learning and teaching

Some limitations in the Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy model

I keep seeing this retweeted and it’s doing my head in a bit. It’s a derivation from Bloom’s Taxonomy, which I guess every teacher (certainly every HE teacher) has come across if they’ve done a teaching qualification. The diagram maps Web 2.0 tools onto types of learning outcomes, to show which tool

erdington

The sad thing about the Compton case: it provides another reason for politicians to fear the Internet

BCU MA Events and Exhibition Management student Sammy Williams is working on a project to encourage Birmingham’s councillors to engage more readily with citizens through social media; the Gareth Compton case is another huge hurdle for her to get over.  That’s the really sad thing at the heart of thi

b23

The problem with Erdington politics

Politics in Erdington ward is broken, and not wholly for the reason that you might be expecting if you’ve been following the story about Cllr Gareth Compton‘s (Erdington, Cons) back firing attempt at humour. The reason Erdington politics is broken is that there is no real choice, and there is little

bcmcr

Tried by a jury of my peers

Today I gave a presentation to our weekly research seminar at Birmingham Centre for Media & Cultural Research. The seminars are a great example of the support structures for research that we have created within the centre over the past year. They provide a forum for centre members to share their wor

generations

On the printing of photos

This tweet reminded me of something that amused me (I’m easily pleased). It was my son’s 1st birthday last month, one of those occasions where all generations get together. We’re fortunate enough to have four generations of my wife’s family still with us. A great aunt gave my sister-in-law her digit

birmingham

The nearest thing you’ll get to ubiquitous WiFi in Birmingham UK

This is what my Wi-Fi looks like. Off and on I’ve thought about spending a whole week laptop working in Birmingham’s city centre, to try to get a feel for how well we provide WiFi coverage. And then you know, document it. I kinda don’t need to now. This is a Starbucks “reward” card. Don’t… Continue

masocialmedia

Who are the social capitalists?

Regular readers of this blog and interactive cultures will have picked up that I have a preoccupation with social capital. So you won’t be surprised to learn that when I met up with the new intake on the MA Social Media for the first time this year, social capital was the key thing I wanted to discu

Sometimes it really does pay to RTFM

I bought an Apple magic trackpad yesterday, and I’ve been driving myself and some of my Apple Fanboy colleagues round the bend trying to work out why it wasn’t doing something very fundamental. One of the key things that I need the trackpad to do is wake my MacBook Pro from sleep in closed clamshell

fail

Dear Microsoft, I fixed your social marketing campaign for you

Last week JJ & I stumbled across the Hamburg leg of the Kinect Tour – a Roadshow to promote the new Xbox motion control games system “Kinect” (formerly Project Natal). We impressed by the tech, but less impressed by Microsoft’s attempt to add social media to the experience. It actually works   First

linkedin

LinkedIn has a language problem that is actually meaningless. So get over it.

Folk I know, particularly I’m thinking here of folk best described as “social media types”, are a bit sniffy about LinkedIn (direct link to my profile). I wonder if it’s stuff like this that puts them off? The capture below is a box I get when adding someone to my network on Linkedin. Before I can a

digital culture

Apple keynote events: the Macguffin of mythinformation

Tonight saw the latest Apple “Special Event”, and the launch of some new shiny kit and software from Cupertino. This seems a timely opportunity to plug a project I’ve helped out on for Sage publishing.  CommunicationSpace is an online community space for the discussion of media and communication res

conference

I’ve been away. I have people to take my photos for me.

