Using Technology in the Language Arts Classroom

Official Blog for English 518

My Google Map

March 15, 2010 · No Comments · social networking

Here is a sample of a Google Map: View Chuck’s Fayetteville in a larger map

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FSU Social Media Talk

March 1, 2010 · No Comments · Blogging, course management, education, social networking, wiki, writing

This post is part of a lecture to new faculty at Fayetteville State University.  In part,, it grows out of my participation in the American Democracy Project’s eCitizenship Initiative Meeting in Detroit, along with several other faculty members.  The goal of the project is to introduce faculty to social media tools that we can use [...]

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Digital Nation

February 21, 2010 · No Comments · education

In case you haven’t seen it, PBS has an important new documentary on digital media and its implications for society called Digital Nation.  I wrote a review of the documentary on my blog, but the short version is that I found it flawed, but somewhat thought-provoking, especially given some of the issues we’ve been facing [...]

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Wake Teacher Suspended

February 17, 2010 · No Comments · social networking

Here is the Raleigh News-Observer article about Melissa Hossain, a Wake County teacher who was suspended because of inflammatory comments she posted on Facebook.

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Course Updates

February 10, 2010 · No Comments · course management

There are a couple of updates I’d like to point out. For whatever reason, the original version of the “Social Bookmarking in Plain English” video has been marked as private.  Here is an alternative version. You should also watch the “RSS in Plain English” video.  It’s a good overview of what RSS can do in [...]

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Social Media Addiction

February 5, 2010 · No Comments · humor, social networking

I thought you might find this video satire of social media addiction humorous: Found originally in this blog post on Twitter burn out.

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Course Wiki

February 3, 2010 · No Comments · course management, wiki, writing

I’ll add it to the sidebar later, but here is a link to the wiki I created for our course.  I’ve set it, temporarily, so that it can be viewed by anyone but only edited by people I’ve invited.

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Writing and Social Networking

January 25, 2010 · No Comments · Uncategorized, writing

Tech Crunch has an interesting report on a teen publishing program sponsored by HarperCollins called Inkpop.  The site has over 10,000 members who submit poems, stories, and even novels and uses social networking software to build community around writing. I haven’t had a chance to experiment with it, but if you’re looking for interesting peer-oriented [...]

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Why You Should Be on Twitter

January 23, 2010 · No Comments · Uncategorized

By the way, here is a (non-required) article I published for the online ‘zine AlterNet called “Why You Should be on Twitter.”  The article was written as a response to another article published on the site that criticized Twitter.

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Blogging Review

January 20, 2010 · No Comments · Uncategorized

This week, English 518 has focused on a small set of essays dealing with blogging and the classroom.  As usual, I’ve been intrigued by the range of responses and observations raised by students in the course.  At New Idea, the author points out some of the key considerations with Henry Jenkins’ “Why Heather Can Write,” [...]

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