Communication Commons^™

Pre-Service Teacher Social Networking Decisions And Training Needs: A Mixed Methods Study, Helen Crompton, Kelly Rippard, Jody Sommerfeldt

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

The use of social networks in America has risen nearly tenfold in a decade, rising from 7% in 2005 to 65% in 2015. This rise in the use of social networks has presented new ethical, legal, and professional challenges for educators. Teachers are held to higher standards of moral behavior than the general population. This mixed-methods study examined the types of social networks used by pre-service teachers and if they are making good decisions when using social networks. The findings show that the pre-service teachers were unsure what to post. Based on this finding, the researchers provide training suggestions to …

Lurkers, Creepers, And Virtuous Interactivity: From Property Rights To Consent To Care As A Conceptual Basis For Privacy Concerns And Information Ethics, D. E. Wittkower

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Exchange of personal information online is usually conceptualized according to an economic model that treats personal information as data owned by the persons these data are ‘about.’ This leads to a distinct set of concerns having to do with data ownership, data mining, profits, and exploitation, which do not closely correspond to the concerns about privacy that people actually have. A post-phenomenological perspective, oriented by feminist ethics of care, urges us to figure out how privacy concerns arrive in fundamentally human contexts and to speak to that, rather than trying to convince people to care about privacy as it is …

Viability Of Using Twitter To Support Peer Instruction In Teacher Education, Tian Luo, Danielle E. Dani, Li Cheng

STEMPS Faculty Publications

This paper reports on a case study in which Twitter served as a backchannel to mediate and support the peer-teaching activity in a face-to-face teacher education course. Surveys and interviews were utilised to understand the effectiveness of the Twitter integration and students' perceived learning in a Twitter-supported peer teaching environment. Tweets were used to determine how preservice teachers used Twitter to support peer instruction. Most students were able to use the Twitter platform to produce and retrieve peer feedback, while some encountered technical difficulties. Our current analysis suggests the Twitter-based peer feedback was moderately successful in this peer teaching activity. …

School Library Advocacy Success- Perceptions In Context, Elizabeth Burns

STEMPS Faculty Publications

School librarians must be able to articulate the value of the educational impact they have on students and do so in a manner that is meaningful to their stakeholders (Kirkland, 2012). Little research (Ewbank, 2011; Haycock, 2003; Oberg, 2006) exists examining effective advocacy practices or the perceptions of school library programs by stakeholders when school librarians are strong advocates for their programs. This study addresses this gap and explores perceived advocacy success by school librarians, as well as their stakeholders, and the strategies implemented to gain support for the school library program. This study employed a mixed method explanatory research …

Advances In Promoting Literacy And Human Rights For Women And Girls Through Mobile Learning, Helen Crompton, Judith Dunkerly-Bean

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

This article is taken from a larger review of extant research from a chapter titled “The role of mobile learning in promoting global literacy and human rights for women and girls” from the Handbook of Research on the Societal Impact of Digital Media. In this article we review the fairly recent advances in combating illiteracy around the globe through the use of mobile phones and e-readers most recently in the Worldreader program and the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) mobile phone and reading initiatives. Utilizing key human rights publications and the lens of transnational feminist discourse, which …

Embedding Online Based Learning Strategies Into The Engineering Technology Curriculum, Vukica M. Jovanovic, Otilia Popescu, Orlando M. Ayala, Mileta Tomovic, Alok K. Verma

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Various blended learning strategies have been implemented at engineering technology programs to facilitate different learning styles and different time constraints given to faculty. Some of these efforts are related to the effective use of online tools such as online course management systems, ePortfolios, narrated presentations, web-based polling systems, tutorials and educational materials posted before the class and asynchronous learning methods. As technology changes, some of the online learning methods are getting more advanced which is enabling more innovative approaches and data compression. Various distance learning programs started with having access to videos of recorded lectures (on VHS tapes, or CDs) …

Gaining S-T-E-A-M: A General Athletic Department Social Media Strategy, Brendan O'Hallarn, Craig A. Morehead, Shana L. Pribesh

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

In the 10 years since the invention of Facebook, social media sites have become an indispensable part of the marketing and communications strategy employed by a broad spectrum of organizations, including university athletic departments. While social media is almost universally used, a review of academic literature suggests the study of deployment of social media resources, and analysis of their effectiveness, is still very much in preliminary stages. Professional literature on social media use is out in front of peer-reviewed research. Therefore, we use Funk’s framework for social media practices as a point of departure, offering a social media strategy specifically …

Pedagogy At Play: Gamification And Gameful Design In The 21st-Century Writing Classroom, Danielle Roney Roach

English Theses & Dissertations

The language used to discuss play in current academic spaces tends to center around formal games (and computer games in particular in the 21st century classroom). Scholarly conversations tend to distort the actual practices that occur in classrooms and subsequently limit the scope of any investigation of the pedagogical function and outcomes of those practices. This project explores the use of play and games in the classrooms of nine composition instructors. From these stories, this project begins to map out a taxonomy in order to begin building toward a pedagogy of play for 21st century writing classrooms. Using a multiperspectival …

