Cognitive dissonance. Photo by me.

I’m not sure I’m completely ready for this, but I’m going to try it anyway.

I’ve been slowly making a significant transition in my life: I let each of my print magazine subscriptions expire, one by one. Only two have a couple of issues remaining, as best I can tell from those obfuscatory subscription reminders and mailing labels. Print editions have nearly stopped arriving in my mailbox, and a few more trees have kept on breathing.

I’m making the switch to digital magazines. All of them. Starting now.

I subscribe(d) to quite a few magazines: at least 14 within the last year. I have found it increasingly difficult to keep up with the flow of paper magazines, finding that they pile up in a basket in my study at home far too quickly. I also increasingly dislike tossing most of them into the recycle bin immediately after finishing them.

Part of my dissatisfaction with print has to do with the lack of enduring, lasting content in most magazines today, or at least in those I’ve patronized. There’s just no reason for me to keep paper copies. Even my fiber arts magazines (about knitting and weaving, for example, including patterns and references) rarely feature articles that I wouldn’t be just as happy to have in digital form — or would indeed prefer in that searchable format.

Part of it is my changed reading habits, which have more and more focused around the iPad and Kindle, with which I can comfortably delve into numerous blogs, Twitter, e-books, and a constantly refreshed Instapaper collection of long-form journalism. The capacity to instantly share and bookmark material is also something I now crave when I’m reading print. (Not every digital magazine will offer those features, but some do.)

I have been frustrated by the difficulty of switching print to digital subscriptions — so much so that I even wrote an article about it for PBS MediaShift. I understand now why the process has been difficult for publishers and their customer service providers. However, it seemed easier to wait for my print subscriptions to end and then re-evaluate my commitment to each one and the best digital format for obtaining it.

Some of the magazines are available as replica editions, some as standalone apps, some through Apple’s Newsstand for the iPad. I’m more inclined to get magazines on the iPad than on my black-and-white Kindle Touch because I love magazines’ color and photography.

However, given my budget, some of my format decisions (and, actually, whether I renew at all in some cases) will be determined by price. For example, Runner’s World is available as a replica from Zinio for $25/year; a one-year subscription through the magazine’s own app is $14.99, and apparently offers added features. It’s $1/month for Kindle, as it is in print. I think I’ll go for the iPad edition.

I think I’ll be OK with this transition. But perhaps I’ll miss stuffing a magazine into my purse on the way out the door to an appointment, or will find reading on the iPad less enjoyable in the long run. I’ll report back and let you know how it goes!

Well, that whole “weekly posting” thing hasn’t exactly materialized. I’ve been teaching a fast-paced January term Intro to Mass Communication class, so things have been a bit busy. However, I did have a chance to learn more about the new user-generated content experiment at Ladies’ Home Journal, and wrote about it for PBS MediaShift.

I asked editor Sally Lee if she thought working with inexperienced writers was going to be challenging for her editorial team, and she noted that working with experienced writers isn’t always a piece of cake either. Moreover, the “amateurs” bring something different to the magazine:

 ”We’re getting fresh, clear voices that don’t fall into the trap of thinking that they have to write a certain way for a women’s magazine … One of the wonderful things about working with so-called amateur writers is they don’t have preconceived notions about what the magazine should be.”

Photo by Flickr user bayasaa.

It’s been a hectic year, and I haven’t been able to blog as much as I’d have liked. However, I am grateful that folks have still been stopping by to see what’s here. I am recommitting to posting weekly in 2012, and hope to see all of you back here throughout the new year!

Here’s an excerpt from my 2012 WordPress stats report:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,500 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people. [Cool!]

Click here to see the complete report.

Recipe.com, Hickey said, reflects a “360-degree approach,” better accommodating today’s value-seeking and technologically savvy shopper.

“It’s really kind of desktop, to store, to checkout, to countertop, to table. When we think of recipes, we think, ‘I’ll go find it and print it out.’ But we knew the [meal-planning] process was much more involved,” Hickey said.

As a geek who was once a diligent meal planner – and could never find the right software to make it work – I find new tools like this especially intriguing!

