Presentation Order for Final, W 4/24 at 8:00am

Hello everyone,

Remember that our final is tomorrow Wednesday, 4/24, and we will be meeting bright and early at 8:00am.

Also review the assignment guidelines and recall that your presentation should be 6-8 minutes in length. Your outline is also due tomorrow and you can print it out and bring it to class as a hard copy, or email it to me as an attachment.

Below I've listed the order for presentations, as well as your partners for purposes of giving feedback.

Remember our last blog assignment--to post your research question so your classmates have a place to leave comments. I'll bring in the peer evaluation grading rubrics to class.

1. Presenter: Matthew (Commenter: Erin)
2. Presenter: Brittney (Commenter: Jessica)
3. Presenter: Sarah (Commenter: Gheran)
4. Presenter: Josh (Commenter: Celena)
5. Presenter: Jessica (Commenter: Brittney)
6. Presenter: Whitney (Commenter: Alex)
7. Presenter: Erin (Commenter: Matthew)
8. Presenter: Morgan (Commenter: Kelley)
9. Presenter: Mike (Commenter: Jiya)
10. Presenter: Gheran (Commenter: Sarah)
11. Presenter: Alex (Commenter: Whitney)
12. Presenter: Celena (Commenter: Josh)
13. Presenter: Katelynn (Commenter: Glenda)
14. Presenter: Kelley (Commenter: Morgan)
15. Presenter: Andrew (Commenter: Jeff)
16. Presenter: Glenda (Commenter:  Katelynn)
17. Presenter: Jiya (Commenter: Mike)
18. Presenter: Jeff (Commenter: Andrew)

I'm looking forward to hearing from you all tomorrow morning!

Information Overload, 3/6

Reading for 3/11

Carr, Nicholas. "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" The Atlantic. July/August 2008.


Filter Bubbles (In-Class 3/11, 3/13)



Main Talking Points:

• Information vs. Affirmation = "Who wants to hear the truth when they can hear they are right?" (Confirmation Bias)
• Information diet? Become an information omnivore. Seek out alternative viewpoints, immerse yourself in diverse news sources, to avoid "traveling the same mental routes every day."
• Recognize that "clicks have consequences."
• Filter bubble phenomenon - black-or-white fallacy?

In-Class Exercise 1/28

Group 1

http://tinyurl.com/website-source-1

Group 2

Source 2 handed out in class

Group 3

Source 3 handed out in class

Group 4

http://tinyurl.com/website-source-4

Questions to answer

1. What type of information source is this?

2. Who is the author?

3. Who is the publisher?

4. Would you consider this a scholarly source? Why?

5. Where would you go to find this source?

More on Website Evaluation, In-Class 1/16

Good or Bad?

Site 1
vs. Site 2
vs. Site 3


In-Class Exercise Directions:

1. Each group member does a Google search for your assigned topic. Find what you think is one good website and one bad website on the topic. (Inspect at least the whole first page and go deeper if you choose.) Share your findings with the group and agree on the best and worst website.

2. Post a comment on this blog post. Include the names of your group members and the web address (url) of the good and bad website you agreed on.

3. You will then briefly present your findings to the class and explain the evaluation criteria you used.

The Digital Age and New Media

The digital age has brought forth an unprecedented explosion of information and has radically changed the ways we create, find, consume and evaluate it. “New media” is a term used to refer to digital forms of communication, including blogs, podcasts, Twitter, Facebook, e-books, wikis and more. These emerging forms of media are very different from “old” media such as newspapers, printed books, radio and TV broadcasts.

Until recently, media was created by an elite group of professionals and delivered to the masses. Big publishing companies had to appeal to a wide audience to make money, so less-common topics and alternative viewpoints were often hard to find. Today we choose from millions of websites on every conceivable topic and can interact with authors by posting comments and sharing our reactions on Twitter and Facebook. Many people prefer these personalized platforms to receive the majority of their news, and anyone can create a blog or e-book for free and instantly publish their own thoughts on the topics that matter to them. A high-speed internet connection, however, is required to participate in these emerging online spaces.

In the digital age, most people turn to search engines like Google and social network feeds to find information instead of consulting printed books and professionally written encyclopedias. A Google search, for example, can instantly bring back millions of webpages, but since online publishing is free, fast and easy, anyone could have written them. Also, with millions of websites available online, it can be difficult to find the right information and it can be frustrating to have to sift through so much. There are also some types of information that cannot be found on Google.