Chasing Dragons

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 153

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'Digital Delights' curated by Ana Cristina Pratas at scoop.it (an incredibly valuable resource for all things digital in higher education and beyond)

• 'Dr. Seuss' "Yertle the Turtle" Considered Too Political for BC Classroom' by Wendy Stueck at theglobeandmail.com

• 'FY2009-2034 Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap' by the US Department of Defense at www.acq.mil (the next three decades of US military planning in relation to drones)

• 'Who Has the Right to Fly a Drone Above Your Head? Finally, There's a List' by Alexis Madrigal at theatlantic.com (universities are the single largest sector!)

• 'South L.A. Twenty Years Later' by E. Tammy Kim at guernicamag.com

Have a good weekend.

Photo credit: DieselDemon

The (In)Direct Benefits of Blogging and Twitter for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education

A couple of months ago I was asked to make a short presentation at Newcastle University about how my use of blogging and twitter have contributed to my teaching. In some respects this was a difficult assignment. While blogging and twitter offer possibilities for communication, distribution of  materials, and even assessment,I have not used either platform directly for learning and teaching. My initial objectives for these platforms had been in terms of promoting my research and my own research profile. Yet, the more I thought about, the more I realised that this distinction between my online research activities  and teaching and learning was not sustainable. As is the case in the physical lecture theatre, there was considerable cross-over taking place. Here were some of the points I raised in my presentation:

1. Blogging and tweeting have been invaluable in terms of being able to find material that illustrates compelling contemporary examples across media formats for lectures and the seminar room. In particular, one of the benefits of crowd sourcing is the potential to gain access to materials--and sources of material--that one might never find otherwise.
2. Blogging and tweeting have served as archival systems for material that often gets used at a later date for teaching. Moreover, having an active online presence has made me more conscientious about instituting a research radar that helps to me source, record, archive, and redistribute material. I am by no means the most diligent archivist in the world, but I have come a long way from combing through ambiguous bookmarks across several computers...
3.  My areas of research interest are highly politicized and contain sensitive material. In this context, critical positions are prone to being mis-characterized. Blogging has helped in terms of being able to think through how I might present contemporary examples while teaching so that the analysis is accessible, thoughtful, and less likely to be misunderstood.
4. The use of online platforms has also helps in terms of allowing lecturers to appear more human in the eyes of students. We can inadvertently seem like very imposing figures standing at a lectern in front of a room of 250 students. But blogging and twitter can help to reveal what is behind that persona. It has also been valuable in communicating other aspects of the job including the important role of my research with regards to what I teach.
5. I am not a big fan of the word 'community' but I do feel that blogging and twitter can make a contribution to an academic community of lecturers and students in a department. Students who might not otherwise wish to communicate with me have sometimes stopped me in the hall to comment on something that I have blogged or tweeted. In other instances, I have had students email me with things that they thought I might be interest in given a recent blog post or tweet. These lines of informal communication about relevant material that extends beyond the seminar room is a good thing I think.
6. While I have no definite data to back this up, I  think that blogging and tweeting can only help in terms of recruiting undergraduate and postgraduate students in what has become a very competitive market.

Of course, every silver lining has its own cloud. And while I feel that blogging and tweeting have had a positive impact on teaching and learning in my case, there are some caveats that must be taken into account.

1. There is a significant time cost to blogging--though less so with twitter--especially when one is first starting out. Unfortunately, the only thing rarer than money in the current UK higher education environment is time.
2. If you are going to blog or tweet, do it for yourself. Moreover, neither expect or rely upon institutional support for these activities. An online presence is primarily about you, not your institution. It is important to maintain total control over what you do, how you do it, and when you do it rather than having these dictated to you by an employer who may have a very different set of objectives than you do.
3. If I were going to establish an online presence all over again, I would definitely look to blog as part of a collective with colleagues as opposed to trying to maintain a single-author blog as I do now. It can be very time consuming and is often the last thing on my to do list during a typical 60 hour work week. I would still continue to tweet in a personal capacity though.
4. One needs to think very closely about how much one is willing to make public and the barriers that should be maintained with students. For example, I will not follow undergraduates on twitter--as it is often used as a platform to reveal things that are personal-- but I am happy for them to follow me. I am not on facebook for a very similar reason; the line between the personal and professional is very difficult to maintain on that platform for a whole host of reasons.
5. If you are going to directly incorporate online platforms into teaching (e.g., a twitter stream to facilitate asking questions during lectures) or as a form of assessment (e.g., blog posts for a module), not all students are as technically adept as we think they are. Moreover, there is a big step from being a user of content to a creator. 

Photo credit: joehardy

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 152

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• Freely accessible papers from POLITICS, including articles on topics like the democratic potential of mobile phones, the spaces of international political economy, and how to understand an emerging global order...

• 'The Verdict: Is Blogging or Tweeting About Papers Worth It?' by Melissa Terras at LSEimpactblog

• 'The Day Yahoo Decided that I Liked Reading About Child Murder' by Sarah Kendzior at theatlantic.com

• 'CIA Seeks New Authority to Expand Yemen Drone Campaign' by Greg Miller at washingtonpost.com

• 'Britain Destroyed Records of Colonial Crimes' by Ian Cobain, Owen Bowcott, and Richard Norton-Taylor at guardian.co.uk

• 'A Century at the Ballpark' by  Mark Lamster at designobserver.com

Enjoy your weekend!