Because of a couple of my past posts, people often find my blog when they’re looking for information on teaching with the iPad. So I thought I might give an update on the technology tools I’m using in my teaching and personal productivity this semester on various platforms. I’ve mentioned some of these before, but it’s interesting to track which ones have infiltrated my workflow permanently and which have failed to prove their utility (for my purposes, at least).

Yahoo! Pipes configuration...not as hard as it looks.

In the Classroom

• Attendance iPad app. I used its photo-management feature to take photos of all my students on the first day of classes this semester. A great tool for learning names more quickly (always a huge struggle for me) and for tracking attendance accurately. Though its interface is plain – taking roll isn’t sexy – it’s a valuable app.
• Alas, I don’t really do classroom presentations on the iPad. I thought I’d end up using Keynote from the iPad in the classroom, in lieu of toting my laptop to class. Nope. I ran into initial compatibility problems with an old version of Keynote on my laptop, and then realized that my photo- and video-heavy slideshows are difficult to create on the iPad anyway. So I’m still just using my MacBook Pro in class for Keynote.
• However, beyond Keynote: The iPad now projects whatever you show on the screen through the VGA adapter. Hooray! I’ve now been able to demonstrate digital magazines and books to students using the iPad in class.
• Evernote. I create class notes or guest lecture outlines on my laptop in Evernote, then access them on the iPad when needed. Incredibly handy and paper-saving.
• Caffeine (Mac only). A simple plugin that prevents your screen from dimming or turning off during presentations and video viewing. So useful.
• I learned how to use Yahoo! Pipes this semester to aggregate my students’ blog posts and pull them into our class website (a WordPress.org installation on my own domain) as one feed. It was much easier to do than I thought it would be.
• AP Stylebook. I subscribed to the digital/app version so I never have to take the book to class, and I never leave it in the office over the weekend when I need it for grading at home. That happened far too often, and it’s been worth it (yes, worth $24!) to not have to worry about this problem.

Some of the comments stored in my "Commonly Used" list in GradeMark.

Grading and Feedback

• I use two apps for simple grading calculations because I am lazy. The iPad app is called GroovyGrader, and it’s free (with ads). The iPhone app is called EasyGrader and costs 99 cents. (Both work on either device. I like GroovyGrader on the iPad because I don’t have to scroll to see the full list of possible grades.) When you just want to know the grade out of 100 points when a student misses 5 questions on a 40-question exam, and you don’t want to do the math every time or create an Excel spreadsheet…this is your app.
• I used the GradeMark feature of Turnitin in Blackboard for the first time this semester. I have concerns about Turnitin as a company due to its use of its student paper database for a new service that students can purchase prior to turning in their work that alerts them to possible plagiarism. I found GradeMark so easy to use, though (darn it), that I’ve decided to continue to use it this year and then explore other options. The GradeMark system allows the instructor to see Turnitin’s originality report information and also attach comments (both unique to that student or pre-prepared from a customizable database) for a student’s paper. The standard comments come with explanations of writing concepts (e.g., students can immediately be reminded of what a comma splice is when they view that comment). The comments are saved online for the student to access. The grade attached to the paper is automatically posted in Blackboard’s gradebook. The instructor can even see whether a student has viewed the feedback provided. You can download the papers in one zipped file so you always have a backup and a record of what students received from you. In all, I have to admit it’s a pretty cool system.
• What did not work for me: a couple of years ago, I tried using a Wacom Bamboo tablet (a nice little device that I still use when I weary of a mouse or trackpad) to mark up student papers in Adobe Acrobat. This was a hugely time-consuming process that required me to first create PDFs of student papers, attempt to scribble neatly on them with the tablet, and then email the copy with feedback back to students. Ugh. Never again.

Communicating with Students and Colleagues

• I am a Twitter aficionado and use TweetDeck on my MacBook and the official Twitter apps for iPad and iPhone. TweetDeck lets me easily track all the tweets from my current students on their class lists and all the activity around their class hashtags.
• I have used Jing a number of times this semester and in previous years to create screencast tutorials for various online activities students need to complete (such as creating a blog on WordPress.com). These tutorials save me untold hours of demonstrating in person and writing directions in emails. I also have used Jing for providing feedback to students on online work that is difficult to comment upon otherwise. I can narrate what I see in their work (e.g., a blog post), point at and highlight things with the mouse cursor, type into their documents, and then send them a secure link to the online video, which is quickly uploaded to Screencast.com through the Jing software. One caution: my students watched the screencasts so many times this semester that I had to upgrade my Screencast.com account to a pro account ($9.99/month) to ensure that the necessary bandwidth was available. That was a bummer, and I’ll be re-evaluating my use of Jing+Screencast.com for tutorials. For individual feedback, though, I think this is a great combination. Students responded positively to it as well.

Unsubscribe.com button for Mail plugin. Note my brief, sweet Inbox Zero.

Productivity

• I learned about Unsubscribe.com this fall, and have been using it to aggressively reduce the amount of automated email I receive. I use Apple Mail and have installed the Unsubscribe plugin. When I receive automated mail I no longer want, I just select the message and click the Unsubscribe button in my toolbar. The service then automagically unsubscribes me. It’s pretty awesome. There are plugins available for other email apps as well. (Incidentally, I think I’m also saving money by not getting so many shopping-related emails!)
• Although many to-do lists are available out there, I’ve stuck with Toodledo. It’s simple, has a clean web interface, works with my iPhone and iPad, and is reliable.
• Google Calendar is wonderful and allows me to have not only my personal calendar, but also calendars for my individual classes that can be embedded on my class websites (like this). It’s helpful for me to see all my upcoming events and deadlines – and theirs – in one place.
• Dropbox and SugarSync are cloud storage services that I appreciate very much. Dropbox works with many iPad/iPhone apps, making it a central point for storing file I might need to access elsewhere. SugarSync is similar, but is configured to automatically back up key folders on my laptop ($59/year, but the peace of mind is worth it). I can also access anything in those key folders anywhere I have Internet access, which has been helpful on a couple of occasions.
• TextExpander. My students may suspect this by now, but every time they get an email from me that ends with “Please let me know if you have more questions,” I’ve actually only typed “ppl” – and TextExpander has done the rest. I have used this tool for numerous grading and writing purposes over the time I’ve had it installed. (All those Texas Monthlys in my dissertation, with their annoying italics? I typed only “TM” every time.) The software reports that it has saved me over 30 hours of typing during our wonderful time together.
• FocusBooster is a great Pomodoro Technique app that – when the going (read: grading) gets tough – allows me to work for 20 minutes, then knit take a 5-minute break (or whatever intervals I need). When you just can’t bring yourself to work, sometimes settling into just 20 minutes of work (at first) seems much more doable.

Reading and Writing

• I use Reeder for reading RSS feeds on the iPad (after trying many other RSS readers for the iPad). I use Google Reader pretty much solely as a subscription manager at this point, and just sync my account with Reeder for more comfortable reading away from the computer on the iPad or iPhone.
• I use Readability to reformat websites for easier reading, and I use Instapaper (on the iPad and soon on a new Kindle) to save long stories to read later. Interesting stuff gets saved to my Pinboard account for later reference. (Pinboard also automatically saves any tweet I send that includes a link, so I never have to wonder, “What was that article I tweeted the other day?”) Pinboard is worth every penny of the $9-something lifetime membership fee I spent on it. Readability, Instapaper, and Pinboard all work via bookmarklets in my browser. Instapaper and Reeder both work with Twitter and Pinboard, too.
• I enjoy using Outliner on the iPad to develop writing projects. Though it does much the same things as Inspiration, which I have used on the MacBook for a long time, I find it fun and thought-provoking to literally move my ideas around on the screen.

