About

Melanie McBride is a researcher at Ryerson University’s Experiential Design and Gaming Environments (EDGE) lab. See her About page for more information.
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5 tips for (better) social media writing

By Melanie, on June 11th, 2008

If you want people to share and bookmark your content you have to write with their needs in mind. Hard news style and web usability writing are key.

[tags: socialmedia writing webwriting usability headlines socialbookmarks ]

Let’s start with what you’ve just read.My keyword specific headline tells you what this [...]

Optimize your self, not your site

By Melanie, on June 1st, 2008

“A book is a mirror; if an ass peers into it, you can’t expect an apostle to look out” – G.C Lichtenberg

Had GC Lichtenberg been alive today, he might well have been talking about the internet. We’re the ones teaching the internet what to be with our every use. Utopia [...]

Social media: Essential user controls

By Melanie, on April 19th, 2008

What are the most essential user controls for social media?

NOTE: When I created this little poll it was my first time using poll daddy. I configured it to allow people to choose more than one option. I’m not sure the results say as much as I’d like them to. Thanks to all who participated [...]

Attention rabble-rousing with Wayne Macphail

By Melanie, on April 17th, 2008

A couple of months ago I started experimenting with the use of Twitter and other social media in my wired college classrooms. Meanwhile, out in California, Howard Rheingold was exploring the question of wired attention spans with his UC Berkeley social media class. Rheingold turned these explorations into a series of compelling vlog posts called [...]

[steal] My Social Media Policy

By Melanie, on April 6th, 2008

Despite the popularity and widespread adoption of social tools, there’s little agreement when it comes to matters of our individual terms of use. Without a collective social contract for social media, many of us are left wondering: How do I define my own social policy? Until now, corporate social media developers are defining those policies [...]

Teaching and learning 2.0: Turn up the good, turn down the suck

By Melanie, on March 8th, 2008

 

 

University of Texas professor David Parry is my idea of the future of education. According to Parry:

“The more we try to put those walls up, and say “I’m a professor, I only talk inside the class” the more irrelevant we become.”

I cannot agree more. This is what [...]

Howard Rheingold on “way-new” collaboration

By Melanie, on February 10th, 2008

[TEDTALKS HOWARDRHEINGOLD-2005_high.flv]

Recorded in 2005, Howard Rheingold talks about the critical importance of collaboration, participatory media and collective action in shaping a better and more effective world. Great historical examples of human interdependence, cooperation, helping and other civilised behaviours that helped humans to thrive and survive through adversity – all alternatives to more destructive models [...]

Our data, ourselves: The User Bill of Rights

By Melanie, on January 26th, 2008

[TEDTALKS LARRYLESSIG-2007_high.flv] Lawrence Lessig on creativity2.0 and the law

I used to think standards were for squares. Especially when it came to the wild web. That was back in early days of my online life, before I knew about Creative Commons, Lawrence Lessig and Open Source. At that time, I didn’t realise that (democratic and [...]

Cater to the web2.0 user-reader (or perish)

By Melanie, on January 19th, 2008

The aptly titled “you don’t understand our audience”

Today while I was surfing through the most popular delicious links, I found this article (above). It’s about — well, I don’t actually know what it’s about because the content was locked behind a registration field.

CONTINUE READING below

[...]

Happiness: The ultimate best practice

By Melanie, on November 10th, 2007

I think happiness is the ultimate best practice. And it does take practice. TED speakers Dan Gilbert and Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard explain.

(the delightful) Dan Gilbert Psychologist Dan Gilbert says happiness is not what we think. Sorry VISA, but according to hard science, we really can’t buy happiness. In fact, not getting what you [...]

 
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