So yesterday I was in an Indigo bookstore browsing, and I saw the graphic novel sign, and then “Literary Graphic Novels”. I checked and there were copies of Jeff Lemire’s Collected Essex County, the book my daughter had given me for Mothers’ Day.

I’d asked for it after someone who teaches graphic novels had recommended it to me. I’d read the Maus series a few years ago, but few other graphic novels, even though I knew they were growing in popularity, even though I’d collected comics as a kid. (At that time “regular comics” cost $.10 and Classics, $.15. I was a canny trader, insisting on two regulars for any Classics, and had a good-sized collection. But that’s another story!)

I read Essex County in two sittings and was entranced. It was a truly rich read, full of images and patterns of thought I immediately recognized. And I recognized so much because of my own cultural background:

• My grandparents were farmers in rural Ontario (though not Essex County);
• I live with someone who always watches the hockey playoffs;
• I used to coach a college intramural hockey team;
• I’ve met women like the indomitable county nurse, who keeps on helping out no matter what is happening in her own life; and
• I’ve read literary (all text) Canadian gothics before.

I liked everyone in the stories, and I could understand why they did what they did. I admired the story structuring and the moving back and forth in time, revealing hidden connections just at the right point. I found the black-and-white images haunting and powerful.

The CBC’s Canada Reads included Essex County - http://www.cbc.ca/books/canadareads/2011/nominees/essex-county.html and I highly recommend Lemire’s Collected Essex County for both its narrative and visual elements.

Are you paranoid about how much Facebook and Google know about you? To find out if you should be, and to find out what your credit cards know about you, I highly recommend Terry O’Reilly’s podcast on Hyper-Targeting - http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/podcasts/undertheinfluence_20120428_91870.mp3

With his typical entertaining presentation and deep research, O’Reilly describes how today’s advertisers know what we want and might buy – in immediate and great detail.

I first heard this podcast riding into the city from the suburbs, listening to CBC  radio. Being a fan of Terry  O’Reilly’s The Age of Persuasion, (having learned so much about advertising and language from it), I was delighted to recognize his voice. But it wasn’t an Age of Persuasion show, but one new to me called Under The Influence.

I thought I was knowledgeable about just how much of our privacy is gone, but I had no idea!

Again, for your listening pleasure and learning, I recommend http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/podcasts/undertheinfluence_20120428_91870.mp3  (You can skip the first minute to get right into the content ;-> )

I teach a couple of university courses in communications, and I don’t like to use Learning Management Systems (LMS). They are handy, but I think, especially for communications courses, students need to be learning the possibilities of the web and how to use them for their own purposes.

Now, when I want to give students feedback and marks privately, I want to demonstrate how we can do that outside of using LMSs. So I listen to their assignments (MP3s of brief podcasts posted on blogs on the open web) and I make notes about their strengths and weaknesses. Then I open the free web application, Audacity, which allows me to record my voice, and I record my feedback for each student. Then I go to my university email, which I have pulled into my gmail account and set up a template message, saying that their feedback is in the attached MP3, and make it a “canned response”.

Then I address each email, paste in the saved subject, click on the canned response and attach the MP3 of their individual feedback. They get private feedback, and I don’t spend too many hours getting it to them.

I also insist that they set up Dropbox accounts for backup, and bookmarks accounts chosen from Diigo, Evernote, or other equivalents for their researching.  And just last week, as we are in the last three weeks of the winter term, a student told me that her laptop battery had gone wrong, and she was panicing over a laptop that no longer worked. Then she remembered that I’d “forced” them to set up Dropbox accounts and keep their files in it. She was okay; she hadn’t lost all her assignments. She could access them all on any computer with an internet connection in her Dropbox account.

As I said, especially for communications students, I believe they should be using web applications and not be inside the LMS silos, where they can do their work, but they aren’t learning how to make use of the possibilities offered on the web. I use a wiki and other applications and it works well for my classes. I understand that the LMS can be a suitable tool for teachers in some subjects, but, as I wrote before, students studying communications need to learn how to study and work in the world of the web.

Keep Canada connected: Stop severe cuts to the CBC. Protect our news, culture & digital future

http://reimaginecbc.ca/connected

I have a problem. I love Google stuff, as can be seen from a screenshot of the tag cloud of another of my blogs - http://jnthweb.ca/

As you can see, I use Google tools for my teaching and for my personal use. But I have long thought that business and lawyers are especially cynical in their use of Terms of Service  When I see that I can read 43 pages of legalese or lie and click “Accept” to get immediate access to my latest digital fascinating toy, guess what I do? And guess what most others do?

But perhaps I do read some / all of the documentation, what do I do when I see this:

Do I give up getting any more apps, or creating anything with them? Or do I accept both the cynicism and the TOS (Terms of Service) so I can continue using the tools I’ve been using for years. Currently, I simply hope that the motto, “Don’t be evil“, continues to have some influence at Google.

I did something in class yesterday that I’ve never done before, in over 40 years of teaching. I asked students to get into groups of three (done that before) and then asked them to use one of the three’s device to look at a blog post and listen to a podcast. I’ve never been able to do a internet-connected small group exercise in class before, except in computer labs. This was an ordinary classroom. What’s new is the tipping point we’ve just gone over. There are now enough students who have laptops, tablets, or smart phones in the classroom, that I can do these kind of small group, web-connected exercises as part of our classroom work.

It went over well, and was a good learning experience for them and for me!

Here are some basic grammar errors to avoid – from http://www.copyblogger.com/grammar-goofs/ via Donna Papacosta 

Like this infographic? Get more copywriting tips from Copyblogger.

I like watching for patterns, and when I’m bored, I look for patterns just to keep myself awake. That’s how I came to notice the use of colour in an ad for a bank (I think) that starts and ends with a young girl holding an old-fashioned alarm clock beside her face. The ad is calling for planning (financial, I assume) but what I noticed after I’d seen it again and again, was that in every scene the woman was at a different life stage, and in every scene she wore a blue piece of clothing. Not the same blue, but always blue. Incidentally, the company logo was in blue.

Having noticed that, I watched an ad for a bank that uses orange as its colour. It was even more subtle, but every scene had orange touches in it.

So now I’m able to amuse myself when I see the same ads again and again. Currently I’m researching their subtle use of colour to point to their logos. And looking for other patterns.

I’ve just come across a site about remixing with three superb videos. They are interesting and entertaining, and don’t end when they appear to be concluding, as you can see from the screenshot below.

It looks like it's over, but notice how much time is left

I strongly recommend http://mediaatbrooks.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/open-content-and-is-everything-a-remix/ and here’s the first video:

Everything is a Remix Part 1 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.