1. Learning is social and so it is most effectively pursued in communities of education in which teachers and students are actively engaged together.
2. Social media technologies are transforming education because they are able to open dynamic communities of learning between teachers and students.
   

• Cody Yashinsky and Pam Dorian produced a weekly round-up podcast that focused on the media's influence on Philosophical discussion, the question of the Good and specific blog posts of the week.

Listen to Cody and Pam on Weekly Round-up #2

• Themes and topics emerge organically as students gravitate to issues of common concern.  This semester some of those issues have included:

• The question of the Good, exemplified by the robust comments received by Jordan Sanford's post Why Should We Be Good?
• The issue of piety and how it is related to the life of philosophy Socrates lives: here is a post from Cody Yashinsky entitled "Is Religion Part of the Good?" that typifies the sort of discussion this issue has generated.
• We encouraged Marina McCoy from Boston College to invite her students to participate in our discussion when we realized that they were reading the Phaedrus the week we were.
• Marina's post on Rhetoric and Soul Leading was commented upon heavily by her students and mine.
• The dialogue between my students from Penn State and hers from Boston College was excellent.  Take a look at the response Pam Dorian received on her post about the Charioteer Allegory in the Phaedrus.

• Critical to the success of this model is how the blog is integrated into the classroom discussion.  I use Evernote to highlight specific posts and comments in class for discussion.
• This is a great way to get the students who are more reticent to talk in class to contribute to the discussion: call up their post and ask them to summarize it for discussion.
  

This paper pursues a path marked by three moments of touching in Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus, each of which articulates something of the logic of what I call the politics of the between and the economy endemic to the community it opens. The first occurs when Oedipus reaches for his daughters at the end of Oedipus the King. It marks the institution of a community between Oedipus and his daughters no longer dominated by patriarchal sovereignty.

The second moment of touching occurs in Oedipus at Colonus when Ismene and Antigone embrace Oedipus after their abduction by Creon. In this scene, a constellation emerges that beautifully embodies the very structure of the politics of the between. Here, situated between Antigone and Ismene, Oedipus is bound to a community of reciprocal support born of a trauma that anticipates the resurgence of the politics of violence and retribution that will condition its ultimate demise.

The destitution of this community of compassion between them is marked, however, by a third moment of touching, one that mirrors the first, as Oedipus hands his daughters over to Theseus thus opening the possibility that Athens herself might once again serve as the site of a politics of the between.

• Are you a morning person? Do you do your best work at night?

• Here is a link to Unclutterer's discussion of desktop timers which has some suggestions about free alarm clocks for the PC and Mac.
• About.com suggests a nice little timer trick in which you focus on specific tasks for shorter, 20 minute periods.
  

• Turn off the automatic alert on your email, IM service, etc.

• Get enough sleep: it seems that less than seven hours a night cripples productivity, memory retention and creativity.  See this article on How Much Sleep Do We Really Need? on the website of the National Sleep Foundation.
• Allow your mind to wander: I know it sounds strange for me to suggest this, but allowing your mind to go where it will as you perform menial tasks can help you work through a particularly difficult question or issue.
• Move: when your body is healthy, your mind becomes stronger, so be sure to get out from behind the desk and walk or exercise. This is not wasted time, but part of an overall strategy of success.
• Reward yourself with something fun you like to do when you have accomplished something; or use it as an end toward which your work is directed.
  

•  Unclutterer.com is a blog about getting and staying organized that has some good suggestions about time management.
• 43 Folders is a blog about finding the time to do your best creative work.

1. Marina McCoy, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston College has encouraged the students in her course entitled Rhetoric: Truth, Beauty, Power, to comment on our blog. Since we welcomed the BC students to our digital community last week, the conversation on the blog has exploded.
   
2. In order to encourage dialogue across universities, I worked with TLT here at Penn State to add Professor McCoy as a co-editor of the blog so she could write posts of her own.  She published a post on the question of the meaning of soul leading which generated a lot of commentary about contemporary political speech.
3. The Digital Dialogue, the podcast I have been producing dedicated to cultivating the excellences of dialogue in a digital age, now has a Facebook page and Professor McCoy has again invited her students to comment specifically on the latest episode, number 15 with Holly Moore, a former Philosophy undergraduate student at Penn State who received her PhD from DePaul University in mid-October.  My digital dialogue with her focuses on her dissertation. Professor McCoy has encouraged her students to subscribe to the Digital Dialogue via iTunesU [link opens iTunesU] and respond to episode 15 by commenting on the blog.

• This has generated a very interesting discussion around Dr. Holly Moore's work.  Although my favorite comment is the one that compares my "radio voice" to that of Peter Sagal, the most exciting thing about this is that we have on our course blog a class from BC engaged with a visiting Professor and recent PhD currently at Colby College engaged in dialogue about philosophical issues of mutual concern.
  

• Write a marketable dissertation.  Decisions about what to write your dissertation on are complicated.  Primary consideration needs to be given to your passion for and interest in the topic.  However, such decisions ought not be made in a vacuum and one important consideration will be the degree to which you will increase your opportunities for placement by writing such a dissertation.
  
  Specifically, it is advisable to write a dissertation that goes into some depth with regard to a specific thinker or theme that cuts across a broader spectrum of traditions and is able to speak to a wide range of approaches.  Even if you don't orient your own work by those other approaches, be aware of them and able to articulate and position your work in relation to them.
  
  
• Publish something in a well-respected journal.
• Give a Paper at a Conference where they use blind review.
• Develop Pedagogical Excellence: work on your teaching, teach as much as you can, write your one page teaching philosophy, develop a teaching portfolio.
  
