Commercial break

Well, I ordered my two textbooks, and they arrived today, so I'm going to go pick them up tomorrow. I'm kinda excited - I like getting my desk copies of books, and checking out all the free extra stuff that comes with them. With this being a media class, I expect the extra stuff to be pretty interesting.

But today I just realized a bit of irony in this whole situation: the person teaching these kids about media this winter will be someone who has spent more time in the past year reading dusty 15th century Latin Bibles than watching television. And the television I did watch was British television, which is a whole different ballgame from American television.

This (along with Terminaldegree's posts about playing music clips in class) got me thinking about what kinds of media examples I'll show them this winter. I want to start collecting them now so I can have a decent-sized arsenal come January. So tonight, I started looking for some of my favorite commercials.

That's one of the things I love about teaching and researching Communication - it's fun for me to talk about TV shows and pop music and movies from a scholarly perspective. Since I focused on advertising for both of my Communication degrees, I am particularly interested in commercials. My former Spanish prof noticed that when I watch TV, I pay as much attention to the commercials as I do to the actual show! Maybe that's a result of having researched them so much, or maybe it's because I like them so much that I ended up researching them. I'm not sure which came first.

Anyway, I wanted to share a few of my favorite commercials, which I hope to work into the class in some way*:

Nike - "I Feel Pretty" (Wieden + Kennedy, 2006)

This came out fairly recently, and it makes me giggle. At the same time, though, it makes me think about the role of women in sports - it practically doesn't matter how well you do, just as long as you look good doing it. What's also interesting is that this ad isn't just for Nike. If you watch, you'll notice that the logos for Prince tennis equipment, the Waldorf Astoria, Heineken, Lexus, Continental Airlines, IBM, JP Morgan Chase, Olympus, and the US Open. Oh, and it's an ad promoting Maria Sharapova's image as well. All that in one minute and five seconds!

Amazon.com - "Sweatermen" (FCB San Francisco, 1999)

I liked this whole campaign when it came out, but this was the only clip I could find online. This was just around the time when e-shopping was starting to get big, so online retailers had to pitch it as an alternative to regular Christmas shopping. I like this campaign because it places a modern concept in a traditional/familiar setting, which I think is meant to both reassure the viewer (I need a better explanation than that, but that's just what came off the top of my head right now) and give an idea of the intended target market. When this ad came out, I just knew it was supposed to be "vintage," but my parents were more familiar with the '60s Christmas shows it was trying to parody.

Toys 'R' Us - "Peter Cottontail" (Leo Burnett/Chicago, 2003)

What makes this ad work (and what makes me giggle) are the shrill, annoying voices of the bunnies. People whined about how they couldn't get this ad out of their heads, but they remembered it, didn't they? So, sometimes annoying is a good thing.

Grey Poupon - "It even has wine" (Lowe Marschalk, 1981)

For some mysterious reason, I loved loved loved this ad when I was little. I walked around saying, "Pardon me, but do you have any Grey Poupon?" all the time, and even carried around an empty mustard bottle that I said was Grey Poupon. (It wasn't. It was French's.) What impresses me about this campaign now is that Grey Poupon became wildly popular all of a sudden in the early eighties, and the rate by which people switched from French's to Grey Poupon was phenomenal. People associated this brand with style, luxury and class, mostly from the perception that this product came from France. (Coincidentally, it was bottled in Hartford, Connecticut.)

There are a few more ads that I love and for which I am trying to find clips - a Sunbeam bread commercial from a few years ago ("Put a little Sunbeam in your life") and an Hampton Inn commercial with a kid who says, "If you have breakfast, then you can frolic."

Now, if only I knew how I was going to incorporate these clips into my class...

*Sorry for not linking to product or agency websites. It took me enough time to embed and format the videos. If you're interested in the products or the agencies who advertised them, you can look 'em up on Google.

Choosing Textbooks

Well, I'm sure this post belongs at my other blog, but since I get more readership here, I will ask here first.

I'm teaching a new course this winter (not new to the department, but new to me) - a 200-level mass media course. When asked which textbook I wanted, I just said, "Oh, I'll take the standard text." I don't usually care - I just like to be consistent.

Well, I found out that there is no standard text for the course. Different instructors use different texts. I asked which text was most popular, and the secretaries couldn't answer - everyone truly uses something different.

So I asked seven different professors at both the University of Hartford and Manchester Community College, where I've taught before. I got five different suggestions for books. And with every suggestion I received, I got the same two comments: either "It's definitely the best one out there," or "They're all pretty much the same."

They're all pretty much the same, cost-wise, too: about $90-$95 new, $60-$70 used. While all of the suggestions looked good, I eliminated one on the basis of the fact that the newest edition just came out, and I didn't want my students to be unable to purchase used editions if they wanted it. Sometimes some of my students take winter classes for financial reasons - they work full time, and it's the only time they can fit the course into their schedule without sacrificing working hours.

I ended up ordering desk copies of two of the books, which I chose because the professors who used them before had a long history of teaching the course, so I was going on their success rate. I may or may not order others, I don't know.

