New Media Studies

Here is our entire presentation, successfully recorded live on Ustream. My part of the presentation lasts about 15 minutes, and I come on at about 119:15. No buffering required!

Curriculum based education was a hot topic Thursday night. Should schools adhere to a curriculum or should they turn laissez-faire and let the students frolic? I have some personal insights to throw out. But first let’s whip out the dictionary. There are two etymological roots for “curriculum” listed at dictionary.com:

• Origin: 1625–35; < L: action of running, course of action, race, chariot, equiv. to curr(ere) to run + -i- -i- + -culum -cule²
• Latin, course, from currere, to run; see current

Our two common denominators here are “course” and “running” as in a track course that one would run on. Reconnect this with curriculum based education. Should we systematically train students on a track course or should we let them run free on the open terrain? If the conceit of running to learning is accurate, let the student run in every way. Train it on the track and follow it through the field.

The track and the open terrain are different environment and each serve a difference purpose. The track is measurable, level, optimized and monotonous. On it a runner can easily set a goal and measure its progress. The open terrain is less predictable and poses more of a challenge with the wind, rain, sun, and bumpy grounds. It can definitely be more exciting than a track and makes a runner more adaptable as opposed to optimized.

This is basically a parallel for conservative education vs. liberal education. Each has its advantages, but determining which is better for you depends on your goals. For me, both are necessary. I have a destination both as a runner and as a student, but I also want to see what else is out there. I have goals that I reach and raise both as a runner and as a student, but I also want to round my body and mind in other ways, too. I try both to be a quick sprinter and a strong jogger and to be a logician and an innovator.

Be all. That’s the surest way to know all.

Yup, it’s time for a blog break. There’s always something interesting to review in the Internet world, but it’s time I focused all my New Media brain power on this project for a while. So, Serena, I give you permission to critique the culture and linguistics of I Can Has Cheezburger. In the mean time, I’m going to figure out how to really cultivate intellectual discourse on the Internet. I’ll report back in a few days or so.

AddThis.com has two nice little widgets that combine 34 bookmarking services and 22 RSS feed services into single buttons, perfect for “Web2.0 Social Media Optimization.” I’ll provide an example:

There is also a WordPress edition which includes a plugin and a conveniently integrated drop-down menu.

Alright. I’ve written my first Newsvine article, Cultivating intellectual discourse on the Internet. This is largely in response to the aforementioned article. I added a huge chunk of my Urbis post to the second half of my article, but the article in toto is a lot more detailed. I encourage you to please read the article, give feedback via Newsvine comments and vote if you really like it. That’ll help move it “up the ‘Vine.”

So far I’m impressed with Newsvine. It manages to weed out the spammers by having all new members prove their worth, which I am trying to do now. People have incredible insights posted, and its reputation system is almost exactly what I have been looking for. Check out its Leaderboard to see what statistics they choose to measure.

I’ve been perusing Newsvine. The “Leaderboard” seemed to be a good place to see what other Newsviners like to read. One particular opinional, The Revolution Will Not Be Socialized — The Homogenization of Social Media by Killfile, caught my full attention.

Some see Web 2.0 socialization as nothing but a mindless faux pas, a metropolis for the masses to win their fifteen kilobytes of fame. Killfile makes a cogent argument for the case with a powerful clinch.

In seeking to be truly democratic, these networks relegate themselves to a perpetuity of side-line status, never serious or significant enough to eclipse edited, moderated, and regimented media for more than a fleeting moment.

This is precisely the reason why it is so important to develop a new system of online communication. In its present stage, the internet nearly in anarchy. Anything is utterable. One could even get away with libel in most situations. Don’t get me wrong, though; the nature of open online socialization allows for boundless expression. This is good. But some other issues to consider are productivity, informative accuracy and depth. For instance, it pains me to see such valuable social systems like commenting be reduced to a conduit for depthless, fallacious attacks against other users when the discussion is controversial.

No, Killfile. There is still hope for the internet, even in its current condition, to exist as a means for people to share rich information. And we are headed in the right direction. Newsvine is but a step closer to the ideal intellectual forum. The Urbis economic concept would be a critical addition. Once we can piece together exactly what system would foster intelligent conversation, whether it is controlling how user reputation is portrayed or what rewards are given to quality contributions, the internet culture will evolve into a swifter, more perceptive beast.

Once again, another webgem has surfaced. Newsvine is a completely user-controlled news website. It encompasses many of the characteristics of a self-efficiency that I am interested in studying, especially those of bound structure social networking. Newsvine works like a blog in that users create a profile and post an entry. In this case, entries are expected to function like news articles rather than personal logging. Right now what interests me most with regard to the class is the system used for developing reputation, which focuses on how many users “follow” one another rather than how users arbitrarily “rate” one another. Very interesting stuff.

 You can follow my Newsvine activity at http://mooreblogs.newsvine.com or you can subscribe to my RSS. Alongside this, I will be exploring Urbis as well. I already own an Urbis account, but it will be interesting to study the website under a new frame of thought.