Multiplexation

• Deep gamebivalence & getting schooled in discomfort

  27Aug
  Categories: teaching Comments: 0

  A few weeks ago I mentioned that I’d signed up for a Coursera class on gamification. As a result, I’ll probably be sharing a lot of thoughts and comments on the topics of both gamification and MOOC education over the coming weeks.

  The class just started today, and I’ve peeked at a few of the assigned readings and other materials.

  I think this is going to be an enlightening, thought provoking course. The basic notions of gamification aren’t new to me; I’ve been teaching them for a couple of years, and been interested in apps like FourSquare since they first appeared on the scene. But I’m taking this course in recognition of the fact that, a) there’s still a lot I have to learn about the topic, and b) my feelings about gamification are deeply ambivalent.

  I’ve argued both sides of the coin in class, because that’s kind of my job, to get students to think about subjects in ways that feel “weird” or “wrong” to them, entertain different perspectives, and make more informed decisions. Personally, I enjoy FourSquare, although I quit caring about badges and mayorships a while ago. At the same time, I do often pay attention to where I am on the leaderboard of my FourSquare friends, and get annoyed when I realize I’ve forgotten to check into places. Needless wasting of points somehow feels like wasted opportunity. (For what? I couldn’t really say. Some small measure of abstract satisfaction, I guess.)

  But that’s a single app. I confess I haven’t given a whole lot of thought to what a fully “gamified” life might look like. One assigned video forced me into that space, and… I did not like it one bit.

  Sure, it’s nice (I guess) to think that we might leave some kind of legacy of books read, or keep track of our accomplishments and those of our loved ones. There’s a lot of crossover between gamification and personal informatics (also known as the Quantified Self movement), which I find both appealing and a bit scary. I say this as someone who has used the Nike+ running app with great satisfaction (although I ditched it without hesitation for as long as it took me to finish Zombies, Run!)*, is an avid user of Fitocracy and MyFitnessPal, has played around with Epic Win and other personal record keeping/motivational sites and apps. So it’s not as though I’m opposed to gamification, at all, including some of the corporate-sponsored variety.  I’ve even toyed with the idea of developing a points/badge system for classes. I still might.

  But… but… but… the ever deeper penetration of advertising into our daily lives and habits and identities is profoundly disturbing to me.  I’m still working through my thoughts and feelings on this issue. Somehow, I didn’t quite realize that this class was going to force me to confront my biases and closely consider my worldview, but honestly, the fact that it has already done so on the first day tells me that it’s a worthwhile use of my time.

  I’m always telling students that real learning and growth only take place when one steps outside one’s comfort zone. For some reason, though, when it comes to myself, it’s a message I have to be reminded of over and over again. It’s a good lesson in humility, and helps me be more patient with my students, who don’t have nearly as much experience with the benefits of facing their fears or doubts or entrenched convictions head-first as I do. Even I have to wage some internal battles to stay open to new ideas and consider uncomfortable perspectives. A good thing to remember at the start of a new semester, especially.

  Time for some productive discomfort. Bring it on. Maybe I’ll earn a badge for it, in the end.

  *Heh, and as I work my way through the video lectures, the instructor uses Zombies, Run! as an example. He’s a lot more dispassionate than I would be about it, though, since it is absolutely my very favorite mobile app, ever, and a great example of gamification beyond badges and points.

  Tags: gamification, online ed

• Of MOOCs and spooks

  21Jul
  Categories: higher education, pedagogy, teaching Comments: 1

  I mentioned the other day on Google+ that I’d signed up for a class on gamification at Coursera.  I had two reasons: first and foremost, I include a section on gamification in my social media class, and it’s very popular. (It’s also one of my favorite topics to cover–badges and leader boards, what’s not to like, right?) I welcome the opportunity to take a six-week course focusing on the subject, taught by an expert, for free. The more I know and understand about the subject, the better I’ll be able to serve my students.

  Also, I’m curious about this burgeoning world of Massive Open Online Courses (or MOOCs, a rather unfortunate acronym). One of my tasks this fall is to rework the social media class for delivery as an online class, and even though the format is quite different (not to mention the smaller class size–I hope!), I want to see what the experience is like nowadays. I’m hoping to learn a few pedagogical tricks that will help me do my job more effectively.

  Well, it looks as though I signed up for that class just in time for the requisite periodic debate about online education in the Chronicle.

