Category Archives: Thoughts On

Growing Your Digital Footprint in Graduate School: To Blog or Not to Blog?

Today, I spoke with a group of 15 doctoral candidates from the Media Technology and Society (MTS) program, here at Northwestern School of Communications about building your digital identity as a digital doctoral candidate (i.e., To Blog or Not to Blog!). My advice: listen and converse, but be strategic – about what, with whom, where and in what way, you grow your social capital through the social web.

As a doctoral student you often have many questions that arise throughout your research studies. These include read more »

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The Professional Socialisation of Digital Knowledge & Learning

This week I gave a talk at Northwestern in the School of Communication. Part of my talk was inspired by some of my past work and my evolution in how I consider and see Digital Knowledge and Learning. In this blog post I touch on an element of this story, the professional socialisation of digital knowledge and learning and why ‘social context’ of ‘learning about’ and ‘using’ digital technology, is important in life and therefore in technology research. read more »

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Introducing My Stateside Learning Journey 2010

With my Apple Mac and iPhone as travel companions, I’ve started this weekend the first stage of my Stateside Learning Journey (SLJ). So what is a learning journey? Well, we are all on a learning journey, in life, work and play. However, this is a journey with a specific remit to ‘learning in situ’, visiting institutions on ‘The States’ side of the world (but not just the US), to take part in a digital media learning experience through sharing experiences, thoughts, ideas with scholars, students, people I meet along the way and within myself, through my own critical reflection. read more »

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The Three F’s of Facebook: Having Friends! Developing Friendships! OR Just Being Friendly!

Who are your ‘friends’? Why are they your ‘friends’? And what characterises people as your ‘friends’? I’ve been thinking for a long time about writing a post about ‘friends’ … the word, it’s meanings (so many) and how with digital media (and Facebook) the term ‘friend’ is evolving because of the evolution in the social digital landscape within which we live, breath, work and socialise. In this we ponder how to some ‘friends’ in a digital space, is very different to ‘friends’ we connect with in an offline world! Where as to others the differential is minimal, and their reality is defined not by digital boundaries (online and offline) but by perceptual and emotional ones (values) and for others by physical boundaries (geography). So what do we mean by the term ‘friend’? read more »

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The Educational Value of Academic Publishing

Have you ever wondered the educational value of academic publishing? Wondered how the research we do filters into the classroom? Maybe not! This is not something often discussed and debated in business academia, where the ethos and culture is driven to publish in top-tier academic peer-review (?) journals. However, for some of us, behind closed doors, in secret we are also engage in another publishing activity. An activity not often discussed with high esteem or value by research-driven colleagues, where the words “I’m writing a textbook” seem like sinister words. However, if we really think about the educational value of academic publishing, it is textbooks and the educational resources we develop where a real contribution to knowledge and wider value in education is most certainly felt, not just through journal articles. Here in this blog post I share part of my experience and the view that “writing of good textbooks should be central – not marginal to our HE mission as researchers and teachers”. read more »

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AM Conference 2010: Discovering a New DNA of Marketing Academe

Well this weekend ends a very busy and insightful week. On Monday I made my way to Coventry for the 2010 Academy of Marketing (AM) Conference being hosted by Coventry University Business School. The theme of the conference was ‘transformational marketing’ – the role of marketing in driving organizational, social, community and environmental change. So I was hoping to see a few papers talking about digital media in marketing driving this type of change. read more »

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Digital Media Literacy in Business, Media Management & Marketing

1CEMFHLast week I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon with DK, Mark and Karl from Mediasnackers, facilitating a Business Development workshop for them. At this workshop we discussed the What, How and Why Mediasnackers do what they do. It was a great afternoon, but not only did Mediasnackers walk away with some insights into their evolution, so did I!

The afternoon inspired me to reflect on the very same questions for what I do, the reason I started CASE Insights and found myself leaving the commercial marketing research sector for academic research and teaching. Reflection I haven’t done for a couple of years and given how difficult it can be juggling teaching, research, administration, marking, supervision and life … I thought it was increasingly important to revisit these questions! read more »

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Ada Lovelace Pledge: Prof. Donna Hoffman

Ada Lovelace On the 24th March, we celebrate Ada Lovelace Day. This is a day that recognises the contribution of women in technology and science. It is so named after the world’s first programmer – Ada Lovelace. On this day it is encouraged to post a blog about a women in technology and science we most admire. So who do I most admire? read more »

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DML2010: In reflection!

question-markIn an earlier post at the beginning of DML2010, I recalled a number of questions raised for reflection throughout the conference and from this I added a fourth. However I heed the onus from Sonia Livingstone that perhaps we are asking the wrong questions and from her talk, a number of the questions/statements she raised [that I tweeted] I include here – as reflections from my DML 2010 experience (and no doubt clouded by my own societal and institutional influences). read more »

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DML2010: Sonia Livingstone on Youthful Participation in Digital Media

84782290A few weeks ago while on a visit to the US, I attended the ‘Digital Media Learning‘ conference in San Diego. The closing key note was given by Prof. Sonia Livingstone from London School of Economics (LSE).

The conference itself opened my eyes to a number of things, one important thing is that we need to always remember the interdisciplinary nature of this field. Without an open mind and participation in conversation and sharing, often the perspective from which we approach digital media learning can cloud and sometimes blind us from anothers view of this space. As adults researching this space, our view of the world is very different from those we research and observe – be it child, young adult in HE or those engaged in lifelong learning. But from each other we can certainly share and learn.

Prof. Sonia Livingstone provided one of the best talks I’ve been fortunate to listen to in this space, and like Henry Jenkins and S.Craig Watkins, made me think. From her talk, read more »

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