• Some professors are uncomfortable requiring students to use a commerical service for their classes. Requiring Twitter is different from, say, requiring a textbook printed by a commercial publisher, because Twitter requires personal information of students.
• Some professors are uncomfortable with the public nature of Twitter. They don’t want to require students to create content that significant others, family members, or potential employers might discover—not necessarily because they expect students to write controversial material on Twitter, but because they want students to feel free from such concerns within their classrooms.
• Twitter in the classroom can seem to students like a creepy treehouse. Most academics who require Twitter do it for other reasons than to have their students interact socially with them, but it might seem otherwise to students.

In my digital humanities classes, I do require students to use Twitter so they can follow the most dynamic conversations happening among practitioners in the field. Love it or hate it, digital humanists are talking on Twitter. Here’s the assignment:

I. Social Media Engagement
Scholars in the field known as the “digital humanities” are, not surprisingly, active online. Many share their scholarship through blogs or social networking sites such as Twitter. In the Digital Humanities Compendium (which drives Digital Humanities Now), you will find lists of notable blogs and Twitter feeds. You must choose at least two blogs and at least four Twitter feeds to follow during our course. You should bring the insights you glean from these sources (insights into digital humanities theory and methodology, insights into a historical period, insights into the technologies of text) into our course discussions, and you should reference specific posts when composing your class blog entries. Midway through the semester you will compose a short (3-4 page), informal paper in which you describe how your chosen social media feeds have influenced your thinking about our course discussions.
You will need a Twitter account for this class, so you can follow the accounts of other scholars. If you have one already that you want to use for class, then go to the next step. If you don’t yet have a Twitter account—or if you prefer not to use your personal account for classroom work—then sign up for a new account. I strongly encourage you to create a disposable account if for any reason you prefer not to share your personal account for classroom activities.
When we tweet about this course, we will use the hashtag #s12tot.

The second paragraph of the assignment lays out the way that I manage some of the potential problems with using Twitter in the classroom. I give students explicit permission to keep their personal and academic lives separate, even when we’re using social media in the classroom. Jason mentions this strategy in his “creepy treehouse” post, as well. I like the phrase “disposable account,” which evokes disposable cameras, pre-paid cell phones, and the like—something useful for a purpose and easily discarded once that purpose is fulfilled. Students can use an alternate email to sign up for a class-specific Twitter account (or even sign up for a dummy email address for this purpose), use that account to meet the requirements of the social media assignment, and delete or abandon the account when the semester ends. Students can even create entirely pseudonymous Twitter accounts for class. So long as they tell me which account they’re working under, I do not care if the account reflects any of their personal information. This provision solves concern #2 above.

This strategy has worked pretty well in my classes. Some students are active on Twitter and want to use their personal accounts for class, which this setup allows. Other students are active on Twitter and do not want to use their personal accounts (one of my students said, perhaps too honestly, “Professor, if you read what I tweet about you’d probably lose respect for me.”), and this setup allows them to keep their personal and academic personae separate. Finally, some students have no interest in Twitter beyond this class assignment, and this setup respects their preference. I should add a practical note: during the first week of class, I asked students to add their accounts to a Google Docs spreadsheet, and I added them all to a Twitter list for the class. This helped me keep up with their class-related accounts through the semester.

How about you? If you use Twitter in the classroom, how do you manage the concerns listed above? Tell us about your social media strategies in the comments.

[Creative Commons licensed photo by Flickr user Thomas Anderson.]

This post wraps up another week of tips, tutorials, and commentary on pedagogy, productivity, and technology in higher education.

We certainly hope you found something interesting and/or useful among this week’s posts, which included:

• Ryan asked about “Lessons Learned from Student Evaluations.”
• Guest author Amanda French offered a review of “Google Docs Research Tool.”
• Mark demonstrated “Powering Postbox with Add-Ons.”
• George updated us about “Google Search Education.”
• Cory showed how to “Create Markdown Documents in the Cloud with WikiPack.”
• George noted with interest that “The Modern Language Association Teams Up With Interfolio.”
• Natalie explained “Why 15 Minutes?” is the perfect duration for getting things done.
• Amy reported on “When a ‘Catastrophe’ Turns Out Well.”
• Anastasia wrote about her “Digital Distraction: Diablo III.”
• My Weekend Reading series returned, with a “Memorial Day Edition.”