  There are some viable points raised, in both the article and the comments, about assessment and scalability, as well as the need to exercise caution about using technology simply for the sake of novelty. And I agree that it’s worrisome that many institutions seem to be both rushing and flailing their way into online curricula, terrified they’ll miss the train, unsure of whether it will take them where they need to go, and with no idea how to finance the trip (or pay the conductor).

  Okay, enough with the train metaphor.

  But a lot of the discussion surrounding online education typically seems to be driven by knee-jerk reactions against perceived failings that don’t always reflect an understanding of reality. Some people assume that all online or other distance learning is inherently inferior to what takes place in a traditional classroom. The Internet becomes a specter representing the imminent demise of public education, a bogeyman of bits and bytes.

  

  Death image by Mirari Erdoiza

  Data point: I earned my master’s degree online. I was living in Italy, and the only options for an advanced degree in public relations/media were in the United States. I couldn’t relocate, since among other things I had my own business, and for the same reason couldn’t afford lengthy on-site residency sessions that some of the hybrid programs (such as Syracuse) offered at the time. The University of Memphis had one of the first fully-online programs [PDF] in the field, so that’s what I chose.

  We had synchronous classes, scheduled according to the US Central time zone of the university, which meant that I would attend three-hour seminars from, say, 1-4 or 2-5 am my time. Which is why it took me four years rather than the recommended two to complete the degree. Meanwhile, I was running my own business and contracting out as a partner to a local PR agency. To say I was busy would be putting it mildly, but I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.

  Was it worth it? Absolutely. Not all of the instructors were adept at the synchronous online model — remember, this was more than a decade ago — (yikes!), so there was some variety in the level of effectiveness. (One in particular tried to take classroom lectures and deliver them in the chatroom-style format we used. I can tell you there is nothing more mind-numbing than sitting in front of a computer at 2 am, watching a 40-minute lecture appear on your screen, line by line, at 1- to 2-minute intervals.) But I find that’s true of all kinds of classes. Most of the professors I had at UMemphis understood the need for what we now call a “flipped classroom” in that setting, and we had some truly excellent discussions of the material with classmates from all over the world.

  I have never had any reason to doubt the quality of the education I received through that program. As far as I’m concerned I attended an AEJMC-accredited program at a respected university. The online platform was just a different mode of delivery. (An often buggy and unreliable mode of delivery at the time, too, but we rolled with the virtual punches.) I certainly didn’t feel underprepared compared to the other members of my PhD cohort who had attended traditional master’s programs, and my master’s thesis became the foundation for the book I later wrote with Priscilla Murphy.

  Like any other form of education, you get out what you put into it, and I put a lot into it. I’m satisfied. I’m sure many others can say the same.

  Things have come a long way since then, technologically. This advancement has opened up terrific new opportunities to offer high quality educational modules at low cost to a vast number of people. As someone all in favor of more education for everyone, however they can get it, I think this is a great thing. Meanwhile, we also now have well known for-profit institutions that are often conflated with online education in the collective imagination. The lack of accreditation of many of these institutions, and the controversial consumer model that many feel undermines the integrity of traditional higher education, raises doubts in many people’s minds about the value of online courses. Combined with the aching budgets of most public university systems, it’s no wonder people are suspicious that these new programs are just the big box stores of higher ed, designed to deliver the minimum value deemed acceptable by the largest number of consumers for the highest possible profit margin.

  I don’t think online classes are a panacea. For example, I think online PhDs are a terrible idea, because a large part of a doctoral education has to do with socialization into the academic profession through research and teaching assistantships and immersion in the environment. There are also clearly some subjects, such as those requiring a laboratory component, that don’t transfer well to the online format. And as I mentioned above, there are many legitimate hurdles to be dealt with regarding assessment and scale that still need to be worked out. From a faculty perspective, since (so far) these courses are designed and offered separately from the regular campus curriculum, I wonder how universities and/or the MOOC providers are handling compensation, and what sort of recognition (if any) participating faculty gain as a result of providing these courses on behalf of the institution.

  These are all matters that need to be worked out before everyone rushes out to embraceIn any case, I’m keeping an open mind, and looking forward to learning a lot about gamification in a few weeks.

  Tags: futurology, gamification, me as a student, online ed

• Media 2.0: Social Media

  24Mar
  Categories: teaching, Uncategorized Comments: 2

  Yes, that’s a buzzword-y title. (Also: uh, hi. It’s been a while. I’ve been busy.) It’s the official name of a course I’m offering this Fall, on the Tempe campus of Arizona State University. Unlike my classes at the Cronkite School, it’s open to all majors. It’s also capped at 129 students, so there’s plenty of room.