Economies Of The Internet I: Intersections, Kylie Jarrett, Julia Velkova, Peter Jakobsson, Roderick Graham, David Gehring

Sociology & Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

The internet has increasingly been conceptualized as a space of economic activity. This contemporary imaginary has been particularly influenced by insights from the school of Autonomist Marxism in the foundational work of Tiziana Terranova and through the dominance of Christian Fuchs’ application of Marxist economic concepts. While this has generated great insight into the political economy of the internet, and in particular allowed for the conceptualization of user activity as labor, this approach is only one paradigm for considering the economic activities and implications of the internet. For internet research, there is also the need to move beyond the long …

Communication Support And Religious Support In Managing Occupational Stress In Military Careers: A Career-Span Approach, Shantonee' Malee Mitchell

Communication & Theatre Arts Theses

This thesis reports an exploratory and descriptive study of communication support and religious support used by military personnel to manage occupational stress over the course of a career and their perceived effectiveness at helping to manage occupational stress. Drawing on a lifespan communication approach, this study employed a careerspan perspective where occupational stressors and sources of support (human and religious) are examined over the course of military careers. Results find three different groups of sources of communicative support were used in different ways to help manage military occupational stress: sources within the military, sources outside of the military, and religious …

Flooding In The Media, Jeremy Wheeler

July 24, 2015: Communicating Frequent Flooding

No abstract provided.

Flood Risk Communications - An Emergency Management Perspective, Robb Braidwood

July 24, 2015: Communicating Frequent Flooding

No abstract provided.

Communicating Nuisance Flooding In Hampton Roads, Burton St. John Iii, Carol Considine, Michelle Covi, Wie Yusuf, Stephanie Joannou

July 24, 2015: Communicating Frequent Flooding

No abstract provided.

We Developed A Smart Phone App On Flooding And Then The Hard Work Began, Skip Stiles

July 24, 2015: Communicating Frequent Flooding

No abstract provided.

From Tidewatch To "Flood Watch", Molly Mitchell

July 24, 2015: Communicating Frequent Flooding

No abstract provided.

Communicating Flood Risks, Meg Pittenger

July 24, 2015: Communicating Frequent Flooding

No abstract provided.

Communicating Coastal Flood Risk & Impacts, Jeff Orrock

July 24, 2015: Communicating Frequent Flooding

No abstract provided.

Signaling Instructional Video For Mathematics, Kimberly W. Milner

STEMPS Theses & Dissertations

Video provides an increasingly valuable medium for delivery of instruction in a growing number of content areas. Growth of online instructional applications has been prompted by expansion of the Internet and video streaming technology, adding to the need for design practices that produce more effective and efficient instructional videos. This study examined the use of signaling for multimedia to reduce cognitive overload and increase mental effort when learning mathematical concepts and procedures from instructional video. Signaling addresses the issue of directing the learner's attention by using visual or verbal cues that stress importance and organization (Mayer, 2009). Effectively signaled instructional …

Embodied Literate Practices Of Freshman Women Students: A Phenomenology Of Students In First-Year Composition, Carmen Lynn Christopher

English Theses & Dissertations

This project examines the experiences of freshman women students as they compose their first papers for first-year college composition. This study uses an interpretative phenomenological method to explore the lived experiences freshmen women undergo before they arrive at college and how those experiences inform these women’s practices in first-year composition. This dissertation has three main goals: to recover and clarify Heidegger’s interpretative phenomenology, to use that clarified method to explore freshman women’s experiences in first-year composition, and to suggest ways in which phenomenology might be used in the daily practices of writing instructors and administrators in higher education.

To address …

Detecting, Modeling, And Predicting User Temporal Intention, Hany M. Salaheldeen

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

The content of social media has grown exponentially in the recent years and its role has evolved from narrating life events to actually shaping them. Unfortunately, content posted and shared in social networks is vulnerable and prone to loss or change, rendering the context associated with it (a tweet, post, status, or others) meaningless. There is an inherent value in maintaining the consistency of such social records as in some cases they take over the task of being the first draft of history as collections of these social posts narrate the pulse of the street during historic events, protest, riots, …

Meditation In The Classroom: Cultivating Attention And Insight, E. James Baesler

Communication & Theatre Arts Faculty Publications

Goals: Care must be taken by the instructor not to overemphasize achieving the goal(s) of meditation. Often, when there is too much emphasis on trying to reach the goal, the benefits of meditating can be hindered. On the other hand, when the goal of meditation is held loosely, then the goal is more easily approached. For this class meditation activity, the instructor might loosely hold several interrelated goals for their students: cultivate experiences of first person attention, concentration, and awareness while simultaneously developing capacities for insight, imagination, exploration, and discernment of ideas related to class content and applications to everyday …

Work Across The Generations: Communication Narratives Of Stay-At-Home Fathers In Early And Middle Adulthood, Alice L. Jones

