Даниил Гранин “Зубр” (рецензия на Livelib.ru)

Писать о “Зубре” сложно, вероятно, именно из-за невероятной цельности образа, стоящего в центре этой книги – сложно говорить о книге, а не о личности. Пересказывать исторические факты, о которых идёт речь, смысла не вижу, к тому же, о них уже достаточно сказано в других рецензиях. Восхищает, как Гранину удаётся создать цельный образ учёного, передав при этом и те проиворечия, которые были в его характере – эти противоречия тоже как бы становятся частью неделимого целого. Очень ценны интонации живой речи, которые сохраняются в тексте – Гранин пишет, что он пользовался и магнитофонными записями, и непосредственность разговоров ему удалось перенести и на бумагу.

Иногда правда взгляд спотыкался о какие-то детали, касавшиеся не самого Зубра, а эпохи, в которую он жил, быта, окружавшего его – с ними автор обходится также размашисто, изображая их крупными мазками и яркими красками. Возможно, тот масштаб, который он выбрал для изображения личности Зубра, для других людей и мелких деталей оказывается менее подходящим.

Но в целом книга очень понравилась. Именно то, что я хотела почитать, когда оставляла эту заявку в флешмобе.

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Наблюдения (игры, слова)

Кажется, выражение “Талант не пропьёшь” я использую, в основном, в значении, синонимичном “Горбатого могила исправит” или близком к тому.

***

К вопросу о моём восприятии компьютерных игр: Была однажды такая история, которая рассказывается мной под заголовком “как я не прошла Avernum 5” из моральных соображений” (По жанру это РПГ; где-то в начале игры заключила договор не с теми силами, где-то в середине игры в результате нельзя было продвинуться дальше, не убив положительного персонажа, который, к тому же, говорил “Да, давай уже, я же вижу кто тебя вынуждает это сделать”, а старых сохранений уже не было). Играя в Wesnoth обнаружила, на третьей попытке прохождения одной, в общем-то, несложной миссии, что предыдущие две неудались из-за того, что мне жалко посылать юнитов, которые со мной уже не первую миссию, в гибельный отвлекающий манёвр, пока другой отряд обходит врагов с тыла (послать их самих в этот обход было невозможно). А всё почему? А потому что в подлом Весноте у каждого юнита есть имя, пол и особенности характера. Дополнительный вопрос (выяснять уже лень): Реально ли было пройти эту миссию, выполняя отвлекающий манёвр новобранцами (более слабыми чем опытные юниты) и утешилось ли бы моё подсознание таким решением?

Да, у меня странная манера сопереживать вещам (и комбинациям пикселов на экране и буковок в тексте). Но это интересно наблюдать

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#EDCMOOC: My digital artifact

I started to make my digital artifact already at first week of the course. I made a short presentation about technology that was included in final work as “Part I”. “Part II” was made during the last week of the course. So I apologize for some stylish diversity of this presentation. Illustrations for Part I (Technology) are my own, illustrations for Part II (Human) was found in the web (their sources are mentioned near each picture).

Maybe you will like to toggle fullscreen mode on, because there are much text at certain slides.

I hope you will like it. I will be also very glad to receive your comments about this presentation.

via WordPress http://7yukari7.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/edcmooc-my-digital-artifact/

Aboriginal Worldviews and Education

Aboriginal Worldviews and Education course starts today at Coursera. It will be not very long (4 Weeks), so it’s just an introduction, but I hope it will be very productive for me. I note that the focus of my attention moves from studying different disciplines to the process of education itself. Aboriginal worldviews are also very interesting for me. Earlier I studied something to this topics during “Listening to World Music” Coursera course. I’ve also studied basic course of Folkloristic in the University. My current area of study isn’t directly connected to this discipline, but it still remains interesting and important for me.

It’s nice that submission period of the first assignment starts at the same day, when submission period of the final work for EDCMOOC ends

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Мелочи

Опечатка: “30 рублей за 1000 знаний без пробелов”

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В рекламе мелькает анонс какого-то глянцевого журнала, обложка с заголовками статей. Один из заголовков – “Когнитивное невероятное”.

