Search Science

My seven year-old has lately been fascinated by science videos—especially those that feature the solar system, stars, planets, galaxies, etc.

Yesterday, she was browsing YouTube, mostly unsuccessfully, looking for interesting science videos she hadn't seen. She was a little frustrated, as many of the things she started to view were promotional or game related.

I stepped in, thinking I'd be able to navigate her to some better videos by using YouTube search. I typed in "science" and this is what we received.



While I can see Abbey actually liking the System of a Down video, the Thomas Dolby result was less than fulfilling for either of us. Moreover, the fourth result is typical of almost any YouTube search (search for X, get multiple hits with tits), and the fifth, while potentially relevant and interesting, is far too detailed for our purposes.

A recent TechCrunch piece puts our travails in perspective: "Search is a really bad overall experience."

The blame is partly mine, of course. After seeing my frustration—and giggling at the ginormous boobies that appeared when I searched "science"—Abbey said, "search for 'solar system.'" Smart kid.

"Solar system" indeed yielded better results, and we watched a fascinating video about scale and the size of stars. Additionally, the algorithm that suggested similar videos to this one proved useful too.

But it seems to me there's got to be something in between System of A Down, boobs, and relevant search for a query as benign as "science."

Maybe Abbey will figure out how to do that well. Hopefully someone gets us closer to relevance sooner, though.

[ A Brief History of the Monstrance: Embodied Rhetorics and Eucharistic Benediction ]

Below is a screencast of my recent talk at the 2010 Conference of the Rhetoric Society of America, held in Minneapolis May 28-31. I presented on a panel with Christa Teston, Davida Charney, and Grant Boswell.

Twitter, Mobile Devices, and User Retention

As I've argued on this blog and elsewhere, the mobile component of Twitter is essential to a rich user experience. Having SMS updates enabled or using a mobile client such as Tweetie or Twitterific is a key factor in getting the most out of Twitter as a robust communications platform and as a framework for ambient research. While I've maintained this position over the last few months, I recently had the misfortune/opportunity to experience Twitter sans mobility, and I didn't like it much.

As you may know, one of my primary areas of research is the study of writing and rhetorics on ubiquitous and mobile small-screen devices. In fact, my impending move to Ball State University includes support for a new, more robust mobile device and data plan, as well as affiliation with the Center for Media Design, where I hope to procure funding and develop empirical studies of mobile media consumption and ambient communication.

The long and the short of the story is that my phone broke last week. More specifically, my phone's screen functioned intermittently and not very well, mostly not at all (though banging it on my desk seemed to help at times). There was no disruption is service or functionality--messages and calls still came through just fine--but I couldn't read those messages or determine who might be calling. As you might imagine, this presented some problems. I'm the type of person who will go on using something until it just won't work anymore (I still have--and use--a Palm Vx, for Pete's sake!), but this was something different.

My first order of business was to remove device updates from Twitter. That "solved" some of the problem, but I was still faced with incoming calls that I couldn't see, and additional text messages from others that I couldn't read. Moreover, my engagement with Twitter was rather poor. I figured it would be easier to elaborate on some of this via video:

So, certainly my experience here is purely anecdotal, but I am left wondering how mobile adoption might enrich one's experience of using Twitter, how it might make it easier for a new user to engage in conversation and to feel as though they are part of a larger community, and how their reading and writing practices travel with them. My unintended experiment in reverse-engineering the mobile UX of Twitter gave me a very different, rather underwhelming perspective on the service. In explaining Twitter going forward, I know that I'll be emphasizing mobile usage even more.

Frontera Retórica: Recap and Video

Frontera Retórica, UTEP's student chapter of the Rhetoric Society of America, recently completed its second annual Spring Symposium. I shot some rather haphazard video of the speaking events, and have cobbled that together here for your viewing pleasure.

The first panel highlighted undergraduate research in Rhetoric and Professional Communication, with presentations from (in order) Rene Luna, Jonathan Saldivar, and Nadia Ramirez. More detailed information on the fantastic work of these students can be found on Slideshare, where Rene, Jonathan, Nadia, and I had previously uploaded our panel proposal for the Southwest/Texas PCA/ACA conference. By all accounts, this was a fantastic, informative, and inspiring panel, one for which our students should be very proud!

The undergraduate panel was followed by presentations from three of the dissertating doctoral candidates in UTEP's nationally recognized Rhetoric and Writing Studies program. Hector Carbajal began the graduate panel with a thorough and lucid study of the "rise, fall, and re-invention of memory in the history of rhetoric." Christie Daniels, current president of Frontera Retórica, discussed her dissertation research in a presentation titled "Remapping Evil: Locating, Spatializing, and Depicting Morality." I was the last to present, and though I didn't shoot any video of myself (you're not missing anything!), the slides for my talk can be found below.

After a brief intermission of good food and even better discussion, we heard the excellent keynote presentation of Bill Hart-Davidson, co-director of the WIDE Research Center at Michigan State University. Dr. Hart-Davidson discussed his work on the "Social Writing Application Platform" (SWAP), a project developed at WIDE that can be used to "coordinate the distributed work of multiple writers" in an organizational setting. Beyond his thought-provoking keynote presentation, we simply had a great time with Bill during his visit, from dinner at L&J's to the daytrip to Old Mesilla. He's a wonderful representative of both Michigan State and the entire discipline!

A couple of notes on the video and the symposium: Carloyn Drapes and I live-tweeted Bill's talk, and the collection of those tweets can be found here. This video is intended as a representation of the full event, hence the music and the lack of discussion. Perhaps next year we'll live stream the events so that we can more fully share the scholarly discussions. Finally, I should note that I didn't shoot video of the entire space--there were easily 5 or 6 times the number of attendees that can be seen in this video. Enjoy!

Game Theories

I am by no means any kind of expert in game theory. There are many brilliant people in my field that study gaming and game theory, and I've been very lucky to have met a few of them, and to have discussed digital gaming with folks from other disciplines, such as Steven Conway from the New Media Research Group.

These conversations have essentially changed my perspective on digital gaming and its role in childhood educational development. I played video games as a kid (hello Atari 2600!), but I also spent an inordinate amount of time outside, breaking things, making things, and pretending to be a sports superstar. Like many parents, I have at times suggested that my kids don't do enough of this kind of play, and too much of the gaming that is now ubiquitous and digital.

But there's a preponderance of evidence which suggests that gaming in digital environments is actually good for the kids, and combined with my own research interests in digital media, I have relented on how much time my kids spend gaming. In fact, I'm even promoting it, within reason.

There have been some interesting recent developments in applied game theory and primary education. The Institute of Play, for example, promotes "gaming literacies" and seeks to "build new domains of knowledge connected to gaming, digital media, and learning." In fact, a new(ish) public school in NYC called Quest to Learn admitted its first 6th grade class in the fall, which "uses the underlying design principles of games to create highly immersive, game-like learning experiences for students." And a recent NY Daily News article looks at the transition from pencils to joysticks.

All of which leads me to share a short video of my five year-old's first attempt at playing FIFA (my all-time favorite game) on the Xbox 360: