Reflections on Technology, Media & Culture
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Flipped classroom 102: What a performance!
What’s it like to deliver lectures online? This year we pre-record 11 one hour lectures. Eight of these were recorded via HD video on a smartphone — roughly one hour in length divided into 10-20 minute segments. These were recorded in a range of locations, some out doors, and with some relevant film excerpts from YouTube and … Continue reading
Enter title here
Titles matter. I stumbled across an interesting web site with advice about titling your talks. The advice also applies to headings for essays, articles, books, blogs, podcasts, etc. Olivier Mitchell writes that in order to create a title “that gets people flocking to your session,” it ought to do at least one of the following (1) … Continue reading
The death of a public life
You can be excused for thinking that social media presents imperfect insights into human nature. US political comedian Bill Maher excoriated the public personas social media users present online — their polite, politically correct, family-friendly, “prissy” avatars, whose great “super power” is that they remember birthdays! “If you want to know who someone really is … Continue reading
Rogue fan fiction: the peculiar case of QAnon
QAnon is the alias of an entity (i.e an individual or a group) that claims to be an operative within the US Intelligence Service. The entity works undercover and discloses tantalising facts about how the US military brought Trump into power to overcome the Deep State. The Deep State is that clandestine and pernicious organisation … Continue reading
Cooperation and complicity
The Barras is a market in Glasgow that is (or was) notorious as a site for hustlers. It attracts both bargain hunters and spectators. Ten years ago a group of us conducted a study of the area, mainly to consider its soundscape. On more than one visit we observed a familiar scenario involving the sale … Continue reading
Signs in architecture and music
Architecture is an art of signs. C.S. Peirce introduced the idea of the sign vehicle, that encourages the architectural scholar to think beyond standard architectural elements as channels of communication. The communicative elements of a building are not restricted to components such as columns, chimneys, windows, staircases, and doors, but the aspects and qualities of … Continue reading
What is nature for?
Nature means different things to different people. The meaning depends on the context of discussion and action. According to geographers Phil Macnaghten and John Urry in their book Contested Natures, nature has to be negotiated. So we are entitled to ask what nature is for — as a concept. I’ve identified at least two main discursive uses of the … Continue reading
The great debate debate
The European Commission is hosting debates around Europe at the moment: “Citizens’ Dialogues, in the style of town-hall debates, are taking place across the EU. Feel free to come along – it’s ‘first come, first served’!” Dialogue is good, but is debate always the best model for promoting public engagement? When I was in primary … Continue reading
Shakespeare on nature
There’s not much in Shakespeare that extolls the beautiful, sacred and sublime in nature. That came much later with the Romantics, and in contemporary performances and adaptations. The BBC aired a production of A Midsummer-Night’s Dream last month. It was abridged and adapted for television by Russell T Davies with a punk fairy Dr Who element. Of note, the attendants in the court … Continue reading
Evaluating the flipped classroom
Here’s an evaluation to conclude my documentation of the flipped classroom experiment. There were four main sources of data for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the course and our application of the flipped classroom model: (1) reflections by the teaching staff, (2) attendance records taken in class using attendance software and engagement monitoring via the VLE (virtual … Continue reading
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