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Попытка купить печенюшки в небольшом ларьке. Внезапно ларёк оказывается внутри полутёмным, на прилавке стоят тут и там свечи – отключили электричество. Мужчина-продавец настойчиво предлагает: “Вот тут молочное, а вот вы ещё овсяное попробуйте” (с ударением на предпоследний слог). И самое странное что это мне не снится)

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Словоупотребление

Столь обсуждаемый в СМИ в последние несколько недель “Закон о пропаганде гомосексуализма”, помимо разделения обсуждающих на его сторонников и противников порождает ещё одно разделение, более неоднозначное, менее очевидное и не совпадающее с вышеупомянутым: на тех, кто может произнести вслух название закона, и тех, кто не может и прибегает к разного рода эвфемизмам. Меня это несколько смешит, как даже вроде бы опытные ведущие на том же “Эхе Москвы” начинают, задавая вопрос об оном законе гостю, изворачиваться и на ходу изобретать какое-нибудь косвенное выражение. Но ведь не мат же это в конце концов.

Безотносительно предыдущего, но на ту же тему: вспомнилось сейчас, как меня передёрнуло, когда я впервые услышала слово “полицейский” в бытовой речи. В новостях оно как-то не очень бросается в глаза, а когда в автобусе один парень сказал другому что-то вроде “и тут я у полицейского спросил” – тут я как-то вздрогнула от непривычного звучания.

Тэг “государственная д.” я, вероятно, буду употреблять в той же функции, что и раньше тэг “хочу в Австралию!”

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#EDCMOOC : tablet PC vs. handwriting

I think, tablet PC will never replace pen and paper, especially at school.

Because if you sit in the class at the boring lesson (and even in the best school the lesson can be boring), you could never take a page from your tablet PC, make a paper plane and throw it in the window (or in your classmate ).

via WordPress http://7yukari7.wordpress.com/2013/02/18/edcmooc-tablet-pc-vs-handwriting/

#EDCMOOC: How e-learning affects the process of reading

As we can see on the example of this course and other MOOC, the proportion of visual and textual content is different, than in "traditional" education. We need to deal with videos, pictures, collages, presentations etc., and they aren't just illustrations to text - they have their own role in education process.

In EDC MOOC we also have to read some text - some articles about technology and education. Most of them are represeted as html pages, not pdf files (which I personally would prefer). I have an idea, that the process of reading articles in this form slightly differs from the preocess of reading a common book or magazine.

1. Scrolling up and down vs. turning pages over. Even when I read something important (not news or somebody's blog, but something for long reading), I prefer to download  the text to my e-reader (where I can read from page to page) or even print it on paper. It seems to me, that when I scroll down, I lose a focus and spend a couple of seconds to find a place where I stopped)
2. Making notes. Some text are worth active reading. You make notes, underline interesting places, or use highlighter, draw arrows linking ideas or concepts etc. (Maybe you know a good tool that allows to do such things in a browser? It would be nice to use it). Actually, when working on my degree paper, I bought a graphic tablet just for this purpose - to make free handwritten notes on very big anount of pdf books I need to work through. I see that technology can give new opportunities of making such notes (with certain advantages like using hypertext and links between notes), but hadn't find an appropriate tool yet.
3. Non-verbal information. Even if the books contains just plain text, there are also other layers of information. I've read one article that shows, for example, that Comic Sans is better to use in textbooks for primary schools than Times New Roman, because is easier to read. I know also that some authors of fictional or phylosphycal works insisted that their books shoud be reprinted with exact font, spacing, division to pages etc. Because such things also affect reception of the book. In most cases when you read something at web-page, this layer of information is lost (especially if you don't have an AdBlock or similar app). The text is more flexible, but at the same time it loses partially its structure. And that's why I prefer PDF - it keeps all this features as it was intended by author. 

What do you think? How the process of reading will change when people move more and more to reading web-pages and e-books from usual paper books and magazines? Will this changes affect the effectiveness of learning and of reading in general?

#EDCMOOC Some practical examples of problems in educational system

I work as private tutor in Russia, and I would like to give two examples, wchich, I think, show, what is wrong with our current educational system. Just particular observations, but I think, they are typical.

First: In most cases I visit my pupils at their homes. When I come a bit late, for example 5 minutes later, it's difficult to tell my 10-years-old pupil that we will than finish our lesson 5 minutes later too. So it is not about "spend some time to get some knowledge", it is like "finish this lesson as soon as we can, and go to more interesting things". (Actually, I put much effort to make a lesson interesting, but I don't have much success till now). I think this comes from typical 45-minutes-long school lessons, when all pupils work regardless their own productive work periods etc. They are used to work just when they have to work, and then throw this away from their mind.
Actually, students or school pupils of last year of education who prepapre to exams think already a bit different. They know what they need and why, so it is already not a problem to make a lesson a bit longer. But the problem still remains: In this year, from the 15 first-year university students I asked (I took part at  the exam as professor's assistant), only three have read something behind the basic textbooks. They just do their task from point A to point B and nothing more. 

