If I were the Queen...

I shouldn't have read everyone else's posts first, because now I feel like I don't have any ideas left...

Readings:

• Keep Keen because he's a conversation-starter. If you want to replace him with another conversation starter, use danah boyd's class division article instead (I like Laura's suggestion of moving db to earlier in the semester).
• Keep Feed and Farkas.
• Get rid of The Social Life of Information. Some of the chapters are available online if you don't want to let it go completely.
• Limit books by Wired editors to one. My personal preference would be to keep Johnson and use Anderson's "Long Tail" article instead of the book.

Technology:

• Keep all of it. I do agree with Tara's observation that we probably don't need to set up so many e-mail accounts. I would recommend keeping Google and Yahoo! accounts. After the IM week, I never used the aol account.
• After using the voice chat option in Second Life, I would suggest adding Skype as one of the tools we practice with. It would be especially helpful for troubleshooting, when one person is trying to help another person get something set up.
• I would recommend doing social networking earlier in the semester. It's something that's pretty easy to self-teach, and students can use it throughout the semester.
• I LOVE Amy's suggestion of Club Penguin vs. Second Life. It's easy, fun, doesn't have so many tech requirements, and would be a good introduction into the MMOG metaverse. People who are interested in further exploration could try out SL. Alternatively, if you're going to keep SL, we should plan to have one virtual meeting in there. I had so much more fun with RR and JF than I did when I went by myself.

Interaction:

• I second all the requests for comment continuation on the blogs. My blog feels a little sad when it has posts with zero comments.
• I also second Renee's suggestion that we keep finding "new to us" stuff and bookmark it.
• We probably don't need to subscribe to apophenia. I don't mind reading it, but my reader got cluttered up with danah boyd's vacation notices and pharmacy problems, which I just don't care about.

I learned so much in this class, and although it was time-consuming, it was all worth it. I find myself telling people about how great these tools are and even convinced an RU instructor to screencast for her students (thus eliminating one or two old school paper handouts). Now I must work on my final...two due the same day.