriving in time to have the brown bag lunch that we hoped to have for students that can’t make the talk.
One of the places we hope to show her while she is here is the scroll that Jack Kerouac typed On the Road on. The scroll will be on display as part of a display at the Melba Remig Saltarelli Exhibit Room on the third floor of Wilson Library until mid-December. The press release for the event can be read here.
Jimmy Wales visit to my virtual communities seminar
Jimmy Wales visited my class this morning. I learned a lot about the way conflict has been managed on the U.S. version of Wikipedia. One topic of discussion was how the communities of different language versions have developed different methods for mediating conflict. It makes sense, but I hadn’t thought of that. Jimmy admitted to having little direct knowledge of how some languages are managing these issues because he can’t read many of them himself. This is good news when considering the sustainability of the project once he leaves. It was very interesting to hear his thoughts on issues of control and how the Wiki model is very different in this respect from many other models for social software. I definitely need to do some more research into the theory underlying the Wiki model. One funny thing I found out about was the Guerilla UK spelling campaign. Fortunately, I just discovered that their is a counter campaign. Had I known sooner that my nation’s honor (not honour) was at stake, I might have become a more active user!