Thanks to Ana, Dubber and JJ, I didn’t have to lift a finger to document my week in Hamburg. Here’s a week in other peoples’ pictures: Hamburg, Ecrea 2010 – by Ana, and by Dubber and by Jennifer. Thanks you guys for amping my shit and building my frand 😉  I owe you all a pain au chocolate. SHARE

conference

The laptop is the new suitcase

I’m sat with JJ waiting to fly home after a successful week’s conferencing. All week she’s been hunting for a sticker that sums up her trip. She just pointed out “laptops are the new suitcases” – the image of a suitcase covered in labels from far flung places has been replaced for a lot of travellin

conference

My paper to ECREA conference – further reading

The following are papers, chapters, and web pages I touch on today in my paper What’s the hash tag? Folksonomy, brand, and control: organising and owning conversations on Twitter at ECREA’s 2010 conference in Hamburg. SHARE THIS: * Share * * Twitter [https://theplan.co.uk/my-paper-to-ecre

TV liveblogging – Taggers & Non-Taggers

I’ve just been re-reading The Emerging Viewertariat: Explaining Twitter Responses to Nick Griffin’s Appearance on BBC Question Time byNick Anstead & Ben O’Loughlin. If you’re interested at all in TV and the ever popular trend to liveblog it, it’s worth a read. I just wanted to pick out a section abo

Schrödinger’s big shop

Apparently an ASDA big shop costs me £5 less than a big shop at other supermarkets. How’s that now? I buy what I buy at the shop based on a number of factors: What I need What I want What I see that I think I want What I see that I remember that I… Continue reading Schrödinger’s big shop [https://th

Our tech team are tweeting @BSMtechsupport

A nice little idea from Birmingham School of Media’s technician team: they’ve started tweeting updates about their work and news about support services around the University. The account is fairly new so hasn’t had much traffic but here’s what’s good about it: 1. A lot of our students use Twitter, o

hyperlocal

Why hyperlocal “fail” is sometimes actually hyperlocal “win”

I’ve just read an article called “5 reasons your local blog will fail” (http://www.pbs.org/idealab/2010/09/5-mistakes-that-make-local-blogs-fail259.html ). It’s an interesting read but it assumes profit as the only way to benchmark success of a local blog and it assumes advertising as being the way

Social media job descriptions and interviews

This week I’ve asked my Twitter contacts for help. I need copies of job descriptions for creative industries jobs (basically design for web & print) for a class exercise coming up in a month or so. I didn’t get that much feedback (but thanks to the folk who retweeted and who did write to me).… Conti

Reading the Reader’s Digest Prize Draw mailer

💡Update, April 2025: a footnote at the bottom of this post explained that it was a draft post for the Doing Media Studies blog. That blog doesn't exist anymore. It was a support site for the Long & Wall Media Studies text book; many members of staff at

rant

Right UK PLC, it’s time you helped us out with this Income Tax error thing

One of many sofas I won’t be buying for a while – pic CC sosylvie There’s a problem in the UK’s income tax system which means millions of Brits have underpaid their tax, some by several thousand pounds. While people should certainly pay the right amount of tax, retrospectively taxing people and expe

creative commons

Free up your flickr images – relicense everything as Creative Commons

It’s nice to see your work used by other people – to illustrate a blog post, as part of a presentation, or maybe even printed out and hung on a wall. Yet a lot of people lock folk out from using their work by restricting usage when by slapping a restrictive copyright notices on it.… Continue reading

apps

Supersize me – how much would it cost to upgrade all of your freemium services?

Freemium is a popular business model for web apps and online services. The idea is pretty simple (and a touch obvious): offer a great product that people want to use, and let them have it for free; charge a fee to the small proportion of the users who need it to do just a little more.… Continue read

howto

RSS without the faff (Safari on a mac and iPhone)

Amongst other things, RSS is a great way to follow websites without remembering to go back and check them all the time. For example say you want to know when I’ve written something. Rather than coming to my website, you can use RSS to make it come to you, every time I update it. There… Continue read

howto

If you’re Reading this I’ve downgraded my phone to iOS3

iOS4 was fun wasn’t it? I could zoom when taking photographs, and tell people what I was reading instead of what I was Reading. But when you’re phone crashes out from Safari every time you load it, and when there’s a 30 second delay between key strokes on your keyboard, it’s time to either get… Cont