You’re on Twitter: Now What?
Decide how you’ll access Twitter on a regular basis. For what it’s worth, I suggest the last two options. The Web: Twitter.com Text Messaging: See commands here. To set up Twitter with your mobile phone, Settings > Devices. (NOTE: Standard rates apply.) A Desktop or Web-based Application (e.g., Tweetdeck, Seesmic, HootSuite) A Smart-Phone App (Tweetbot, Twitterific) Now that you’ve selected the way you’ll tweet, learn how to send a tweet to your class and communicate with your...
Read MoreTwitter: Signing Up
This semester, our class will use Twitter as one means of communication. As a result, you should sign up for and become familiar with the social networking and microblogging service before the semester gets into full swing. Three Easy Steps Visit Twitter. Click “Sign up now.” Enter your Full Name, User Name, Password, and Email Address. Create your account. Congratulations! You are now signed up for Twitter. If you’d like, locate followers via your email account(s), or skip that step and set up your profile, which asks for a brief character bio as well as your picture and choice of...
Read MoreSlipping Off That Pedestal: Shifts in the Student-Professor Relationship
This entry is part 10 of 33 in the series Essays / Analyses.When I was in college, both undergraduate and graduate school, this is what I knew about the personal lives of my professors: Many had cats; at least two had dogs. One spent most of her summers in Italy researching the letters of a sixteenth- (or maybe seventeenth-) century Italian woman. One smoked cigarettes, but only at home. One preached at my childhood church before his marriage went, ahem, awry. One adopted a child from another country. One loved Paris and the Moulin Rouge (the actual establishment; I’m not sure how he...
Read MoreLive-Tweeting and the Academic Conference
Live-tweeting academic conferences is a relatively new phenomenon; as a result, conference participants and coordinators are still working out the kinks, so to speak. For example, at this year’s Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference (SCMS), the absence of WiFi frustrated presenters and attendees who intended to live-tweet. [...] [ Read more of my post at Antenna... ]...
Read MoreGen X’s Midlife Crisis: For Men Only?
In his column “Gen X Has a Midlife Crisis,” NY Times film critic A.O. Scott considers the current state of Generation X as seen by popular culture. Through an analysis of three texts released in 2010 — the novel The Ask (Sam Lipsyte) and the movies Hot Tub Time Machine (Steve Pink) and Greenberg (Noah Baumbach) — Scott summarizes what contemporary society apparently thinks about those of us born between 1965-1980: Our motto is that “we did what we could.” This is nothing like the dominant slogans of the Greatest Generation (“make do or do...
Read MoreLive-Tweeting the Oscars 2010: Virtual Affirmation, Valuable Community
Earlier this year, seven other film/TV/media professors, PhD students, and I live-tweeted the Golden Globes. In other words, we watched the awards show as it aired, commercials and all, and simultaneously posted to Twitter our commentary on the onscreen happenings. [1] From the bizarre (William Hurt’s grizzly beard!) to the banal (Harrison Ford’s dour demeanor), we few, we happy few, considered it all, lobbing 140-character phrases into the Twittersphere as fast and consistently as pitching machines. Yes, it was tough to keep up, and, yes, watching TV while reading and typing was...
Read MoreSimultaneously Horrifying and Fascinating: Hamlet 2 and “Rock Me, Sexy Jesus”
Over the weekend, a Facebook friend posted that one of his new favorite songs is “Rock Me, Sexy Jesus.” After reading that status update, I smiled and began singing the song in my mind: Rock me, rock me, rock me, sexy Jesus He died for our sins You gotta believe us Rock me, rock me, rock me, sexy Jesus All night long. But sadly, I’m guessing that my friend and I are perhaps the only people we know who understands this reference, which comes from an independent film called Hamlet 2 (Andrew Fleming, 2008). This is a shame because even with its many sight gags, questionable...
Read MoreTweeting (and Facebooking) for Textbooks
A few weeks ago I wrote about my experience with Twitter in the undergraduate film classroom. In brief, it did not go as planned. While nearly 100 students signed up for the social networking service, I received only a couple of real-time tweets from my large Introduction to Film class and only about 20 from my smaller film classes — and this was over the course of an entire 16-week semester. But as I stated in my interview with Toledo’s PBS affiliate (WGTE), for the time being, I will press on and continue to introduce students to Twitter and its benefits, no matter how much...
Read MoreTwitter and Facebook in the College Classroom
A few weeks ago, I sat down for an interview with Toledo’s PBS affiliate (WGTE) about my classroom experiences with Facebook and Twitter. “Why do I use the social networking media,” the interviewer asked. “How do students take to it, and will I continue to use it in the future?” The short answers are as follows: I use it to connect with students and spark discussion; students are not as open to the media as I thought they would be; and yes, I plan to use both Facebook and Twitter next semester. You can see the full interview below or on WGTE’s site (my part...
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Professor of film and Shakespeare. Advocate of social media. Lover of popular culture,