  In the course catalogue, the description reads simply, “Covers topics of immediate or special interest to a faculty member and students,” which doesn’t really say much. So I thought I’d post some more details about what I have planned. Not a syllabus (yet), just a statement of intent, so to speak. If you’re an ASU student looking for an elective, think about MCO494! I’m very excited to have the opportunity to really explore the world of social media from a variety of perspectives.

  The short and snappy description, if you’re in a hurry, is this:

  This class will explore and critically analyze the social, cultural, legal, ethical, economic, and technological dimensions of social media tools from Facebook to FourSquare, Twitter to Flickr, and beyond.

  More detail after the cut.
  Read more »

  Tags: social media, teaching, Web 2.0

• Sites and resources for teaching with social media

  02Mar
  Categories: teaching Comments: 0

  Today I gave a brownbag talk about using social media in the classroom. I focused not on why people might use these tools for teaching, but on the how, since I think having a good understanding of the latter can help answer the former. And I have no ambitions of being a social media evangelist–there are plenty of situations in which other tools are not only available, but do the job better.

  Of course, in the case of teaching in journalism, public relations, mass communication, and related fields, sometimes part of the purpose is to make students aware of what tools are out there, and give them some practice using these tools in appropriate ways. In this case, instructors sometimes find themselves working outside their comfort zone, since they may not be familiar or entirely comfortable with (or convinced of the utility of) certain forms of social media. Even though I’ve spent lots of time online in the past *cough* years (okay, fine, let’s just say more than a decade), I still don’t know everything that’s out there, and I have my personal preferences.

  My presentations don’t lend themselves well to Slideshare, since I use very little text and prefer to fill in most of the content orally. So it’s difficult for me to share everything I discussed. However, I’m happy to post the contents of the handout I gave, which has some sites and resources about social media in general, a few specific to journalism or public relations, and a couple specific to educators. Hopefully there’s something useful in here, anyway. I’ve also tossed in a few sites I mentioned or showed in the presentation but didn’t include in the handout.

  Note: I do talk a little about directionality as one of the criteria for assessing a social media tool, and deciding whether and how to use it. The terms I use are familiar to most public relations scholars, but might seem strange to others. In particular, people often struggle with the difference between two-way symmetrical and two-way asymmetrical modes of communication. In brief, asymmetrical communication takes place when people can give feedback, for example in the form of comments on a photo or blog post, but it’s difficult to engage in real back-and-forth dialogue. Blogs that offer threaded comments make symmetrical communication more likely, although what really takes place depends entirely on the people involved. I think one-way and multi-way communication are pretty self-explanatory.

  So, here’s the list of resources:

  Read more »

  Tags: social media, teaching

• Making it work: PR and… that other PR

  20Jan
  Categories: teaching Comments: 2

  Today is the first day of class, so I’ll be meeting a whole new crop of students. Some of them will probably be a little nervous, either because they are naturally overachievers and are always nervous about new classes, or maybe they’ve heard rumors about what a tough class this is. (Maybe they’re even nervous because they’ve heard rumors about me, but I neither confirm nor deny any of those.)

  I make no secret, starting on the first day, about the demands they’ll be facing in this course. It’s their senior capstone, so it’s supposed to be challenging. Bringing together knowledge and skills in an applied project, working with a group, learning to analyze cases and think about theory and practice, meeting regularly with clients, trying to come up with proposals that are both creative and viable, managing client expectations, keeping up with the reading, maintaining the class blog… it’s a lot to handle. Especially when you factor in their other classes and, for many of the students, jobs and internships, maybe even family demands. Plus the fact that most are in their final semester, busy applying for jobs or grad school or trying to figure out what to do when they suddenly find themselves college graduates in May.

  One way I try to help them understand why the course is designed this way, and how it is intended to help prepare them for their professional careers (and frame it in a much less frightening way than I did in the paragraph above) is to compare it to another PR: Project Runway. I’m not (too) ashamed to admit my love for this show, and I think it has a lot to teach anyone who hopes to work in a field that combines the creative and the practical. To wit:

  Read more »

  Tags: PR campaigns, public relations, teaching

• Tweaking the campaigns course

  14Jan
  Categories: teaching Comments: 1

  Once again this semester, I’m teaching two concurrent sections of Public Relations Campaigns. I’m in the process of changing the course a bit, though, trying to better adapt it to the changing PR landscape. Since this class is the capstone for seniors majoring in public relations, I want to do everything I can to prepare them for a professional career.