Multimedia

• I have taken up photography as a hobby and have been enjoying using Snapseed and TiltShift Generator to edit photos and upload them to my Flickr account. I also have a lot of fun using FlickStackr to look through photos in Explore on Flickr, which is inspiring and educational for a new photographer! Guardian Eyewitness is also a great iPad app that highlights an amazing work of photojournalism every day. I have more apps I could include in this category, but they’re not strictly teaching-related tools, so…

If you like these kinds of tools and want to keep learning more, I highly recommend that you regularly read the ProfHacker blog and follow it on Twitter as well. Many of these ideas came from ProfHacker initially. I also learned of others from the fabulous folks I follow on Twitter. The community of technology-minded academics there has been an amazing resource for me.

Do you have other technology tools that have made your teaching life easier or more enjoyable? Please share in the comments!

Someone on Twitter – forgive me, I can’t remember who! – recently mentioned the book The Sense of Dissonance by David Stark at Columbia University. I hadn’t heard of the book and requested it from the library. Just in the first chapter (available on Stark’s book website here), I’m already finding some compelling stuff.

The concept of “heterarchy” is fascinating to me, in multiple contexts – including media and journalism, naturally. Stark discusses an example from the tech industry in detail in a later chapter. (It’s also used in other fields, as this Wikipedia entry demonstrates.)

Applying this idea to higher education is fascinating. Check out these paragraphs:

…in an increasing number of areas, many firms literally do not know what products they will be producing in the not so distant future. To cope with these uncertainties, instead of concentrating their resources for strategic planning among a narrow set of senior executives or delegating that function to a specialized department, heterarchical firms embark on a radical decentralization in which virtually every unit becomes engaged in innovation. That is, in place of specialized search routines in which some departments are dedicated to exploration while others are confined to exploiting existing knowledge, the functions of exploration are generalized throughout the organization.

These developments increase interdependencies between divisions, departments, and work teams within the firm. But because of the greater complexity of these feedback loops, coordination cannot be engineered, controlled, or managed hierarchically. The results of interdependence are to increase the autonomy of work units from central management. Yet, at the same time, more complex interdependence heightens the need for fine-grained coordination across the increasingly autonomous units. (p. 21)

…authority is no longer delegated vertically but instead emerges laterally. … A young interactive designer…expressed this succinctly: When asked to whom he was accountable, he replied, “I report to [the project manager] but I’m accountable to everybody who counts on me.” (pp. 22-23)

Stark also describes the role in heterarchical organizations of “diverse evaluative principles” (I skipped ahead to the book’s conclusion for this succinct statement):

The assets of the firm are adaptively increased when there are multiple measures of what constitutes an asset. The same is true at the societal level. Value is amplified when there is organized dissonance about what constitutes the valuable….We do better when more of us with varied voices ask this question from different standpoints of what is worthy. (p. 212)¹

His explanation raises all kinds of questions for me, including these:

• What would it mean if higher ed institutions turned over responsibility for innovation to academic departments, asking them to envision completely new ways or radical innovations with which they could best accomplish their educational goals?
• Would losing the organization offered by the larger university hierarchy lead to chaos — or, freed from the strictures of imagining only what would work within the context of the entire institution, could entirely new means of educating at the university level be envisioned?
• Are faculty too socialized into and comfortable within existing hierarchies to embrace the interdependence and new accountabilities inherent to a heterarchical approach?
• Would a heterarchical structure be compatible with current funding structures in place for higher ed? If not, what would be alternatives?
• Are we maintaining “diverse evaluative principles” with regard to higher ed, or is the increasing focus on workforce preparation diminishing the value of higher education as a societal asset?

I don’t find much discussion of the links between “heterarchy” and higher ed. Here’s one connecting to the concept of “ecovillages”; here’s one in the British context; here’s one about K-12 education. Am I missing others?

The “heterarchy” concept is new to me, and it’s entirely possible I’ve misunderstood Stark’s thinking — and, I admit, I’m only about 25 pages into the book. I have no doubt that it’s about to get much more complicated in fun ways. But I love it when a new idea with so many potential applications gets my brain off and running.

What do others think, about the idea in general or about this application of it? Please share your thoughts.

¹ Stark, D. (2009). The sense of dissonance: Accounts of worth in economic life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Image by Flickr user Dan Zen.

I have a new story up today at PBS MediaShift about Once Magazine, an iPad magazine that focuses on visual storytelling, especially photography. It’s great to see experiments like this one that help photographers find new ways to use their work and earn a living from their art.

