My top nine Instagram art posts from 2018.
blog
Using Social Media for Public Engagement
Presentation by Alison Innes
8 May 2018
Classical Association of Canada Annual Conference
Société Canadienne Des Études Classiques Congrès Annuel
University of Calgary
Downloads and Links
Full panel information, including slide shows, additional materials, and Twitter threads courtesy Rebecca Futo Kennedy (Classics at the Intersections)
Academic Twitter annotated guide PDF
Podcasts Mentioned
Watching Troy Fall by Jeff Wright
Itenera Podcast by Scott Lepisto
ihub Niagara by Camille Rutherford
The History of Ancient Greece by Ryan Stitt
Footnoting History by Elizabeth Keohane-Burbridge (producer) and team
The Endless Knot Podcast by Mark Sundaram and Aven McMaster
MythTake by Darrin Sunstrum and Alison Innes
Humanities Podcasts List — an informal network of humanities podcasters
Twitter Mentions
Twitter users mentioned in my presentation:
Dr. Sophie Hay @pompei79
Liz Gloyn @lizgloyn
Tina Adcock @TinaAdcock
Jessica DeWitt @JessicaMDeWitt
Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega @raulpacheco
Emily Wilson @EmilyRCWilson
Brock Humanities @brockhumanities (also on Instagram)
The Museum of English Rural Life @TheMERL
Darrin Sunstrum @darrinsunstrum
C. Rutherford @crutherford
Jess Clark @JessicaPClark
Daniel Samson @RuralColonialNS
Keri Cronin @profcronin
Ryan Stitt @greekhistorypod
Footnoting History Podcast @historyfootnote
The Endless Knot Podcast @AllEndlessKnot/ @alliterative /@AvenSarah
MythTake @mythtakepodcast/ @darrinsunstrum/ @innesalison
Hannah Celik-Baird @opietasanimi
Twitter Lists
Suggestions for where to start looking and listening for Twitter conversations.
Good Academic Twitter by @InnesAlison –an interdisciplinary list of academics using social media effectively for engagement and learning
Classics & Archaeology by @InnesAlison
Classics by @sebfischer
Canadian Classics by @AvenSarah
Women in Classics (including self-identifying female, non binary & genderqueer) by @lizglyn
HumanitiesPodcasters by @HumCommCasters/ @AvenSarah
CAC-SCEC 2018 by @CAC_SCEC
Further Information
Daniel Samson, Associate Professor, Department of History, Brock dsamson@brocku.ca Twitter: @RuralColonialNS
Read more about #JamesBarryDiary online at http://niche-canada.org/2018/04/04/weather-and-emotion-in-james-barrys-diary-1849-1906/
Jessica Clark, Assistant Proffesor, Department of History, Brock jclark3@brocku.ca Twitter: @JessicaPClark
Allison Glazebrook, Professor, Department of Classics, Brock aglazebrook@brocku.ca Visit the “Brock Odyssey 2017” student blog at http://www.brocku.ca/blogs/brock-odyssey-2017/
Nadine Brundrett, Instructor, Department of Classics, Brock nbrundrett@brocku.ca
View the student Instagram takeover #clas2p61 at https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/clas2p61/
Keri Cronin, Associate Professor, Department of Visual Arts, Brock keri.cronin@brocku.ca
Twitter: @profcronin
Camille Rutherford, Associate Professor of Education, Brock camille.rutherford@brocku.ca
Research includes educational technologies and social media http://www.drcamillerutherford.com/
Twitter: @crutherford
Abstract
The rise of social media presents scholars with a great opportunity to share our research beyond the academy. Tapping into social media gives us access to broad audiences and allows us to go beyond public relations for our discipline and make our scholarship accessible and understandable to the public. By using social media to engage with the public, we can show the relevance and importance of what we do as academics.
With so much opportunity and activity happening on social media platforms, how does one create community and space for conversation? is paper will explore ways in which academics can leverage the opportunities presented by social media to build networks beyond academia and engage the public.
