Tech Lore

I read a great article this week called Brainjunk and the killing of the internet mind . The article author Danny Crichton talks about the importance of filling our brains with healthy, fulfilling content. It's so easy to find ourselves scrolling, giving into the content junk that fuels that dopamine cycle. Addiction to social media is a real issue that plagues users of all ages. Crichton calls on us to treat our media consumption like we should treat our diet: lower quantity, higher quality. This article really got me thinking about the importance of appropriate technology use. While reading about media and content I came across a quiz about smartphone compulsion. I opened the quiz with a lot of confidence because I don't feel like I'm a slave to my smartphone by any means. Sure, it's the first thing I reach for in the morning. A quick email check, social media scroll, and read a little news. And okay, it's usually the last thing I look at when I go to bed, when...

It is clear that social media has surpassed traditional media in terms of reaching, engaging, and informing (or misinforming) a massive global audience. I solidified my place on the Millennial spectrum by growing up in the 90s. We had a front row seat to the evolution of social media. MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, blogging, Reddit... they all came to be during our formative years. But now the digital footprint is growing so monstrous that even a somewhat savvy Millennial such as myself struggles to stay hip. I had to ask my Gen Y student worker what a streak on Snapchat is the other day, and I'll admit it pained me. I've dabbled in Twitter before but never given it much time or effort. Ordinarily, I would just play around with the program until I was comfortable with it. There is a lot of trial and error in that though... emphasis on the error. That kind of reckless behavior is what led me to accidentally like a 68 week old pic on Instagram as I was trying ...

Copyright can be tricky to navigate. The fair use exception can be particularly misleading because we often assume it's synonymous with "in the clear." Basically, fair use allows for the unlicensed use of copyrighted works in some circumstances. The fair use doctrine is a legal framework (like the ones here or here ) used by the courts to evaluate whether some unlicensed use of copyrighted material should be permitted or not. But it's crucial to recognize that fair use isn't clear cut rules. It's a complex set of case laws that are used to decide where and when the courts ruled cases as copyright infringement or not. These determinations are then used to put together guidelines like the one at Stanford , so students and teachers can refer to them and decide if something is fair use. Following the guidelines doesn't necessarily guarantee you are in the safe zone, though. Going to court and winning is the only way to prove that. These topics bring up so...

Social media gets a bad rap.  Narcissistic tweens posting filtered selfies with excessive hashtags. Fitness fiends hawking FitTea and spamming your feed with the dreaded #belfie. Political warzone in your Facebook timeline, rampant cyber bullying in the comment section, public shaming on Twitter. It’s enough to make any self-respecting adult think twice before Agreeing to Terms and entering the social media world. But social media doesn’t have to be negative. It can be a wonderful tool with positive learning outcomes. Social media is empowering to students, teachers, and parents alike, allowing the transfer of information in new and accessible ways. We can use social media to build a new sense of community and encourage collaboration. Students are turning to social media to share success stories, find opportunities in their field, and collaborate on projects with other students near and far. Students don’t need to be convinced of the value of social media in educat...

There are 10 of us reading this article right now. But in just a few minutes, only 2 of us will still be reading. On average, users only read about 20% of your blog... and that is a generous number based off the research out there about reading on the Web. So how do you hook users? How do you keep them reading to the end? A lot of blogs recommend a great hook. Some of the blogs I read even used a pretty good hook to talk about great hooks. None of them seemed to grasp that elusive great hook though. And what makes a great hook anyways? No one could truly nail down that concept either. Besides, even with the best hook , you're still looking at a maximum 28% user reading . That's pretty high stakes writing, even for the Web stratosphere. I spent a lot of time trying to craft that great hook for this post. Way too much time for the 2 people still reading it... no offense, you two. A more realistic approach to garnering a respectful readership is to use the one thing we...

Over the next six weeks, I will be using this blog to catalog a variety of trends and technologies impacting higher education. As the demands in education change to meet the needs of a constantly evolving economic landscape, technology creates new opportunities to support those changes. I'll be exploring and writing about some of these tools and technologies here during this Instructional Technology HRD course at Idaho State University. Be sure to stop back by to see what exciting tech lore I've come across...