Communication & Theatre Arts Theses

The notion of work whether it is done inside or outside the home represents a complex and shifting pattern of social relationships, gender role identities, and ideologies. For an increasing numbers of men, who represent the population of fathers labeled as "stay-at-Home Dad" [SAHD] or "stay-at-home father" [SAHF], these changes have created special challenges, controversies, and raised questions about cultural expectations concerning the transition from that of a stigmatized role to that of a "new, involved father" (Eranta & Moisander, 2011; Rochlen, 2008). Increased participation by men in roles that challenge traditional and long standing gender role norms and expectations …

Playing With Food: Practices Of Consumption Cuisine And Embodiment In Video Games, Zachary Graham Hill

English Theses & Dissertations

The implementation of food in video games is extremely common to the medium, yet its function and placement within the cultural paradigms of video games remain unexamined. The purpose of this thesis is to examine games where culinary practices and foodways are brought to the forefront, making them either a key element to gameplay, or the only element of gameplay. By critically examining the various usages of food in game-spaces, this thesis examines the embodied relationship in video game spaces between players and their avatars through their encounters with food in these spaces. The relationships between player, avatar, and food …

Governing Bodies: Caster Semenya And The Rhetorical Management Of Sex And Gender Ambiguity In Professional Athletics, Samuel Robert Evans

English Theses & Dissertations

Sport has long been thought of as an "opiate for the masses," where a collective can forget about social, political, racial, or economic differences and unify to compete in the same space or root for a common team (Eitzen and Sage 202). Scholarship in sports communication, sports rhetoric, and sports sociology, however, has shown that this view of sport as an apolitical cultural institution separate from impactful political debate is oversimplified. Rather, sports are key sites in which beliefs about gender, race, class, and politics are made manifest.

This dissertation uses the case of Caster Semenya, a female South African …

An Analysis Of User-Generated Comments On The Development Of Social Mobile Learning, Shenghua Zha, Wu He

Information Technology & Decision Sciences Faculty Publications

In this study, the authors used a mixed-method approach to analyze user-generated comments on social mobile learning from three leading news sites that report the latest development in higher education. Koole’s mobile learning model was used to code comments made by the public on the three news sites. Results showed that social mobile learning has gained an increasing public engagement in the past four years. Responders’ discussion in the comments primarily focused on four themes of social mobile learning: technology adoption, effective design, faculty training, and student training. In the end, the authors discussed the implications for developers and educators …

The Social Experience Of Internet Gamers: A Pilot Study, Kristy L. Carlisle, Charles P. Carrington

Counseling & Human Services Faculty Publications

The purpose of this phenomenological pilot study was to explore the lived social experiences of Internet gamers. Findings highlighted the impact of Internet gaming on social interactions, social functioning, and social identity. The findings in the pilot study related to addiction supported the need for future research into the legitimacy of Internet Gaming Disorder as a mental health issue.

Semantic Shift To Pragmatic Meaning In Shared Decision Making: Situation Theory Perspective, M. Canan, A. Sousa-Poza, S. F. Kovacic

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The way humans establish communication depends on the generation and conveyance of meaning. Linguistically, meaning in information is dependent on the meaning that is ascribed to signifiers in the context of the communication. These signifiers can include items such as words, phrases, signs, and symbols. Conveyance of meaning may, however, imprecise and prone to error. The meaning of information in communication may arise from a change in the context in which a signifier is placed (intrinsic), or a change in the paradigm with which the signifier and context are perceived (extrinsic). In simple situations, where paradigms are reconcilable, semantic shift …

Testing The Waters: Local Users, Sea Level Rise, And The Productive Usability Of Interactive Geovisualizations, Daniel Richards

English Faculty Publications

This paper explores the potential for technical communicators to employ usability research with risk-based interactive geovisualization technologies as a method of cultivating "critical rhetorics of risk communication" for local communities. Through integrating theories from usability studies and risk communication, I offer some new directions for thinking about the productive usability of online, participatory technologies that promote citizen engagement in science. I argue that the key tenets of productive usability afford technical communicators the opportunity to build localized knowledge of risk in real, local users, which in turn improves the capacity for a community and its stakeholders to more effectively communicate …

Social Media And The Organization Man, Dylan E. Wittkower

Philosophy Faculty Publications

On new dynamics in organizational psychology, self- and group-identity, character, and integrity in an age of social media, "Organizations may then have a similar relation to our integrity as does our character. Our character is formed by a history of actions and interactions, but we may not identify with the actions that it brings us to habitually perform. When we recognize our vices—e.g., intemperance—and seek to act in accordance with our values and beliefs, we act against our character and contribute thereby to reforming our habits and character to better align with the version of ourselves with which we identify. …

Characteristics Of Social Media Stories, Yasmin Ainoamany, Michele C. Weigle, Michael L. Nelson

Computer Science Faculty Publications

An emerging trend in social media is for users to create and publish "stories", or curated lists of web resources with the purpose of creating a particular narrative of interest to the user. While some stories on the web are automatically generated, such as Facebook’s "Year in Review", one of the most popular storytelling services is "Storify", which provides users with curation tools to select, arrange, and annotate stories with content from social media and the web at large. We would like to use tools like Storify to present automatically created summaries of archival collections. To support automatic story creation, …