Have a great week!

I currently feel like this squirrel looks: pancaked by, yet ready to flee from a semester that refuses to end, and so rather than talk much here, I’ll simply wish American readers a happy Memorial Day holiday, and everyone a good weekend. (Spare a minute, though for the students in Quebec!)

On to this weekend’s links!

• Kate Clancy draws on that evergreen scientific resource, Justin Bieber’s hair, to teach good poster design: For the last few years, one of the running jokes in my lab has involved a striking physical (or rather, follicular) similarity between biological anthropology researcher Dana Ahern (now a University of Illinois graduate!) and multi-platinum pop superstar Justin Bieber. I thought this observed correlation would make an excellent foundation to help students think about how to demonstrate causality, present a convincing argument, and visually represent their ideas.
• David Simon gave the commencement address at Georgetown: There cannot be two American experiments, one for the fortunate and another for the rest. All of us must share the same future – like it or not. For the republic to long endure, there must be a real American collective and all of us must have some stake in that collective.
• An empirical look at book reviews: professionals prefer books that have already won prizes; that they “reward books written by authors who have received media attention (measured by the number of mentions of the authors in the New York Times outside of the book review section)” — in other words, praise most that which has already been praised by somebody else (via Jessa Crispin)
• Stefany Anne Golberg on the history of the backpack and backpacking: In the 1960s, backpackers left as much as they could behind in order to release themselves from the burden of self. Now backpackers take as much as they can take in order to be self-sufficient. In the ’60s, the backpacker’s quest was to remove everything — often one’s self-understanding, one’s identity — to access something pure. Today, backpackers want to assert their identity across national boundaries with the help of the things they own.
• Zen Faulkes offers 7 design problems with academic transcripts: Some of these problems can be fixed by just having someone care redo the design with some attention to detail. . . . The bigger set of problems is comes because some of these features are attempts to prevent document forgery. But even here, the tools are crude.

In this week’s video, SoundCloud’s Caroline Drucker explains “How to Give Great Talks”:

(Via Stellar)

Bonus: Video from “The Fixit Clinic,” where Peter Mui teaches folks to fix, rather than replace, their broken stuff.

Have a great weekend!

Photo Squirrel at the University of Michigan (May 24th & 25th, 2012) by Flickr user Corey Seeman / Creative Commons licensed BY-NC-SA

First the good stuff: Diablo III is a classic dungeon crawl, with demons to fight and treasure to gain through relatively easy to pick up gameplay: click to move, and click or use different hotkeys to launch weapons or spells at the bad guys. The story of the Diablo series follows a realm torn by continue warfare between heaven and hell. This sequel has been awaited for over ten years, and the mechanics are polished, with lots of flexibility in equipping your character with skills and gears to fight bad guys.

Another nice part of Diablo III is its approach to multiplayer. In Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOs), rather like in Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs), you share the world with thousands of people. Diablo III is more intimate in a classic gaming style, evoking LAN parties past, which means a game night with up to four family and friends can proceed uninterrupted. The adventurous can still open their games to anyone who wants to join in. This is a great break from the random encounter problem in massive multiplayer, where a few players dedicated to trolling can ruin part of the game for everyone else. There’s also some components that are individual, like loot—gear and money for improving your character—that doesn’t have to be shared with your compatriots. In previous Diablo games, multiplayer loot was dropped on the ground for everyone to fight over—not the best idea for collegial family play.

However, if you’re looking for a solo game for the weekends, Diablo III might not be the right choice. The ultra-restrictive digital rights management forces players to be online all the time, even when in single-player mode. Launch day server problems caused by the requirement drew attention to the problem, a model that is foreboding for the future of any digital service. The game is designed to be unplayable, unfinished even, without an internet connection; when the servers go down, there’s no more game. Just as with unexpectedly vanishing web services, the game can be pulled out from under the player’s feet.

The Bottom Line: If you’re willing to overlook the draconian DRM and avoid the “real-money” auction house, Diablo III can offer hours of engaging demon-slaying with companions. But the server-based model is bad for digital preservationists, travelers without internet connections, nostalgia gamers…and ultimately, perhaps everyone.

How about you? Were you one of the many players at Diablo III’s launch, or do you have another game on dock for your summer distraction? Let us know in the comments!

