Throughout the semester, we will discover new terms and concepts about social media, brain science, and information literacy. As we develop the course, we will all contribute to a lexicon, or a working set of terms that we use to frame our discussions. This is not a dictionary. We don’t want to focus on defining each term, mainly because each of these concepts are large and at times contested.
Lexicon Badge -Earned by anyone who writes a Lexicon Post
At any given point in the semester, someone from class can write a Lexicon Blog Post, which is a 750-1000 word essay that develops one of these concepts. More than one person can write an article about a single term, but it is expected that each subsequent article will pull the conversation in a new direction, not merely replicate what has already been said. I’ve briefly defined each term, or at least pointed to a direction of a definition. Whenever possible, I have linked to the person responsible for coining the phrase. You are encouraged to develop the concept according to your own experience, link to other articles, videos, or podcasts, and make connections when writing a lexicon entry.
Once someone writes a Lexicon Blog Post, I will link to it on this page. Check back to this page throughout the semester, as I will continue to add terms. Feel free to submit terms in the comments section below, or even to write your own lexicon post. This page is just a point of departure.
Curation Culture Lexicon
E mail Apnea – A suggestion by Linda Stone that we subconsciously hold our breath (and otherwise divorce our minds from our bodies) when we check e mail or engage in social media conversations.
Frictionless Sharing - A kind of euphemism for the concept of when social media networks share information about your tastes, reading habits, or shopping preferences without you knowing you are sharing.
Neuroplasticity - The idea that the human brain can physiologically change according to the way we read and focus our attention.
Crowdsourcing
Cognitive Surplus - Clay Shirky’s idea that the critical mass of thinking can improve our ability to create, circulate, and consume information.
Filter Bubble - Eli Pariser’s argument that proprietary algorithms create a personalized online world that primarily affirms what we already believe.
Remixing
Publicness
Privacy
EdgeRank - Facebook’s algorithm that determines what content appears on our news feeds. How does it work and why does it matter in the context of information literacy and social media?
collaboration
proprietary algorithims
asynchronous social networks
Gamification - The idea of applying game principles to learning environments (or other “non-game” environments) to motivate learning and participation. Also, a staple of social media networks.
aggregation
Attention
Infotention
multitasking
digital natives
digital divide – The idea that not all people have the same access to technology and electronic devices. Thus, there exists a divide in society because of disparate levels of access to technology. What are the problems related to this divide?
Collective intelligence
intellectual property
Information literacy
Metacognition - The ability to think about how you think. This includes thinking out loud about how you learn, think, organize, and evaluate.
Citizen Journalism - The idea that individuals can contribute to a society’s knowledge base via blogs and social media platforms.
Web 2.0 - A buzz word about changes in online information that has existed since at least 200
metadata
Attribution of Discovery – Is there a consistent ethic of citing how one discovers sources? Who gets credit, and does it matter? How is meaning generated on the Internet? See this Science Friday podcast, which features Maria Popova of Brainpickings.