• Ask yourself: what distinguishes me from other candidates, what do I bring to a job that others don't?

• Use Facebook, Twitter, blogging, etc., to articulate a serious, academic and engaged voice of your own.
• Leigh Johnson: readmorewritemorethinkmorebemore
  
• Joshua Miller: anotherpanacea
  
• Participate in social media related to Academia generally and Philosophy in particular:
• Academia.edu is a site where faculty, graduate students and institutions can establish profiles to highlight their work.
  
• Philosophywiki.org is a site where you can set up a profile about yourself and your work.
  

• German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for students doing work on German thinkers and topics related to German Philosophy who intend to spend time at a German University.
  
• Henry Frank Guggenheim Research Grants are given to research that can increase understanding and amelioration of urgent problems of violence, aggression, and dominance in the modern world.
• Fulbright, Council for International Exchange of Scholars offers a wide range to funding opportunities for US Scholars, both post-docs and graduate students.
• The Spencer Foundation has fellowships for doctoral students and post-docs working in research areas related to education.
• The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation has a dissertation research awards available for students working in Ethics and Religion (Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellowship) and Women & Gender (Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Fellowship in Women's Studies).
• The American Association of University Women has dissertation and post-doctoral fellowships for women US citizen from accredited institutions.
• The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation has post-doc fellowships for work related to German philosophy.
  

• Ask department chairs, directors of graduate studies if such opportunities exist at your institution.
• Talk to faculty such possibilities at the institutions of their colleagues.
  

• SPEP has introduced a jobs announcement section of the website, but this seems only to be as good as the institutions who submit. It does provide insight into which institutions are interested in the work being done by members of the society.
  
• American Philosophical Association publishes, of course, the Jobs for Philosophers; they also have a Job Seekers Database, which seems to be under construction at the moment, but which students should use when it is up.
  
• The Philosophy Jobs Wiki lists jobs offered by many institutions and is updated by the users.  It is only as accurate, of course, as the users are engaged and reliable. My experience, though, is that it is often very accurate, although it is important to recognize that it is not to be taken as the official mode of communication from colleges and universities.
• Penn State Philosophy Department Best Placement Practices page was developed to help our students think about how to position themselves to success on the market.  The suggestions are available for all interested students.
• Shortened URL for this post: http://tinyurl.com/spepjobpanel09

Christopher Long
longc@psu.edu

1. Education is being radically transformed by technological advances that allow communities of learning to grow in ways that cut across time, space and philosophical perspective.
2. In higher education, these technological innovations can be leveraged to integrate scholarly research and teaching at both the graduate and undergraduate levels in ways that extend the reach of research and deepen the scholarly roots of teaching.

• The Pedagogy of Blogging
• Blogging Rubric (pdf)
  

• The Digital Dialogue - a podcast dedicated to cultivating the excellences of dialogue in a digital age. (Subscribe via iTunes)
  
• Invites scholars from around the country working on issues related to ancient Greek philosophy, social and political theory, the question of deliberative democracy ...
  
• Generates interest in the work, cross-pollination of ideas, and attempts to model the excellences of dialogue it seeks to theorize.
  
• Socratic Politics in Digital Dialogue - a blog that hosts the Digital Dialogue, my undergraduate course (PHIL200: Ancient Greek Philosophy) and my graduate seminar (PHIL553: Ancient Greek Philosophy).
• Undergraduate Teaching: blog rubric (pdf), weekly round-up podcasts, the emergence of a community of learners engaged with the material:
  
• Jordan's Why Are You Here? post generates self-reflection
• Participants from outside the class: Holly Moore, Asher; UPDATE Nov. 2, 2009: Marina McCoy, Associate Professor from Boston College, has encouraged her students to join our digital community.  See my presentation to the IT Faculty Advisory Committee where I discuss how we are blurring the boundaries between institutions.
  
• Dynamic and substantive commenting on posts about: Religion, typical post with comments;
  
• Integration of video: Conan, Big.
• Graduate Teaching: more sophisticated level of discussion, community of scholarship via Zotero - allows for collaborative collection of references: Socratic Politics Group.
  
• Integrating the blog into the classroom: using Evernote to identify posts and comments on which to focus in-class discussion.
  
• The Search for Justice video - an attempt to provoke responses from a wider audience and to encourage those who watch it to consider: What is Justice?
  

-- Andrea Lunsford, in Wired article "Clive Thompson on the New Literacy"

1. Multiple Blogs - student owned and operated blogs with a course blog that aggregates material from the student blogs.
2. Common Course Blog - one blog with students either posting through comments or set up as editors.

• Student Ownership
• Diversity of Perspectives
• Student Work easy to Identify & Evaluate

• Difficult to Establish Community of Discussion
• Lack of Cross Fertilization of Ideas
• Aggregated Community
  

• Antigone and Current Events; example: Stephanie Marek's post on Gay Marriage
• Reading a Picture; example: Amanda Wise relates a picture of leaves to the Antigone

• Weekly blog posts (PHIL204 Syllabus); examples: Samantha Miller, Marianna Suslin and David Klatt.
  

• More Organic Community
• Centrally Managed
• Facilitates Cross-fertilization of Ideas through Posts and Comments
• Unified Discussion
• Cultivates Social Learning

• Work of Individual Student is More Difficult to Access and Evaluate
• Minimizes Idiosyncratic perspectives, creative outlets
• No Individual Student Ownership
  

• Blogging Scoring Rubric.pdf