Second. The same 10-years-old pupil from the example above asked me: "When I asked you, what grade will I get, why do you say "4", not "5"?" Actually, I didn't think about this problem when I gave the answer, I just said fairly what I think. But for the pupil a dream about getting "very good" (5 in our system) grade was more important than real information about her knowledge and what she do to improve it. So here is the problem: Pupils and student (and their parents too) worry about grades more than about getting real useful knowledge.

I think such problems cannot be solved without deep reorganization of educational system, and modern technologies give useful tools for than - we shoul only use them properly.

Словарный запас

Совершенно вылетело из головы два слова, никак не пойму, как это назвать по-русски.

Первое: представим ситуацию: маршрутка проезжает мимо перекрёстка, на котором самый яркий ориентир - небольшая жёлтая постройка. "Остановите вот у этой..." Можно ли её назвать как-то менее общо, чем, собственно, постройкой? Не дом, так как не жилое. Не магазин, так как снаружи нигде не написано, что оно магазин. (Внутри что-то с автозапчастями, на самом деле, но снаружи это далеко не сразу ясно). Самым близким из предложенных мне на этот вопрос вариантов пока был сарай, но и это тоже как-то не то.

Второе: можно ли как-то назвать одним словом кухонную бытовую технику? Т.е. какое-то такое название для разновидности бытовой техники, чтобы туда всякие блендеры-миксеры-кофемолки попадали, а пылесосы уже нет. (Вопрос возник при написани очередного копирайтерского задания).

#EDCMOOC Week 2: Some thoughts about videos

Here are links to videos discussed below:
A Day Made of Glass 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZkHpNnXLB0
Productiviry Future Vision: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6cNdhOKwi0
Sight: http://vimeo.com/46304267
Charlie 13: http://futurestates.tv/episodes/charlie-13%20 (Actually I didn't watched this video, it was loading too slow and there was no option to change video quality)
Plurality: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzryBRPwsog

First two videos are advertisings from different companies (Corning and Microsoft). The technology represented in A Day Made of Glass seems to be more innovativ. In one book about advertising (I cannot find the source now) I've read the following: The most succesfull advertising of PC for private users when companies only started to sell them in US was not "They will make your life easy" or "The technology will fully cange your life". The most successfull advertising was something like "Our PC wouldn't actually change your life". Is this story true or not, Productivity Future Vision represents the same approach: People are the same, the stereotypes are the same (like the man in taxi, or the girl asking her mother about recipe, or the meeting). The procedures, the situations are the same, only with better special effects.
A Day Made of Glass is a bit different. Here technologies are deeper integrated into people's lifestyle. So there are more changes, related to them. Technology starts to change the way of work or study. I like how study is represented here - children can get information wherever they want, and this information is represented not only as some theoretical knowledge, but as different visual content, even 3D. In general the accent is moved from textual to visual content, in all areas of life, and this is representation of some changes in people's mind.

Plurality resembled for me a Little Brother book, which I have read before (it's also about a world of total control, like the Grid in this video, and teenagers fighting against this system). I think this video shows dystopian society. But the problem isn't in technology itself. I don't see a problem when somebody knows what books do I like or what food do I buy. But it becomes to a problem when it's forbidden to read certain books for example. I think every thing can be misused, every element of technology in general meaning, since   first people used stones to kill people of other tribe, instead of building house of that stones. So it's nothing unusual when such technologies like GRID can be used to control people. The only thing is, when our world becomes more globalized and technology develops further, this problems becomes more and more clearer and unavoidable.
I would like to point, that in Plurality, in Charlie 13 and in Little Brother we see how teenagers try to do something against system. And this is why I'm optimistic. If technology develops further and new devices and gadgets etc. appear, teenagers (as digital natives) will always know it better than elder people (as digital immigrants).So they will have chance to cheat the system, to jam scanners etc. And this is why I think that every dystopia cannot exist forever. (and it is not about revolution, it is mostly about "silent revolution", when people just ignore the system). But it is already another story...

