They Said it Better Than I Can

I’m a bit ashamed and embarrassed that I haven’t written anything here in so long!  The fall semester was very, very busy but one reason why I haven’t written anything is that there are so many eloquent, informed people who have written things that I want to say much better than I could have done so.  Here are some of the blogs that I follow that regularly impress me:

• e-Literate: Led by Michael Feldstein, this group of authors routinely post insightful and detailed information about technology and U.S. higher education e.g., What Faculty Should Know About Adaptive Learning, State of the Anglosphere’s Higher Education LMS Market: 2013 Edition.  Some of their posts are a little bit hyperbolic and occasionally shrill (presumably to attract more readers), particularly this post.  Despite the occasional over-the-top writing, this blog was an excellent source of information about the recent kerfuffle about Purdue University’s learning analytics software.
• Culture Digitally: This is another group blog, one that describes itself as “a gathering point around which scholars who study of cultural production and information technologies can think together.”  This blog doesn’t focus on higher education but it has posts from some wonderful researchers on the cutting edge of culture and technology.  I particularly like this recent post discussing “big data” and its potential shortcomings.
• The Young and the Digital: This website is a companion to S. Craig Watson’s 2010 book of the same name.  It’s a great book and it’s very nice to be able follow the author as he continues to develop and share his thoughts.  This post is a great example of the good thoughts that are shared on this website.
• Microsoft Social Media Collective Research Blog: The title of this blog tells you almost all you need to know.  This is a group of exceptional researchers who appear to have significant freedom to conduct ethical research without being unduly influenced by their employer.  This post listing some researchers’ opinion of the most influential journal article has a year’s worth of reading for anyone interested in social media.
• Josie Ahlquist’s blog: A colleague – Joe Sabado, who has a nice blog of his own! – recently turned me on to Josie’s website.  She’s an EdD student who is beginning a dissertation focusing on “social media communication tools in higher education, focusing on college student use and educational methods to equip students to be positive productive citizens on emerging technologies.”  She is very well-informed and is doing a wonderful job of sharing and synthesizing the information she is discovering as she is completing her literature review. I’m very excited to follow her as she begins her research!