Developing an effective social media strategy requires a number of considerations, including time, budget, platform, content, audience, goals, and risk management. A carefully thought-out plan will improve one’s experience using social media for public engagement and therefore increase the dissemination of academic ideas.
Academics from a variety of disciplines are already using social media for public-facing scholarship and this paper will examine how strategies such as hashtag ‘games’, AMAs (ask me anything), and live tweeting talks, books, and movies can be used to engage and educate the public. Ro-cur (rotating curator) Twitter accounts and Instagram takeovers are additional ways to expand one’s audience and network.
Yet another increasingly popular social medium is podcasting, and it lends itself well to making academic research accessible to the public. Podcasting can be useful at several stages of the research life cycle and can take a variety of formats. is paper will conclude by discussing the possibilities podcasting presents for public-facing scholarship. Discussion of specific examples of podcasts will provide a reference point for those wishing to explore the use of podcasting for public engagement.
Why I paint

Painting has become a compulsion of sorts, in the very best sense of the word.
I spend hours each week thinking about my paintings–mentally working out compositions, values, colours; considering how I will mix my colours to get the hues and shades I want; even thinking about the gorgeous texture of the oil paint and how I’ll create the brush marks. By the time I get to in front of the easel on the weekend, I have spent hours painting in my head.
The process of physically painting then is a sort of meditative affair. I immerse myself in the experience–in the colours, the smell, the textures, the sounds, the feel. Yes, I really do love the smell of oil paints!
I have always been driven to create, for as long as I can remember. Painting, drawing, sewing, baking, photography, and even writing or music at times. I don’t know why or where the urge to create comes from, but I am sure it is somewhere deep inside.

For a long time, I saw my inability to settle on one form or medium as a negative thing. That I was less serious a maker because I couldn’t dedicate myself to just one way of expression. Now, I realize that my diversity of expression is not a drawback, but a benefit. The various forms of expression enrich and complement each other.
When I design sewing projects, I am thinking about colour and texture and how to take an idea in my head to a 2D pattern to a 3D creation. I spend ages in the fabric store choosing fabric that contrasts or matches in colour, texture, and hand.
When I photograph things, I delight in details, in finding what I think is the essence of a place, an object, an experience. I am thinking about colour and texture and shadow and light. I am thinking about how I can (hopefully) make the viewer contemplate the small details of nature that are too easily overlooked. I am thinking about how I can capture the feel of a place in a single photo of a seemingly insignificant detail.

All of these modes seem to come together in my painting. I am taking 3D compositions and presenting them on a 2D surface. I am thinking about form, colour, shadow, light, texture. As much as possible, I am using my own photographs and, hopefully, presenting everyday or insignificant items in a new way, in a way that forces the viewer to recognize their beauty.

As a youngster I created a ‘studio’ space in my parent’s unfinished basement. It was my space to create, and gifts of art and craft supplies found their way there. Art class projects I couldn’t bear to part with wound up there–a plaster lion mask, an elephant head made from strips of cardboard, and my OAC final project on détruis and debris.
But painting really started for me, I think, in my last year of university in Toronto. In blissful ignorance of what I didn’t know, I took myself off to a Loomis & Tooles and stocked up on pots of Golden acrylic paint. I propped my canvas up against a bookshelf and painted away.

As life got busy, I drifted away from painting. But painting now has a hold of me again, and perhaps even stronger now.

In November 2016 I sat down in my first painting class (and my first art class since the late 90s). I went home from that first class with my arms just aching to continue painting. My teacher became my mentor, and convinced me to give oil painting a try. So, in the summer of 2017, I had my first lessons with oil–and loved it.

That’s when the fruit started. The glow and texture of oil painting just cries out for painting fruit and vegetables! After my first oil painting–a lemon– I started a series of fruit portraits. I use that term deliberately: As with my macro photographs, I want to present the fruit in a way that will encourage the viewer to see its beauty. The luscious fruits and dramatic shadows of Dutch masters paintings inspire me to show the glowing summer sunshine captured in delicious fruits.