#edcmooc: Back to Week-1: The story of Digital Native

After looking at several digital artifacts (and browsing several websites, formerly unknown to me, like Glogster) I thought that it would be interesting to define, where I am on this scale, with Digital Natives on one side and Digital Immigrants on another. Now I am 25 years old.

My first experience of using a PC, as I can remember, was when I was about 8 years old, and it was gaming experience. We had ZX Spectrum, which was used mostly to play games (This year I downloaded an emulator and tried to play those old games - they were surprisingly difficult, more difficult that I thought they were). Then an NES appeared, and one of my schoolmates had Sega.

It's interesting, that important part of my PC-related experience was reading. There were many books with ZX Spectrum games descriptions, which I read just like fiction books, and there were many magazines with articles about programming basics, PC architecture, beginners lessons of using text editor on PC etc. There were nothing or very few about Windows, and I read most of this materials just as curious child, before seeing any of described things in real life. Most of this materials were outdated already when I read it (there were magazines from mid 80's which I read in the second hald of 90's), but I think exatly from this magazines I got the idea of how PC works, what are files and catalogues, what are algorythms and programms.

So when I worked at Windows-based PC at the beginning of 2000's for the first time, it wasn't very difficult for me. I used it for playing games and for some schoolwork, and crashed the systen for two times, trying to tweak it. I didn't have regular connection at those time - there were dial-up times, and it was technically difficult and was not cheap. Sometimes I asked friend to download something for me or bring something on floppy disk.

Then one more time, when my knowledges were one step further than my real experience: I started to work as freelancer _before_ I got internet connection at home. I used internet at the university, in libraries (sometimes it was paid, sometimes free), and sometimes in internet-clubs. Till now I don't like to work with information online - I prefer to save what I need and then work with this content.

What now.. Now my nice netbook (small laptop) it my main tool for education and for work (and I play games too)). Sometimes I think about it like about body part - a longer hand, a better eye, a greater memory. I use some online-services, like this blog)) and I prefer e-books instead of paper books in most cases. Although I'm not IT-professional (and who can be further from IT than a person who studies old literature?), but people sometimes ask me to help with their PC or explain how to work with software or website... (The case I will bever forget was installing an Wikipedia mirror for offline use onto Android phone, when I saw Android for the first time... succesfull). So I can say in most cases I can grasp how something works (if itsn't some Apple product. I don't like them for different reasons and that's why I cannot intuitively grasp, how do their gadgets work)

I feel like I'm digital native, but my "language", my dialect, is a bit outdated already (partially because of outdated textbooks, partially because some features of my mind and perceprion (from the start textual information was easier for me than visual). For example, I prefer two-panel file-manager intead of windows explorer... Sometimes I take a role of translator, explaining something digital to elder people (and sometimes to younger).  But modern internet of videos and pictures (lack of text and reading worries me sometimes) and streaming information online isn't my natural environment. I can visit it for the short time, when I need it (e.g. maling digital artifact for this course), but then I would prefer to come back to my zone of comort - searching of information and structuring it, and working with all different kinds of texts.

I think after a couple of decades the distinction of  Digital Natives and Immigrants wouldn't be enough. We will need to speak about generations of Digital Natives.. Or maybe being a Difital Native means to have enoug flexibility to manage any new technology, what do you think?

Week 2 of EDC MOOC: MOOC vs "traditional" education

One of the main questions of Week 2 seems to be: Will MOOCs replace traditional high school education? Which role will they have in the future? In articles represented in Week 2 resourses we can see different opinions on this topic, and there are certain areas that I find very important for these questions.

In general: I don't think that MOOC will or can replace traditional high-school education in its today form. But this question is closely related to the structure of modern (Western) society itself and the role of high school in this society.

Let's see an example of difference between MOOC and traditional form of education. Actually only few of the students that join MOOC in the beginning finish it till the end. As I remembet, in the courses I took part earlier it was about 1/5 of all students who stayed till last week. In university or colledge we will see the opposite: most of students who start education finish it, with better or worse grades, but finish. I think in most cases it is because of some kind of social pressure. Let's imagin the student who understands after first year of education that he made wrong choice. Maybe his parents want him to get specialization. Or he passed really difficult exams to gain an opportunity to learn for free. Or he paid huge amount of money to study in this maybe very prestigious place. In most of such cases, I think, a student will continue to study although he or she don't like this college or this area of knowledge. In MOOC the student will just leave the class, the only problem will be that he wasted some time to understand that he don't like the course.

