The Makings Of A Great Teacher
July 7, 2010
Saw this blog post make the rounds on Twitter. Although the post is 7 years old, I felt it’s worthy of archiving here, for my own personal reference.
“Practical Theory: What Makes A Great Teacher?”
http://practicaltheory.org/serendipity/index.php?/archives/8-What-makes-a-great-teacher.html
(Photo by photoxpress.com)
About Patch.com
July 6, 2010
“Patch is a local news and information platform for communities across the nation, merging technology and professional journalism. Patch’s mission is to improve communities and the lives of their residents by providing 24/7 access to original reporting, data and information, where and when it’s needed.
Headquartered in Soho, NYC, Patch sites are run locally by full-time professional journalists, sales and directory professionals, and are supported by a team of engineers, product, design and business people. Patch was acquired by AOL in 2009.”
Local Journalism/Global Responsibility?
July 5, 2010
Do we need a code of “global” journalism ethics now that interactive communications technology makes worldwide distribution possible for each and every story published online?
Here’s what the UW Center for Journalism Ethics says on the subject:
“News media now inhabit a radically pluralistic, global community where the impact of their reports can have far-reaching effects — good or bad. News reports, via satellite or the Internet, reach people around the world and influence the actions of governments, militaries, humanitarian agencies and warring ethnic groups.
A responsible global ethic is needed in a world where news media bring together a plurality of different religions, traditions and ethnic groups.”
Read more here: http://www.journalismethics.ca/global_journalism_ethics/index.htm
Sounds a lot like E pluribus unum: “Out of many, one.”
(Photo by stockvault.net)
Useful Online Defamation Articles
June 20, 2010
Ohio Supreme Court: Frontier of Online Defamation Suits
Yelp Reviews to Get Responses from Businesses; Defamation and Online Reviews
Inside Higher Ed: A System For Fighting Digital Defamation
Hilden: Why You Can’t Sue Google For Defamation (2004)
Social Media Complaints, Defamation & SLAPP Suits
Building and Managing Online Communities: Anonymity, Defamation and Privacy, Oh My!
Cyberbullying Held Not Protected Speech in CA Civil Suit
Angered Accountant Sues Over Craigslist Rant
Prof Sues for being Pictured as Connecticut Murder Suspect
High-profile Defamation Case By Yale Students Ends Quietly
Digital Defamation: Cyberbullying and the First Amendment (2009 video)
Medical Mission in Burauen, Leyte
January 15, 2010
In July of 2009, I traveled to the Philippines and volunteered at a 3-day medical mission in the barrios of Burauen, Leyte. Using my newly acquired Flash CS4 skills, I created this website to document the experience. The site includes a preloader (since it takes few moments to load), a flash introduction, a text story, a gallery of my photos and two video clips.
Giving thanks for 2009
December 31, 2009
Marie’s best of list: Julia, Mom & Dad, Todd. The simple acts of kindness, support & laughter bestowed upon me by my dearest friends, extended family and co-workers. Traveling to the Philippines after 15 years away. Lessons learned. New opportunities presented. New babies to hold. Magical randomness. Raw food. And those rare, sweet moments of calm that stave off the calamity. Grateful for it all.
Tweeting from a funeral?
October 27, 2009
Tweeting from a funeral? Is it OK or is it in bad taste?
When I worked as a reporter, I covered more than my share of funerals. One was for a 7-year-old who had his head cut off with a box cutter after a home invasion. Another was for a family of two young sisters and their grandmother who all died in a fire while the mother/daughter was in prison on drug charges. The mother recieved special dispensation from Gov. Rowland to attend the funeral.
Both were high profile stories that appeared on the front page of the newspaper. Both were heartbreaking.
The funerals were heartbreaking, too. I remember staying way in the back, watching scenes play themselves out, and taking notes as discreetly as possible with my pen and my notebook.
Would punching out my notes on my mobile phone in 140-character sentences and sending them out to the public live on my Twitter feed during the service be essentially the same thing in this day and age?
I don’t know.
I remember taking the time after both of these funerals to be very thoughful and respectful with the words and information I delivered to the public in my story.
Maybe that’s my problem: Can you be thoughtful and meaningful on Twitter?
Maybe you can. But such immediacy leaves lots of room for thoughtlessness, too.
Twittering for a news organization during the funeral service of a private citizen is not necessarily unethical, but it feels disrespectful. Aren’t the deceased and their grieving family entitled to the full attention of everyone attending funeral services, including the press? Even the PGA forces spectators to turn off their cell phones at golf tournaments.
If you are constantly connected and communicating, you are only giving partial attention to the event at hand.
Has the public’s appetite for information become so insatiable that we’ve come to require play-by-play commentary during funeral services? Can’t the public wait until it’s over?
Or does the intense pressure on media outlets to be “first” in today’s highly competitive information climate mean that funerals are fair game for tweets too?
Information R/evolution
June 21, 2009
Writing short, well
February 10, 2009
Writing for the web demands writing short. You are crafting content for an audience with a very limited attention span. And most people don’t read online. They scan.
So here are 25 tips for writing short by Roy Peter Clarke, the writing coach at Poynter Institute.
My short list of Clarke’s best tips:
- #6. Beware: The infinite space on the Internet creates aerated prose.
- #7. The shorter the passage, the greater the value of each word.
- #12. Imagine a short piece from the get-go. Conceive a sonnet, not an epic.
- #17. Read, study, and collect great examples of short writing, everything from the diaries of Samuel Pepys to the Tweets of your favorite Twits.
- #18. The best place for an important word in a short passage is at the END.
- #22. Obey Mark Twain: You may need more time, not less, to write something good and short.
- #25. Treat all short forms of journalism – headline, caption, blurb, blog post – as literary genres.
Why Print Journos Should Willingly Learn Web Skills
January 12, 2009
“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”
— Gen. Eric Shinseki
“The future belongs to people who see possibilities before they become obvious.”
— Ted Levitt
News Biz in Crisis
January 7, 2009
Why Consumers Aren’t Giving Up Control
November 26, 2008
“Everyone’s composing their own flow. And once you start becoming the composer of your own flow, you can’t go back.”
- Lars Bastholm, Executive Creative Director at AKQA New York.