I use a multisite installation of WordPress to run my courses. I try to be very faithful about keeping up with updates as appropriate. It was just that fidelity that caused a problem.

One evening in late March, one of my students emailed to let me know that she couldn’t access the course site—she kept getting an error that said something about too many redirects. I tried to go to the site myself, and got the same error. So I decided to try the sites for the other courses I was teaching this spring. I got the same result. In fact, I was getting the same error for every single site on my domain. Ugh.

I’d done some automatic updates on my WordPress installation earlier in the day; I can only conclude that one of those updates broke things. Unfortunately, I had no easy way to figure out exactly what had caused the problem or to fix it, nor did I really have the time at that point in the semester.

So I had to scramble. I quickly set up a temporary Google Site for each of my courses. I then did something I’d been meaning to do at the end of the semester anyway: I changed hosting providers. Over the next few days, I set up a new multisite installation of WordPress, created a new blog for each course, and moved all the essential content over.

Though the timing was admittedly less than ideal, this minor “catastrophe” actually worked out reasonably well.

• I was pushed to do something I’d intended to do, anyway.
• I had a chance to think anew about setup, design, and organization (I opted to set up the new installation using subdomains instead of subdirectories, and my personal site will have a new look when I’m finished working on it).
• My students learned that yes, faculty sometimes mess things up, too (which they probably already knew). They also got to see one example of how to go to Plan B when something doesn’t work as expected.
• I got a reminder of the importance of backups. (Because I use the MarsEdit blogging client, I was able to re-post a lot of older content—including all the essentials for the courses—without much effort. I also use the WP-DB-Backup plugin, but there wasn’t time during the semester to try restoring from it. I suspect that my change to subdomains is going to complicate the process a bit.)

What about you? Have you had a minor classroom fiasco end up working out fairly well? Let us know about your experience in the comments.

[Creative Commons licensed Flickr photo by quinnanya]

One of the questions I frequently get asked is: how long should my timed interval be?

The answer depends on what you’re doing and how you want the timer to help you.

For instance, a quick five-minute clean up can be a great way to tackle a messy desk.  When I’m engaged in serious writing, I’ll often set my timer for 40 minutes for concentrated effort. But many tasks fall somewhere in between.

My go-to midway timer setting is fifteen minutes. Here’s why:

• 15 minutes is familiar: you already have a good internal sense of what a quarter hour means since it’s an interval we use a lot in telling time.
• 15 minutes is bearable: you can tackle even the most loathed chores for just 15 minutes.
• 15 minutes is effective: you can workout with supersets, plyometrics, or Tabata intervals very effectively in a short time.
• 15 minutes is a good start: you can write a few sentences, read a couple of pages, or review some data. That’s enough to get you back into a project you’ve been away from for a few hours or days and can help you build momentum for a longer work session.
• 15 minutes builds consistency: spending 15 minutes a day on yoga, writing, art, or meditation — or whatever other activity you’d like to do more of  — can help you develop your skills and build a routine.
• 15 minutes is a good limit: you can contain the time spent on email or Twitter so you have time for other things.
• 15 minutes is enjoyable: it’s a good length for a relaxing break that doesn’t take over your afternoon. You can read a few pages of a novel, play a level of Super Mario, or throw a ball with your dog in 15 minutes.

I’m especially fond of what I’ve been calling The Friday 15: 15 minute sprints to empty my inbox, clear off my desk, or finish up miscellaneous things from the week. If you care to join me on this or any Friday, tweet what you got done in your 15 minutes using the hashtag #fri15!

What can you get done in 15 minutes? Let us know in the comments!

[Creative Commons licensed image by flickr user Tom Newby Photography]

Today, the Modern Language Association² announced a new partnership starting fall 2012 with Interfolio, arguing that this new system will offer advantages to job applicants, hiring departments, and those who write letters of recommendation:

• Anyone applying for a job through the MLA’s Job Information List will be able to create a free Interfolio account (rather than pay the usual $19 annual charge) and send their application materials electronically to the hiring department who placed the job advertisement; each dossier sent will cost the applicant no more than $6.00, regardless of the number of documents included;
• Hiring departments “will be able to use Interfolio’s suite of online search-management tools, called ByCommittee. ByCommittee provides a single secure Web interface for departments to manage search-committee memberships for multiple searches and to receive candidate applications, dossiers, and other materials”;
• Those who write letters of recommendation will be able to submit their letters directly–and confidentially–to Interfolio, and the job applicant will then take responsibility for having the letters sent to the hiring departments.