The other side of the coin is, that people need more motivation to finish a MOOC because a higher amount of freedom. But I would prefer the situation when lazy or lesser motivated students have some problems, becasue this is their problems and they will need sometimes learn how to be motivated. It's better than the situation, when we have lots of specialists who don't like their profession or aren't working in the field where they have high education. Because it will be the problem not only of this students, but of other people too: who wants to send the children at school to a teacher who don't like or even hates to teach?

I think, MOOC can play a very important role in vocational guidance and getting second speciality. When you already know "how to study" and want to broaden you ights or try yourself in totally new field, it's what you need. Free, open, study if you like etc.

Can MOOC give something more than such "Introduction for a beginner"? In certain cases yes. There can be courses that involve practical experience of writing, reading, discussingi, that has a value in itself. But what about me, I feel that there is certain level of complexity, of how deep I would like to study particular topic, when I will want to have personal contact with an specialist - professor, teacher etc., to discuss certain topics that are interesting personally for me.

I think, the discussions about MOOCs show the problems which exist in traditional educational system. I think high education and getting a degree is very overestimated in modern society (I would be glad if somebody will tell in the comments, how it's really in European countries or in USA, here I speak based mostly on what I know about situation in Russia). When something is overestimated, people start trying to cheat the system (For example, when the win in the run is overestimated, runner can start to use forbidden stimulants to win). It was be revealed recently, that some of Russian officials of high level have fake degrees - some of them have plagiarized their degree works. Such things happen sometimes here and there, showing us, that for some people having a paper is more important than having knowlege. MOOCs are useless for such people, because it's about knowledge, not about degree.

I hope that people in the future will be able to create a system where knowlege and real skills are on the first place. In such sociaty the entire system of education will be different, and MOOCs will have bigger place in it.

(I'll leave my hopes related to technology and educcation for one of the next post, because I plan to make a short descruption of my own utopia)

Blogger to Wordpress automated posting test

Here are links to my first three posts about EDC MOOC. Next posts will appear here in Worpress blog as full text posted via IFTTT, if it will work.

http://7yukari7.blogspot.ru/2013/02/some-experience-of-using-modern.html
http://7yukari7.blogspot.ru/2013/02/nature-as-methaphor-for-technology-week.html
http://7yukari7.blogspot.ru/2013/02/first-impressions-about-edcmooc-with.html

Some experience of using modern tecnologies

I can speak about modern techologies in education not only as student, but also as teacher. I'm a post-graduate student and work as private tutor for pupils (mostly for pupils, sometimes also for adults), and sometimes also have lectures and seminars for students at the university. So, this is mostly traditional "vertial" forms of education. But here is also a place for technologies that can reduce cost and improve quality.

1) Software for studying foreign words and other thungs. There are two nice programs, Anki and Mnemosyne. They make the process of studying foreign words much more effective, because spaced repetition algorythm is used. This means, the programm analyses, how individual pupil remembers the words and adapts to his or her memory capabilities, for example, when repeat a word to increas a chance to remember it, when and how repeat previously studied words, how many new words should be added each time, etc. I often advice this software to my pupils, and if they have enough motivation to use it regurarly, it imroves their results. Although it requires some initial works from me, like making wordlists or recordings words prounonciation.

2) Software and web-services for sharing files and collaborative work. After sending e-mails foth and bacj for some times, I started to use file sharing services (one of the most famous is Dropbox, I prefer YandexDisk, because they give more free place) to work in collaboration with my students between lessons. For example, if I give to a student a task to write a text, he can do it and upload to shared folder, I will see this new file, check it, correct mistakes and give recommendeations, what to improve, etc. It's especially useful, when we have one lesson per week (or even lesser) or when we need to have a text ready to deadline. I use such services also to share articles pupil need to read and other useful content.

3) Software for giving lessons online. Although in most cases I have personal contact with pupils, I have also experience of giving lessons via Skype. After some tries and mistakes I found a way to make it more effective. At the beginning I used an option in PowerPoint to show presentation online. Then I found Scribblar, which is online-whiteboard. So I upload a presentation for particular lesson there, and use graphic tablet to make some comments, draw something etc. Usually I don't use videochat, keeping only voice contact. There is two reasons. First, my internet connection is usually not enough fast. Second, it's usually not very productive to watch videochat and online whiteboard at the same time.

