Author: Allan Johnson

When Will Kindles Be Ready for the University Classroom?

Posted on by Allan Johnson in Teaching
English: Amazon Kindle DX Graphite displaying ...
Amazon Kindle DX Graphite displaying Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have said before that my research is still largely paper-based and that I use my Kindle exclusively for pleasure reading.  This isn’t entirely true: I do use a combo of Mendeley and Evernote on my iPad for journal articles.  However, the fact remains that my primary texts are just about always of the paper and cloth variety.    As a new academic year rolls around, I can’t help but wonder how much longer that will be the case, and how long it will be before I am teaching to a classroom full of Kindle-holders.  When will an instruction such as “turn to page 34” consist of more button-tapping than page-turning?

A great number of the novels that I regularly teach are now out of copyright–including James Joyce, who has been out of copyright for a full 9 months –and are available widely and freely in a number of eReader formats.  Having an entire semester’s reading list on one device would undoubtedly have a great many benefits: an unanticipated seminar tangent could be taken even further if all the students were able to quickly turn to the book that we were discussing; annotations and marginalia could be shared between all the members of the class, creating a real community of learning.  And it seems, leaving my love of paper and print culture aside, that a classroom full of Kindles linked to Twitter could, perhaps, create a positive impact on my learning and teaching.

Continue reading “When Will Kindles Be Ready for the University Classroom?” →

#IsItOK? What I’ve Learned from the Paralympics

Posted on by Allan Johnson in Observations
Hannah Cockroft wins T34 100m
Hannah Cockroft wins T34 100m (Photo credit: ian_fromblighty)

I have never been a big fan of televised sport, so I was not terribly disappointed that I contended with a number of pressing publishing deadlines and a heavy teaching assignment during the Olympics.  I did watch the opening ceremony with delight and did happen to see the cycling event as it sped through Kingston upon Thames, but in all honesty, my knowledge of the games was largely confined to what I learned from friends’ texts about favourite Olympians.

But that was until last night, when I found myself gripped by the Paralympic men’s wheelchair basketball.  It was absolutely astonishing to watch, and certainly more exciting than the games of basketball I have seen in the past.  I stayed for repeats of Hannah Cockroft’s 100m victory (that was surely the clearest win in sporting history, right?) and the downright incredible five-a-side blind football game.  Claire Balding’s majestic coverage of the events added to the enjoyment, and I will certainly be following the coming days with an unexpected new interest.

Yet the most exciting part of my night’s viewing was what came next, Channel 4’s The Last Leg.  Fronted by comedian Adam Hills,  it’s a typically irreverent roasting and roundup of all things Paralympic, which has no problem discussing disability honestly and humorously.  I appreciated it for demonstrating how to speak about disability without being patronizing, and, indeed, how to laugh about disability in sensitive and appropriate ways, just as we would about anything else. Continue reading “#IsItOK? What I’ve Learned from the Paralympics” →

7 Things This Academic Learned from the World of Brand and Design

Posted on by Allan Johnson in Observations
Design library, reorganized by topic
Design library (Photo credit: juhansonin)

I spent a postgraduate gap year working for the brand and design agency Ingenious Rapport, first in business development and then shortly after as Creative Account Manager.  In addition to working with some extraordinary colleagues (indeed, some leaders in the field), I had the opportunity to work on thrilling accounts, including a major UK bank, government agency, and several popular restaurants.  The experience was as eye-opening as it was edifying.   From thinking about how to use super high-speed personalized printing to promote books and cars, to tracking down someone who could make me a giant illuminated sign in 48 hours, my days were filled with extraordinary (and often extraordinarily fun) commissions.  I also learned a bit about print and digital design, social media, and the business world in general through the process, all of which has contributed to my approach to teaching, research, and academic practice.

  1. Design does matter. It was fascinating to see the design process take place.  A key part of my job was to meet with clients and figure out what it was they needed and how they wanted their brand to be communicated through print and/or digital media.  I then translated that into a brief for the designers, who would take it from there.  Serving as the intermediary between the designers and the client, I was often right at the centre of debates between design and practicality, between function and form, and I took one important thing away from this:  people choose to spend their time with the objects that intrigue them most.  This doesn’t just apply to advertising and websites, but to everything around us.  And, because of this, I have maintained my interest in design and typography into my academic life.  Is it something to become obsessive about?  Perhaps not.  But using BlairMdITC rather than Times New Roman for a syllabus is a simple detail that can make a difference to how your ideas are viewed, understood, and remembered. Continue reading “7 Things This Academic Learned from the World of Brand and Design” →

Folksonomy

Posted on by Allan Johnson in Observations
Katalog biblioteczny w Łodzi
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve just come across this fascinating conference paper by Yan Yi Lee and Sharon Q. Yang called ‘Folksonomies as Subject Access – a Survey of Implementing Tagging in Library Online Catalogs and Discovery Layers’

The term ‘folksonomy’ isn’t original to this paper, but it was new to me, and the concept has definitely give me loads to think about.  It’s a slightly more charming term for a ‘crowd-based taxonomy’, but it carries with it loads of assumptions and connotations.  Taxonomies–and especially those of the librarian sort–are often guarded by a team of highly trained specialists.  There is some logic behind this–or at least was–because if something is cataloged incorrectly it might never be seen again.  But, now in an age of digital humanities and crowd sourcing, the sheer scale of involvement means that a ‘folksonomy’ might actually be an effective manner of cataloging information.

I’ve enjoyed reading Lee and Yang’s conference paper immensely… and I wonder if the future of conference papers might become more aligned with the folksonomies creates on WordPress and Twitter.

Related articles

www.duolingo.com

Posted on by Allan Johnson in Observations
English: The Rosetta Stone in the British Muse...
The Rosetta Stone in the British Museum. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The language learning site Duolingo has recently left beta for a full release, and it is nothing short of thrilling.  It is a free site which, in its own words, helps users ‘learn a language and simultaneously translate the Web.’  Not only is the interface sharp, engaging, and extraordinarily intuitive, it personalizes language learning in a way that should keep language teachers salivating.  With each successive unit, you are given new translating tasks (most of which are from Wikipedia, though it appears this will become more diverse as the site grows) which build upon and help to assess what you have learned.

Whoever saw language learning as the start of crowd sources translations was definitely on to something.  When you translate authentic material from the web with Duolingo, it is assessed against all other submissions, ultimately identifying the most accurate or most correct.

Through this, it takes into account the fact that any language, at its most essential root, actually is an exercise in crowd sourcing.

The programming behind all of this magic must be pretty astonishing, but the entire learning process looks seamless and perfectly tailored to each learner (not to mention, entirely free and a new significant competitor to Rosetta Stone). French, German, and Spanish are already live.  I am looking forward to Swedish and an iPad version.