Details about this partnership may be found on the MLA website. Also useful,

• “FAQ about Using Interfolio Dossier to Apply for Positions in the JIL,” and
• “FAQ about Using Interfolio ByCommittee for Your Department’s Job or Fellowship Search.”

1. While she wrote about Interfolio as a ProfHacker managing editor, Julie Meloni is now the Executive Vice-President of Product & Technology at Interfolio. (Added 5/24 for clarity and disclosure.)

2. The Modern Language Association is a professional scholarly organization with approximately 30,000 members interested in languages and literatures from a variety of national traditions.

Update (5/26): See also Julie’s “Interfolio Partners with the Modern Language Association” at the Interfolio blog.

How about you? Have you used Interfolio or a similar document management service? Do you have any questions about doing so? What have you found to be the most effective strategies for managing your dossier on the job market? Conversely, what have you found to be the most effective strategies when soliciting applications for a job at your institution? Let’s hear from you in the comments!

[Creative Commons-licensed flickr photo by Sarabbit]

WikiPack uses Markdown and WikiWords to create a private wiki that is stored and accessed from your Dropbox account. The easy to use and powerful Markdown language lets you easily create and edit your pages without knowing any strange wiki syntax.

Because the wiki that you create in WikiPack is private, you can type personal todo lists and notes to yourself. It’s a great way to stay organized and on-top of your todos, in addition to being a starting place for documents. And, because WikiPack works in the browser, you can use it with your mobile devices and tablets as well.

What about you? Do you use a wiki solution for keeping reminders and notes? Let us know in the comments below.

In that previous post, I pointed readers to something Google was calling their “Search Education Evangelism” site, a resource designed to make it easier for instructors to teach information literacy. This week I received notice that Google has moved that resource to a new location, given it a different name, and updated the content.

The new site is called “Google Search Education.” As is often the case, Google has provided a short video overview of this information hub:

The information hub provides several different lesson plans (with a Creative Commons CC-BY license) for use in the classroom:

• “Picking the right search terms”
• “Understanding search results”
• “Narrowing a search to get the best results”
• “Searching for evidence for research tasks”
• “Evaluating credibility of sources”

Each of the lesson plans is available in three levels: beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Although it appears that these resources are perhaps aimed at students in primary or secondary school, I’m pretty confident that this material would be helpful in my first-year writing courses.

How do you teach your students basic information literacy skills? Have you used resources like these provided by Google? Do you create your own? Please let us know in the comments.

Last week Amy introduced the Mozilla Thunderbird-based email client Postbox. I’ve been a Postbox user for years, ever since it was a free beta project. I came to rely on Postbox so much that I gladly paid for it when Postbox was officially released.

In addition to the features Amy mentioned—like Postbox’s seamless integration with Gmail and its plethora of keyboard shortcuts (press V to quickly move a message into a folder!)—I also appreciate Postbox’s powerful search functions.

As Amy explained, Postbox also works with extensions. I wanted to highlight a few of the add-ons I have found to be especially useful:

• The combination of Lightning and Provider for Google Calendar enables two-way sync with all of your Google calendars.
• Zindus syncs your Postbox contacts with your Google/Gmail contacts.
• Quicktext creates smart email templates, allowing you to send personalized (yet canned) responses with just a few keystrokes. (This extension is great for those times you find yourself sending the same email to different students again and again.)
• And finally, for the back-up aficionados that I know all ProfHacker readers have become, there’s ImportExportTools, which makes it easy to backup thousands of email messages. Don’t rely on Gmail to preserve your messages forever; connect Postbox to Gmail, and then save your entire inbox to your hard drive!

I know many people chafe at the idea of paying for software when there are free alternatives available. However, I personally don’t mind paying what amounts to the cost of several pizzas for software that works well and is frequently updated—especially when it’s software that I use every day. More than that: nearly every hour of every day!

Have you found some add-ons to be particularly valuable for Postbox or its close cousin Thunderbird?

[Image courtesy of Flickr user Nomadic Lass / Creative Commons Licensed]