4) Software for support existing knowledge or for self-study. Sometimes I advice them to use self-study software, like Rosetta Stone for learning foreign languages. I do this in some cases. For example, I don't want a pupil or student to forget all we have learned during vacation. Or I give such additional stuff when people ask me to give lessons from intermediate level, and I want to be sure, that they don't have gaps at basic level of knowledge.

So, although we speak mostly about MOOCs in this course, modern techologies give us good opportunities to improve traditional methods of studying or bring them to new level. In MOOC and similar things, I think, the initiative comes mostly from the side of student: he wants to study something and searches for a course. In traditional forms the initiative comes equally from both sides or mostly from a teacher (especially with younger pupils). But technologies still help to bring interactivity and make learning process more effective.

Nature as a methaphor for Technology (Week-1 Digital Artifact)

Here is my presentation inspired by articles and videos of Week1 at EDC MOOC. Here you can download original version of this presentation, if you like (pptx, 7,5 Mb) http://yadi.sk/d/ZgNI4Ftl2KnkJ
I will be glad to read your comments and responses, here or at Coursera.

First impressions about EDCMOOC (with some criticism)

"E-Learning and digital cultures" is third course on Coursera for me. In October I've completed "Listening to World Music" and "Fantasy and Science Fiction", both with getting an certificate. Already at start I have a feeling, that this course is different. The main difference is, that there are no video lectures, like in most other courses. This is more like seminar than just listening to a teacher. You just have some stuff, like video or articles, and need to work out own opinion about this problematic. It's nice, I like trhis approach.

But is also shows some problems, which I see in MOOC organisation on Coursera, more clear. First I will say a couple of words about my own point of view. First, I study literature. Second, I don't like watching video (Actually, it's just feature of my perception - watching video makes me tired faster as other people, and often takes much time to understand, what is it about). Third, my internet connection is not very fast, and sometimes slow. So, I am very text-oriented.

In "Fantasy and Science Fiction" it wasn't a problem, because it was a course about texts. Sometimes I even downloaded lecture transcripts to read them on my e-book of watching.  In "Listening to World Music" it was a bit more difficult. Sometimes I wondered - it's a course about music, why should we watch so much videos? And this course, EDC MOOC, seems to be even more oriented on visual form of information. Yes, videos and pictures are important part of digital culture. But the text in one or another form is also important. For example, in Week 1 we are asked to tell something about a film about distopia and technology. Why mot about a book?

The second problem is how the material is organised. In previous courses I could download lectures and other stuff and save it on my PC for personal use. To rewatch later or just to watch (beacuse I prefer to watch offline). I can keep this archive for further studying etc. But here it's much more difficult - what will stay after this course? Thousands tweets and blog posts, and some articles in my e-book? I don't think that scattering all stuff made by students into many pieces on many different resourses is good idea.m It is good for advertising of the course, to let more people know about it, but not for real studying. Even if there is "made by you" subforum and news feed, I would prefer if most discussions were kept on discussion forums - I think will be more productive. For example, I will write the post and post a link to it in discussion forum. Somebody will comment in the forum, somebody in blogspot... to have comments in different places is just wasting time for me.

There are also som reasons why I don't like the use of YouTube and social networks. First, YouTube isn't available equally in all countries. I remember, that in World music course it was sometimes a problem - for some students from China who were forced to search other ways to watch videos they needed to watch. There can be also problems with particular videos in particular countries. Second, I cannot download video to my PC. Will it exist when I would like to rewatch it two years later? Nobody knows. I understand, that there copyright issues and some other problems, but it would be very nice to have something like an archive with all materials you need - videos, lectures, articles - all downloadable.

In general, my approach to using in internet is as follows: I don't like to keep all stuff in one place, like Facebook account. I prefer to store my pictures in DeviantArt, poems and prose at litsovet.ru, have discussions with friends in Skype or Jabber, listen music on 8tracks.com etc. I use Facbook mostly to login to other sites, sometimes to comment and rarely to post something. I tried to make a feed for all stuff mande my me, in Twitter or in G+, but it took too much time and useless.

I think, such things like watching something on YouTube, participating in GoogleHangout and other such things should be addicional parts of the course, not it's core. Even if it is a course about Digital cultures. Because such approach makes it difficult for people with slow internet or some other restrictions.