Keep up to date with my artistic adventures by joining my on Facebook, Instagram, Vero, and, occasionally, Flickr.
A Note About Note Taking
Finally got around to replacing my Apple iPencil and what better way to try it out than creating a sketch note– about note taking? This is my attempt to show how visual note taking can be combined with the Cornell Note system.
To learn more about sketch notes, try Sketchnote Army by Mark Rohde, Mauro Toselli, Steve Silbert, and Bineabi Akah. They even do a podcast about sketchnotes!
Links to download the PDF version of this note and to a PDF version of the unlined template are below. As always, CC-BY, so enjoy, share, use, remix, pass it along!
And if you find it particularly useful, let me know in the comments or on Twitter at @InnesAlison– I would love to hear from you!
(And yes, note taking should be written as two words– that’s an error just to see who’s paying attention 😉 )
Download Tips for Effective Note Taking PDF (Jan. 2018)
Download Cornell Notes template (unlined) PDF
More About Cornell Notes
I’ve been doing some updates and expansions of my note-taking notes and am sharing my Cornell notes here for anyone who would like to use them. All are CC-BY. Download links for PDF versions are listed at the bottom of this post.
Download Quick Guide to Cornell Notes PDF Jan. 2018
Download Cornell Notes: A Quick and Dirty Guide (original) Oct. 2017
Cornell Notes: A quick and dirty guide
Wow, who would have thought a tweet about Cornell Notes would prove so popular?
Making a Cornell Note guide. 📝 @giuliaforsythe @darrinsunstrum what do you think? pic.twitter.com/robscRXfBC
— Alison Innes (@InnesAlison) October 1, 2017
But since it is now my most popular tweet ever, I’m making my guide available for download and use with a CC attribution license.
Cornell Notes Quick & Dirty Guide
A quick Google for “Cornell Notes templates” reveals hundreds of online templates. I mashed up the best (in my opinion!) into my version.
Cornell Notes Blank Template
Additional Tips:
- Keep a 3″ x 11″ strip of cardstock or heavy paper in your notebook or binder to draw your margins quickly on the go.
- Need more space for reviewing? Do your note taking on only side of the page. Then, use the back of the previous page for mind maps, sketch notes, questions, etc.
- Are you a lefty? You may find reversing the columns more your liking (HT to @DarrinSunstrum for that!)
Awesome! Here is my version 4 lefties like me 🙂 pic.twitter.com/t4mpLqx4Lx
— Darrin Sunstrum (@darrinsunstrum) October 1, 2017
Further Resources:
- “The Cornell Note-taking System” Cornell University
- “Improving Cornell Notes with Sketchnoting” (YouTube) by Verbal to Visual
- “How to Take Cornell Notes” (YouTube) Jennifer DesRochers
- “Taking Lecture Notes the Cornell Way” (PDF) Purdue University
- “Microsoft OneNote–Cornell Note taking for students” (YouTube) Matthew O’Brien
I would love to hear how you use these and your experiences with using and teaching Cornell Notes!
Teaching students how to student
There’s an expression about how the shoemaker’s children have no shoes. Well, the social media consultant is terrible at her own social media!
I’ve clearly fallen behind in my New Year’s resolution of a blog post a month. I thought I might catch up when I had a month off work this summer, but somehow social media was the last thing I wanted to work on.
But I’m back at work now and busier than ever. In fact, this fall will be the most paid work I’ve had at once since I quit a full time job to go back to school a decade ago.
I’m have resumed my social media work with the Faculty of Humanities at the university and what a difference a year in the job makes! I feel really comfortable in the position, now that I’ve figured out what I need to be doing, and I’m seeing the benefits of the connections and network I’ve been building. I’m really looking forward to the year ahead!
I’ve also been fortunate to pick up several other small contracts to flesh out my hours and paycheque. I’ve just started working with our Centre for Pedagogical Innovation (CPI) where I’m helping out with a number of very interesting projects, including TA training, support for those teaching large classes, and research into the perceptions of the value of teaching. I have a lot of experience as a teaching assistant (TA) in the classroom and even helping professors develop pedagogical resources, so it’s exciting to be thinking and learning about pedagogy from a different perspective.