Read more at MediaShift!

Borders, Tigard, OR, 9/10/11.

Here’s a magazine rack for sale at a closing Borders location.

Will more magazine racks be offered up for sale as the industry undergoes further changes?

I could probably use one at my house — but not for long. I’m migrating to iPad subscriptions as my print subscriptions expire. When will the magazine rack be obsolete, or used only for those few publications who truly need and justify the print medium?

The parody New Yorker cover produced by the Church of Scientology.

I recently noticed an interesting magazine-related story on the New York Times site regarding the Church of Scientology’s publication and distribution of a new parody magazine. It attempts to counter The New Yorker‘s reporting on the church:

…the church has produced a 51-page glossy magazine and an accompanying three-part DVD that try to discredit The New Yorker, its writers, editors, fact-checkers and sources.

“The New Yorker: What a Load of Balderdash,” reads the cover headline on the publication, Freedom, which is registered as a copyright of the church and bills itself as offering “investigative reporting in the public interest.”…

The church singles out editors, fact-checkers and other New Yorker staff members who worked on the article by name and prints their photos. The church also uses what appears to be a surveillance photograph taken of Mr. Wright while he was conducting an interview at an outdoor cafe in Texas.

This strategy is creepy, ridiculous, and probably ineffective. However, the desire to create a magazine to spread an unusual (to say the least) perspective is intriguing. Why go to the expense and bother? Why not just use the Internet to mount a campaign against The New Yorker?

Maybe it’s that Internet campaigns are just too commonplace these days. Maybe the Scientologists thought the act of handing out paper magazines in front of the Condé Nast offices might garner more media attention. (I find only about 20 articles about the event in Google News Search, however.) I’m beginning to wonder if there is something else about magazines that makes them appeal to people seeking to propagate an unusual and easily modified (or even widely ridiculed) message.

My interest in this issue stems from a study I recently conducted on the Al Qaeda magazine Inspire, which unlike Freedom is entirely a digital publication, but is decently designed, and which co-opts many popular culture themes and styles in its content. Though its topic is vile, the medium used to present it is interesting. Why create a digital magazine, instead of continuing to use YouTube videos, message boards and the like to distribute digital terrorist recruitment materials?

I think that in this age of user-generated content, print and digital magazines may find a new role due to their ability to present what I’m calling “stable” narratives of dissent. Their paper form (or, when digital, unitary design) makes their content more difficult to modify and remix.

The benefits of the magazine form are probably valid for all activist or fringe groups. Some groups’ particular goals may intensify the risks of losing message control that accompany digital materials, making the magazine form even more useful. These advantages are added, of course, to magazines’ physical nature, which permits pass-along readership and confers a sense of legitimacy on their topics.

Scientology and Al Qaeda have different goals, to be sure, but the ability to present their own version of reality in the magazine format offers different opportunities from those provided by other lower-cost media. This unique, emerging sociocultural role and potential of magazines in our digital age is something I plan to explore further in my writing and research.

More ideas for me? Comment, please!

When I was a senior at Trinity University, I took both the Magazine Writing and Magazine Production classes offered in the Department of Communication, even though I was an English major. I still have copies of my production class’s magazine, of which I was the editor.

Those two classes, taught by Sammye Johnson, had a major impact on the path of my education and my later career choices. While I was in grad school, I was fortunate to return to Trinity as a part-time instructor and to teach the production class myself. It was a great challenge, but was also lots of fun.

I was impressed and excited to learn, in the process of writing my latest MediaShift story, that some magazine classes are no longer producing print magazines, but instead have gone all-digital. Though I’m a little sad that the students won’t experience the anticipation and thrill of receiving their freshly printed magazines at the end of the semester, the new directions of these innovative courses are well-suited to today’s changing industry.

Read the full story here!

Photos and Photoshopping by me, with guest appearances from the When Words Collide textbook, the AP Stylebook for iPhone, Backpacker’s iPad edition via Zinio…and even a few print magazines, including Afar, Wired, Portland Monthly, and New Scientist.