What I want to ask is this: assuming cost is not an issue, what factors do you take into consideration when choosing a textbook for a course? I want to come up with some standard criteria, other than just, "I don't know, I just *like* this one better."

Faculty folk, I'd like to know what you think.

technorati tag: teaching-carnival

Beach Day, or The Attack of the Lobster Woman

On the beach
Originally uploaded by Kait W..

In honor of my mom's birthday having been this week, we took our annual day trip to the beach. We tend to stay in CT for these beach days, so this year we headed to Hammonasset Beach State Park. It was a lovely day weatherwise, and the water was not ice cold as it normally tends to be.

I got a horrible sunburn. It was so bad that I couldn't sleep, so I was probably awake when most of my Europe friends were just getting up in the morning. It even hurt to get into bed and pull up the sheets. But I have this weird tendency to burn and then fade into a normal tan, so I should be looking less lobster-like in a few days.

The beach seemed more quiet than usual, so I got to sit and read a good chunk of the delightful If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, which I started a few days ago. It's very good, but I think I will need to read it again to figure out just what is going on!

While I'm thinking about it, what's the deal with lifeguards and all their hand gestures? Nobody knows what the hell they're gesturing about, so they don't pay attention. Couldn't they just yell into a megaphone or something? I mean, honestly, I don't know if I'm supposed to put away the inner tube or bunt and steal first.

Before leaving the beach, we took a family photo, which is a nice contrast to the one I showed you in January. It was a bit windy, so some of us had hair in our faces, but I like how it came out.

After the beach we had dinner at Lenny and Joe's in Madison, and consumed our annual rations of fried seafood and ice cream. It wasn't fancy or anything, but it was fun.

Today I'm trying to deal with this horrible sunburn, mostly by taking showers and sitting in the pool (if I can manage to get back into a bathing suit - everything hurts!). Later this week is an interesting job interview, various getting-ready-for-Oxford bits and the general loafing around of unemploymentland.

Hope y'all had a good weekend!
Much love,
Me

xxx

Teaching Carnival

Hey kids, if you haven't been over there in a while, stop by my old teaching blog and check out my series of contributions for the next Teaching Carnival. If you don't have the address, drop me a line and I'll email you the link. (George or whoever is hosting the September edition: I will get around to tagging them before the deadline.)

Enjoy!

Professional Help

In the midst of pondering the usual ponderances of life (i.e. "Why are Oxonians so obsessed with oompa-loompas?"), I came across an article that addressed an issue I've been thinking about for a long time: getting into the right university.

I have a few issues with the whole way people go about choosing and applying to universities these days, primarily because they involve a whole bunch of extra people who will ultimately have nothing to do with how the student does when s/he actually gets there. It's really quite a waste of time, energy and emotion, if you ask me. Here are some of the things that really annoy me:

Legacies. Just because your parents or your grandparents went there, it doesn't mean you should go there too. And just because that school was really good in 1956, it doesn't mean it's still good in 2006. On a similar note, just because Daddy is an advertising executive, it doesn't mean that you'll be good at advertising too. In this latter issue, I've found out that it doesn't even really matter what you end up doing, or how well you do, because Daddy will just use his connections to get you an interview at the top advertising agency in the country. This is primarily true of the wealthy sorority girls who went to my undergrad university.

Parents who run the whole search process. I've worked at many recruitment sessions at the University of Hartford, and I've seen far too many parents who go around asking the questions while the student stands there, dumbfounded. Sometimes, I'm not even sure if it's the kid or the parent who will be taking the classes. "We're interested in psychology." Ummm, who's we??? Will you and your son be taking the classes together??? I've also heard professors talking on the phone and saying things like, "If your son wants to do this, he needs to take..." Personally, I think that if the student can't work up the effort to make the call or ask the questions, can we really be sure that that is what the kid wants to do???

SAT and application coaches. If the kid has crap grades throughout high school, won't an excellent SAT score be a little suspicious? The same is true for padding the kid's CV out with extracurricular activities and Habitat for Humanity trips to Guatemala at the 11th hour. I feel like this is setting the kid up for failure. There are all these stories about students who want to get into Oxbridge, so they go to these coaches who tell them to choose these obscure programs because they're particularly desperate for applicants. I'm sure the same is true for Ivies. I wonder how many hardworking, talented students who do extracurriculars on their own but don't have much money lose places at top universities to students who are not so bright but have a highly expensive coaching team behind them?

Choosing brand-name universities or prestigious majors. I think the whole problem with the university search is that students grow up hearing specific brand-name universities (known either for their academic or their athletic prestige) and reject anything else just because they've never seen those schools play in March Madness. But just because the nearby state university has been the NCAA basketball champions for the past five years, it doesn't mean that their sociology program is right for you. I've had people say to me, "Why did you choose the University of Hartford? I mean, they don't even have a football team!" Umm, I don't know if you've noticed, but I don't play football (American or otherwise, but I'm referring to American here). I don't even like to watch football. But they did offer me a nice scholarship, and they had a good foreign language major at the time. So that's why I chose it. I think students have to give the obscure schools a chance, and rely on their gut instincts. If you visit some teeny place like Mitchell College (New London, CT - never heard of it until I had a friend who went there) and you like the grounds and the faculty and the social life, go for it.