Image credit: thebard1

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 151

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'Song of the Week: or, Ten Reasons Why Popular Music Helps Teaching Nationalism' by Catherine Baker at her blog

• 'The Art of Writing Proposals' by Adam Pzreworski and Frank Salomon at ssrc.org

• 'Where the Global 1% Live Now' by Richard Florida at theatlantic.com

• 'Oil Powered Thinking' by John Thackara at designobserver.com

• 'The Impact of Economic Blogs-Part I: Dissemination and Part II: Blogging Enhances The Bloggers Reputation' by David Mckenzie and Berk Ozler at development impact  (and Part 2 here)

Photo credit: ritwikdey

Living Through the Apocalypse in Style: The Survival Condo

As usual, the news is replete with stories about economic crises, the possibility of armageddon through nuclear proliferation, irreversible ecological devastation, and species eradicating epidemics. Popular culture has also continued to churn out doomsday scenarios from a dying sun in Danny Boyle's Sunshine  to the zombie apocalypse of the Walking Dead.

Socially, the fear of the end of days, and the concern that the end is nigh, has contributed to the rise of 'preppers', survivalists who are pre-emptively organizing and mobilizing for catastrophic emergencies. And a whole commercial assemblage has arisen alongside the prepping phenomena .

One of the most interesting components of this assemblage is the Survival Condo, a residential real estate development project designed to facilitate five years of 'off-grid' living. Constructed within a former Atlas F missile base, the survival condo:

• offers individual ownership of a residential unit within a superstructure that offers the highest level of physical protection, redundant infrastructure for power, water, air, and food; as well as "shared or common" facilities for extended off-grid survival. This definition also includes the concept of the individual owners forming an "extended family" where everyone shares the responsibilities for group security, operation and maintenance of the facility, new daily functions for education, cross training, aquaponic farming, medical support, and as many other tasks as possible to create the highest quality of life for the "extended family" while operating in "survival mode".

Thus, as the marketing materials state, the survival condo provides '...the coolness of a missile base, the protection of nuclear hardened bunker, and the features of a luxury condo'.

A  couple of perversities strike me here. The first is that the survival condo project is an extreme form of insurance. At the same time, it is also impractical. Unless one lives in the structure permanently or moves close by, the likelihood of reaching the survival condo during a catastrophic emergency is probably slim. The second is a larger order observation that stems from the first. I find how the survival condo project commodifies representations of catastrophe and measures that one can take to mitigate against them extremely interesting. These representations tap into the desires of certain individuals by offering capacity far in excess of what might be necessary for survival. The emphasis on  luxury-- a value that focusses on the appearance of living 'well' --precludes asking an important question:  would one really want to survive a species ending event?

I Am Now An Editor of POLITICS

Along with my colleague Martin Coward, I have recently been named by the UK Political Studies Association as one of the editors of POLITICS. Our editorial team includes Michael Barr, Emily Clough, and Valentina Feklyunina all of whom are serving as Associate Editors. Additional support is being provided by Pete Eckersley who is our Editorial Assistant. We were very pleased to have been awarded editorial stewardship of POLITICS and are keen to building upon the momentum established by the previous editorial team at the University of Glasgow.

The ethos of POLITICS is the dissemination of timely, research-led reflections on the state of the art, the state of the world and the state of disciplinary pedagogy.

We welcome 3 types of articles:

1. Concise discussions of state of the art research in progress. These articles might represent early formulations of hypotheses, preliminary arguments, initial presentations of research findings or critical discussions of the state of the art in a given field.
2. Research-led reflections on contemporary events in politics or international studies. Such articles draw upon – and refer back to – state of the art research in order to reflect on contemporary events.
3. Theoretically informed reflections on the pedagogical challenges of learning and teaching in politics and international studies.

Articles may be either up to 4,000 or up to 6,000 words in length.

Special Issues and/or Sections: We also welcome proposals for special issues and/or sections. Such proposals should include a rationale for publication, abstracts of papers to be included and an indication of an expected delivery date.

 Why publish in POLITICS?

• Publishes timely, research-led reflections on the state of the art and/or contemporary events.
• ISI ranked from 2012.
• Two formats: concise statements of up to 4,000 words; and longer, sustained reflections of up to 6,000 words.
• Encourages submission of articles responding to the pedagogical challenges of learning and teaching in the field of politics and international studies.
• Timely treatment of articles: on average publishing within 6-12 months of submission.
• A large audience: print copies distributed to the entire membership of the PSA, accessible electronically through Wiley Blackwell Online, and available via over 3,500 library subscriptions.
• Online presence to improve impact and engagement.

We are currently offering a considerable amount of free content for a limited time including PSA journal virtual issues and editor's picks.

The journal website is: www.politicsjournal.org

Our twitter feed can be found at: @JournalPolitics

We can be reached via email at: politicsjournal@newcastle.ac.uk

Photo credit: The U.S. Army

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 150

This weekend in the reading roundup:

• 'Game of Thrones as Theory' by Charli Carpenter at foreignaffairs.com (another contribution to the growing legion of work in the 'let's use a cultural artefact to reproduce orthodox understandings of what world politics is and how we can understand world politics' genre...sigh)

• 'Invisible Children Nonprofit Extensively Tied to "The Family"' by Bruce Wilson at talk2action.org

• 'Academic Leadership: Changing Conceptions, Identities, and Experiences in UK Higher Education' by Richard Bolden et al at lfhe.org

• 'Look Back in Hunger: Britain's Silent, Scandalous Epidemic' by Charlie Cooper at indepedent.co.uk

• 'What Fuels the Most Influential Tweets' by Jared Keller at theatlantic.com

Peace.

Photo credt: El Frito

Weekend Reading Roundup v. 149

This week in the reading roundup:

• 'A Short History of Privatisation in the UK 1979-2012 ' by Richard Seymour at guardian.co.uk

• 'The IMF on What Caused the UK's Debt by Duncan Wheldon at touchstoneblog.org

• 'The case for Austerity Amongt the Rich ' by Danny Dorling at ippr.org 

Have a good weekend!

Photo credit: o palsson