Article Topics
My thoughts and the thoughts of talented others on digital strategic communication, digital & media literacy, information design, education & instruction, and the field of human communication.
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“Out of the Mountain of Despair, a Stone of Hope”
As I entered the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial in Washington, DC this week, I marched through the mountain of despair. Looking through the gap, all I saw was the east, the water, the promise of life greater than myself. I can only imagine that this was the designer’s intent: that we would walk through the mountain…
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Earthquake has East Coast a-Twitter
When our office started quaking this afternoon at Queens University of Charlotte, one of my colleagues thought his vertigo might be flaring up. The bushes shaking outside my window disconfirmed that theory. We turned to Twitter. Eight minutes after the event, we learned that the magnitude 5.8 earthquake shook Virginia 87 miles outside of Washington…
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Developing a Creative Process
“What do artists know that business people need to know?” The answer: “The creative process,” says Professor Cathy Anderson, professor at Queens University of Charlotte, who led a faculty workshop during the Fall 2011 opening events. People are all creative. The question is, how do you develop a personal creative process?Andersonis no stranger to the creative process having…
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Teach Less Better
Students come to college eager to learn, but that eagerness can quickly become diminished. Some faculty members can even create the students they don’t want. What can faculty do to develop deep, lasting student learning? Dr. Peter Felten, Assistant Provost and Associate Professor of History at Elon University, presented at Queens University of Charlotte’s opening…
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Constructive Criticism for Faculty?
Books such as Academically Adrift, In the Basement of the Ivory Tower, and The Marketplace of Ideas critically examine the role of colleges and universities. One of our issues on campuses around the nation is that we don’t take such criticism personally. But should we? Should recent analyses of higher education shape the way university…
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Google Images doesn’t own images
Google Images is an excellent tool for searching and finding images from across the Internet. Unfortunately for students, the image’s appearance in a search does not authorize its use. I recently wrote an article titled Photos and Copyright Law in which I advocated for appropriate citation in student projects. One issue with citation has emerged…
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Event Hashtags: Lessons Learned from NCA
The National Communication Association (NCA) may have gotten it right – according to its Twitter followers. With the consecration of the #NCA11 hashtag, for this year’s conference, attendees on Twitter might finally be pleased with the selection. However, use of alternate hashtags by the association Twitter account threatens to upend the discussion once again. A…
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Photos and Copyright Law
If you find a photo and place it on your website, in a paper, or use it as an image in some other document, be careful. More likely than not, you are in violation of copyright law. My rule for photos: if you didn’t shoot it with your own camera, draw it with your own hand,…
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A History of Social Media
Technology and media have always been social. This was my message to the Dialogue & Discovery Group at Charlotte City Club, June 1, 2011. Van King, Dean of the Knight School of Communication, and I presented to a lively audience at the club. While the real focus of the presentation was the discussion that ensued,…
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Usability + Design = User Experience
I have stumbled along this sometimes somewhat stony path: from an analysis of users’ perceptions, to the notion of user satisfaction, to user experience… [alongside] some of the attractive theories that may have led me and others astray. -Dr. Jurek Kirakowski Clemson University’s MATRF, Usability Testing Center, and student chapter of the Society for Technical…
J.A.McArthur 