Finally, if enrolment numbers permit, I may get to spend a little time in the classroom again this year as a TA.
Which relates to the Twitter thread I want to share with you. @atrubek shared this really great thread tonight and it so important! I think when we’re teaching it’s so easy to get caught up in the transmission of content and forget about the transmission of skills. I don’t mean discipline-specific skills, but the “how to be a student” skills.
It’s easy, when we’ve been academics for 5, 10, 15 years or longer to forget that we, too, started someplace. We didn’t enter university knowing everything. Sure, we like to think we were more self-sufficient and self-starting than “today’s students” but hindsight can have a gloss superiority to it.
Our students come to us from a wide variety of backgrounds and face a diversity of pressures that we may not have faced.
In my case, for example, my mother had attended university and I had two older sisters in university as well, so I had lots of support at home in navigating the system and knowing what I needed to do.
But not every student has that privilege. Some will be the first in their families to attend university. Some will be far from home and perhaps struggling to make friends and navigate a strange system with strange titles like “registrar” and “dean” and “chair,” never mind the myriad of acronyms we use without thinking!
High school today is different from high school “back in our day.” Again, students will have had a diversity of experiences and come with–or without– skills we deem necessary.
So @atrubek’s thread is such a timely reminder. We need to not assume that our students know how to navigate the system socially or how to access resources. We need to teach them how to take effective notes, how to use the library, how to identify a scholarly resource, what a database is.
Because after the final exam, the student may very well never think about our course content again. But they will be taking other courses, and we can equip them with the skills they need to succeed there, too–whether it’s something we teach directly, or we direct them to campus resources.
We don’t just teach content, we teach students how to be students.
teaching first-years today? Here are some things my son, starting college today, was never taught:
— atrubek (@atrubek) August 23, 2017
1) How to address professors–Dr, Mr, Mrs, Miss, Ms, first name. Don’t get huffy if your students don’t know either. Teach them.
— atrubek (@atrubek) August 23, 2017
2.) How to ‘read’ a syllabus–how to understand when reading is expected to have been done, etc. Explain.
— atrubek (@atrubek) August 23, 2017
3) What office hours are, why profs have them, when and how to contact profs. His high school *texted him* reminders of homework.
— atrubek (@atrubek) August 23, 2017
4) How to format papers. It’s not something you are born with knowing, the margins and title case and all. Teach ’em. Also, about staplers.
— atrubek (@atrubek) August 23, 2017
5) How to find books in the library.
— atrubek (@atrubek) August 23, 2017
6) That you are supposed to buy all your books at the beginning of the semester.
— atrubek (@atrubek) August 23, 2017
7) What a database & valid research materials are, *according to you* (According to his HS it’s a weird jumble of crap that makes no sense)
— atrubek (@atrubek) August 23, 2017
8) How to take notes. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT. No one teaches kids how to take notes. The tool is not the issue, whether keyboard or pen.
— atrubek (@atrubek) August 23, 2017
9) They are trained not to use phones or keyboards in class, & to do lots of work on pen & paper. This is silly. Let them know if you agree.
— atrubek (@atrubek) August 23, 2017
10) I could go on. But if a student does something that annoys, ask: how should she have known otherwise? Who would have taught? Then teach.
— atrubek (@atrubek) August 23, 2017
One more thing: your assumptions about their writing? Probably wrong. Here’s what research shows: https://t.co/QLZdEaBoq6
— atrubek (@atrubek) August 23, 2017
ppl upset by #9. I have a chapter in book on this & write a bit about it here (please ignore misleading headline https://t.co/8KSgDaiUuF
— atrubek (@atrubek) August 23, 2017
Ppl confused by 8: hs & public libraries are not the same as research libraries. Many are unfamiliar w/research libraries
— atrubek (@atrubek) August 23, 2017
Reblogged: “Why We Need to Start Seeing the Ancient World in Color”
Too often today, we fail to acknowledge and confront the incredible amount of racism that has shaped the ideas of scholars we cite in the field of ancient history.