On a similar note, I have a problem with people who choose a specific major just because it's popular or it's where the money is right now. If you major in something and you're not good at it, then you're not going to get a job, then it's a whole waste. And what's the point if you don't even enjoy it? I know that a job as a humanities professor isn't going to bring me piles of wealth and riches, but I love what I do, so I think that's what counts.

One of the things I really agreed with in the article was the suggestion that students try out the smaller schools first for their undergraduate degrees, and if they want to go to grad school, then they can try for the top-tier research institutions. In a smaller university, particularly one that is focused on undergraduate education, students have more of an opportunity to get involved academically and socially. Your intro classes are taught by actual professors, not by graduate students who don't speak English. I cannot overstate the benefits of getting to know professors early on. I always feel sorry for undergraduates who need recommendations for scholarships and the only person they know well is the grad TA who they saw once a week.

And once you find your way through the small university, I think you end up better prepared for the bigger-name institutions. By then, you have a rough idea of what you want to do with your life, you have some maturity and life experience under your belt, and you know what you do well. The smaller name places leave you better prepared for that, since you end up with better access to faculty and resources. You don't have to pay an extra $30,000 for coaches who don't know you - you're already there, and these people already know what you're like. (Speaking of money, these smaller universities often end up with better scholarships to give to students, since they actually need to make more of an effort to attract the good students' attention.)

Well, this was a bit of a longish rant, but it is something that has been bugging me for many years. I think it annoys me because the helicopter parents and the coaches are the ones doing all the work - and they don't even have to take the classes. It's such a waste.

Not Wednesday, and not whining

I did not post yesterday at Phantom's Wednesday Whining (which I highly recommend if you've never done it before), because although I have been having chronic headaches, yesterday I could not justify coming up with a whine.

Why, you ask?

Well, they found my missing DPhil application. And they accepted it.

That's right, folks, you can expect another three years of Oxfordy goodness here at Kait at Catz. I'm in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm so excited. This means I get to see so many of the things I missed, and spend another year with all my wonderful Oxford friends. And, of course, I get to have a doctorate from Oxford. How exciting is that???

Much love,
Me

Not-so-secret message this time

Well, I guess I owe you a genuine update since I've been sending nothing but cryptic messages lately. So here goes, in Bullets Of Random Crap format:

• After calling and emailing and begging and pleading for feedback regarding when I would find out about my DPhil application, I got the following response from the graduate secretary: "Where did you send the form?" Ummm, that's not the answer I wanted.
• No ear infection, but no explanation for these constant headaches I keep getting. I had one all day today. It was horrible. And they're only on the right side of my head, behind my ear.
• Today was the faculty seminar on Blackboard. I did my presentation on the virtual classroom. I'm not too happy with how it came out - it was late in the day, I had a bad headache, I was tired, and I didn't think all of the logistics through. No one had a hands on part of their presentation all day, but my application was the one that needed hands on the most, and I should have realized that they needed to see it before I could talk about it. But honestly, it was late in the day and I think everyone was tired at that point. And I know what to change for next time.
• There were a few good points of the day, though. In the morning, I gave brief demos of Flickr and Facebook, and at lunch I had a faculty member thank me for talking about Flickr because she wanted to start using it. Another faculty member had some questions about Facebook, since her daughter is about to start college. So we had an interesting conversation at lunch. At the end of the day, I found out that another faculty member (a professor in the English department), did his DPhil at Oxford. I think it's the first time I met a fellow Oxonian outside of Oxford, and it was cool.
• I got a job interview! I am interviewing for a part-time position at the Village for Children and Families, as a communications associate. Yes, web stuff. Fingers crossed, please.
• I also have an interview with a new grant manager at the University of Hartford, to discuss some ideas for the new Women's Education and Leadership Fund that is getting started. I think that will lead to something promising, but I don't know enough about it to elaborate just yet. Watch this space!

Bad things come in threes

The insurance company is giving me less money than I thought for my laptop - about $500 less.

The Modern Languages graduate office can't find my DPhil application form.

I think I have an ear infection, and I have no health insurance.

*%&#(%)&#)*%&@#)&*%&#@)*%&%)@*$^*!!!!!!!!!!


Thank you. Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Another Secret Message

To the lady who was leaving the 1877 Club this afternoon:

Fanny packs are never the right answer.

Love and storage,
Kaitlin


>>Update, 11:08 p.m., 8/5/06: Oops, I didn't realize that "fanny" is a bit more obscene in UK English than in US English. The UK translation for "fanny packs" is "bum bags," which sounds a bit dodgy to me ;)

Speaking of British English: I have a question for all you British people out there. How do you pronounce the word row, as in "I had a row with someone"? Is it pronounced the same as the row in "I row for the Catz Boat Club," or does it rhyme with words like how/now/cow? I've only seen it in writing - I've never heard it spoken before.