  In my view, part of doing that means shifting the emphasis away from media-based campaigns. I continue to be surprised at how many students come into the class thinking that press releases, media kits, and a Blackberry full of journalists’ contact info represent the core of their future career. This capstone course is my last chance to shake them free of this idea. At the same time, they definitely need to come out of this class knowing how to research, develop, and evaluate a strategic plan. There is only so much time in a semester to give them the conceptual and methodological tools they need, practice dissecting campaigns to figure out what does and doesn’t work, expose them to enough examples to remind them just how vast a territory is covered by this field, continue their socialization into the profession, and coach teams as they work on their specific client projects. It’s a delicate balance. I push them hard, because I know I’m doing them a favor that way, but even so there are objective limits on how much you can do.

  I’m still fine-tuning the syllabus (and probably will be right up until Tuesday morning before the first class), but I think the course description now says everything I want it to. Read more »

  Tags: PR, PR campaigns, syllabus, teaching

• Evolution of the class blog

  24Dec
  Categories: teaching Comments: 8

  (Note: There is something wonky going on with the formatting here, and I can’t figure it out. I’m sure it has something to do with the CSS.)

  Last semester, students in my Public Relations Campaigns class were responsible for maintaining a class blog on trends and issues in PR. The main goal of the assignment was to allow them to get their feet wet in social media, encourage them to read a variety of PR blogs, gain experience writing in a format unfamiliar to most of the students, and provide a forum in which they could discuss professional topics. I taught two sections of the course, and each section was broken into teams for their larger client projects. Teams from both sections contributed to the blog, which was also a way for them to interact amongst themselves despite being in different classes.

  I didn’t provide many guidelines for the assignment, since my main purpose was to get them writing, and I didn’t want us to get bogged down in rules. Teams were required to post once a week, and individual students to comment on at least two posts by other teams. They were required to include at least one link, preferably to a public relations blog, and to explain the significance of their chosen topic to public relations. That was basically it. As a result, the quality of the posts was uneven, but at the end of the semester most of the students noted that they had enjoyed the assignment and learned a lot from it.

  Next semester, the assignment is going to change considerably. For one thing, we are in the process of creating a microsite for our PR program within the larger school web site, and the student blog will be featured content. This greater visibility means that readership is likely to be wider, bringing in casual visitors to the site, potential students, local practitioners, and others. Furthermore, due to recent curriculum changes, more students coming into the class are likely to have a basic understanding of the mechanics of blogging and some experience with maintaining at least a personal site. And finally, although I incorporated plenty of social media into the course last semester, this time around I want to make sure that SM practices are even more deeply embedded into the course content and assignments. Somewhat paradoxically, I’m convinced that doing so will help prevent some of the “have hammer, will find nail” effect that leads students to attempt to incorporate social media strategies and tactics into their campaigns in ways that don’t really suit the client’s goals and objectives.

  Since I try to give very detailed explanations of my assignments, outlining both the purpose and my expectations, I’ve been working on the assignment sheet for the new and improved class blog. What better place to look for feedback than among fellow PR bloggers? Details of the assignment are tucked away below, and your input is welcome.
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  Tags: public relations, social media, teaching

• Pearls of wisdom

  12Dec
  Categories: teaching Comments: 2

  The semester is winding to a close. This afternoon, my students will give their final presentations to an auditorium audience of classmates, clients, local PR professionals, and the occasional person who just happens to wander in. I’m very excited for them: I’ve seen the proposals and practice presentations, and I am looking forward to hearing feedback from clients and others.

  Meanwhile, on the last day of class I asked them to write down, on index cards I provided, three pieces of advice to next semester’s students. I promised them that I would pass on all of their tips, although I reserve the right to point out bits that are ill advised or incorrect. Many of the recommendations were repetitive, and underscore things I’ve said myself–although I suspect they will carry more weight coming from students who have been through the class. Some of the comments are wise, some amusing, some downright worrisome or simply baffling. Here, for your edification, is the complete collection of tips on what you should know if you ever find yourself in my Campaigns class, according to this semester’s students:

  Read more »

  Tags: PR campaigns, PR Students, teaching