…
How can we address the problem of the lily white antiquity that persists in the public imagination? What can classicists learn from the debate over whiteness and ancient sculpture?
…
Do we make it easy for people of color who want to study the ancient world? Do they see themselves in the ancient landscape that we present to them? The dearth of people of color in modern media depicting the ancient world is a pivotal issue here. Movies and video games, in particular, perpetuate the notion that the classical world was white.
…
I’m not suggesting that we go, with a bucket in hand, and attempt to repaint every white marble statue across the country. However, I believe that tactics such as better museum signage, the presentation of 3D reconstructions alongside originals, and the use of computerized light projections can help produce a contextual framework for understanding classical sculpture as it truly was. It may have taken just one classical statue to influence the false construction of race, but it will take many of us to tear it down. We have the power to return color to the ancient world, but it has to start with us.
Sarah E. Bond “Why We Need to Start Seeing the Classical World in Color” Hyperallergic. June 6, 2017.
Reblogged: “Ethical Engagement and the Study of Antiquity” (Classics and Social Justice)
Some really fantastic classicists got together recently to discuss ethical engagement and classics. Several of the talks were posted on Classics and Social Justice by Jess Wright, Matt Chaldekas, and Hannah Čulík-Baird.
It’s a long a read, but a very good one. I encourage you to read the whole thing, but I’ve copied below a few snippets that particularly jumped out at me.
Classicists are in a particular bind: we must argue for the salience of antiquity to a modern world preoccupied with the effects of European imperialism, and we must do so without resorting to the imperialist argument that the Classics are the foundation of humanistic endeavour….
How does our study of antiquity inform us as ethical subjects? How does our pedagogical approach to antiquity shape our students? Through what strategies and initiatives might we render “Classics” a term that evokes social and ethical engagement, rather than elitist isolation and the ivory tower?
Ethical Engagement and the Study of Antiquity https://classicssocialjustice.wordpress.com/2017/05/15/write-up-ethical-engagement-and-the-study-of-antiquity-april-20th-21st-2017/
The common idea about the canon is that it is inherently valuable because it articulates the best that has been thought and written or some such. This notion of values is both a stumbling block and a powerful entryway. For instance, is “the unexamined life not worth living” irrevocably damaged as an ideal because of its elite original context? Or should we aspire to democratize the concept through education?
Nancy Rabinowitz, Ethical Engagement and the Study of Antiquity https://classicssocialjustice.wordpress.com/2017/05/15/write-up-ethical-engagement-and-the-study-of-antiquity-april-20th-21st-2017/
Edelstein cannot have known that his work on the Oath would directly affect the lives of literally millions of people. But here’s the thing: you can’t study any aspect of what many consider to be the foundation of modern Western society and ignore that your work is potentially relevant in modern discourse, even if you are limited in your ability to understand how. Classicists are ethically and socially engaged, whether we acknowledge it or not, and because we’re all engaged in this way, we have at least two tasks…
The first task is to attempt to dissuade modern consumers of our work from using the ancient world as direct precedent for modern legislation, for good or for ill…
Our second task is to recognize that people are going to use our work however they want to regardless of what we say and therefore to be responsible in our research.
Deborah Sneed, Ethical Engagement and the Study of Antiquity https://classicssocialjustice.wordpress.com/2017/05/15/write-up-ethical-engagement-and-the-study-of-antiquity-april-20th-21st-2017/
Finding Your Voice through Podcasting
While podcasting takes time and preparation and may have a steep learning curve, it is very rewarding. Research interests come alive in a new way when you create and share your ideas via podcasting. Listener responses will help you develop your ideas in new directions. Podcasting also breaks down academia’s walls, creating a wider audience and inviting the public to see what scholars do and why it matters.
Alison Innes “Finding Your Voice through Podcasting” Society for Classical Studies Blog. 15 May 2017.
My post on podcasting for the Society for Classical Studies went live today! You can read it in full here.