A friend shared this video with me and... it... is... awesome. The campus police at the University of Delaware created their own music video to highlight their LiveSafe campus safety smartphone app. Making a play off of Drake's music video, "Hotline Bling," the officers created "Copline Bling." It is an excellent example of a fun, yet informative way to... Continue Reading →
I wanted to share this blog post from Adam Gismondi highlighting a previous effort from his alma mater (William & Mary) to use the Kickstarter crowdsourcing model to help fund undergraduate research. It’s an excellent example a way of using social media and digital technology to help engage students, alumni, and the broader public. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of the project is the ability for donors to see the direct results of their efforts.
Read on!
What do “social” web technologies look like in practice within higher education? This is a question that I often see posed within both online conversations and at conference educational sessions, but rare is the tangible answer that follows.
Earlier this month, I was down at my alma mater, William & Mary, for the annual Charter Day Weekend festivities. Each year, the College brings alums and current students together to celebrate the institution’s founding and honor distinguished alumni, and I was lucky enough to be down there representing the W&M Boston Alumni Chapter at the annual meetings. It was at these meetings that I was introduced to an innovative practice currently being used that combines several elements of the college experience in a unique way. Professor Joel Schwartz, Director of the Charles Center on campus, spoke about the Center’s Honors Fellows, students that apply for and receive special grants for research…
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I first met Chris when he was interviewing for a job at one of my former institutions. Although the job didn't mutually work out, it was clear to me from the day we met that Chris was going places. He tweets about donuts, hockey, and running, and occasionally you'll find him on an #SAchat dropping some wisdom.... Continue Reading →
Niki always puts out great content and is quick to provide an insightful thought or tweet. She has a very successful blog, Dances With Dissonance, which covers a number of topics both within higher education and outside of it, including social justice, feminism, life transitions, and professional issues. Consider giving her a follow! Follow @NikiMessmore This... Continue Reading →
Can Facebook get you fired? You bet it can. This is the story of Kevin Colvin, a bank intern. Kevin needed to "go out of town" suddenly and sent his boss the following email: Well, the "something that came up at home" was actually just a party that Kevin wanted to attend. He posted photos... Continue Reading →
Donna is the incoming Vice President of ACPA and someone you need to follow. If you're looking for a deep thought, a quote, or just something to inspire you, Donna can do that. She is passionate about life and about learning and it shows through her tweets. Follow @DeanDonnaLee This is a post from my ongoing effort to highlight interesting and... Continue Reading →
Some graduate students at Western Illinois University decided to turn the concept of the selfie on its head. They created the UN-selfie campaign to highlight people doing good deeds in the university community. Faculty, staff and students got involved by tagging tweets and photos of people and social good with the hashtag #WIUnselfie. Check out their... Continue Reading →
Erica is enthusiastic and always willing to reach out and make new friends. She is heavily involved in the #SAchat community, so if you ever participate in one of the weekly chats, it's highly likely she might be the mysterious moderator behind the account. Check out her blog and give her a follow... Follow @EricaKThompson This is a post... Continue Reading →
Nuzzel is an amazing little app/web service that helps surface the news your friends and others in your network care about. Log into Nuzzel and connect your Twitter and Facebook accounts. Then, daily, or at an interval of your choice, you will receive an email containing the most shared links of the day from those in... Continue Reading →
Kristen is a great follow if you want to stay current on tech in higher education and student affairs. Kristen is one of the co-founders of the Student Affairs Women Talk Tech blog, and she maintains her own blog on topics ranging from technology to mental health. Kristen and I serve on the ACPA Task... Continue Reading →
Last year, the White House initiated the "It's On Us" campaign to help bring awareness and seek a solution to on-campus sexual assault. It also proactively seeks to change the cultural attitudes on campuses that lead to environments where sexual assault is permitted. The George Washington University heeded this call to action and created a series of... Continue Reading →
Heather and I are ACPA leadership buddies. She was the Coordinator of Commissions when I was starting as the Coordinator of Standing Committees and now she is the Director of Membership Development and I am her elect. There are numerous points of overlap in our professional journeys and also in our professional interests. Heather is... Continue Reading →
As odd as it may seem, Jason and I didn't really meet and become friends until last year. Odd, because he's an online rockstar. He blogs, he tweets, he does a little bit of everything. Jason and I serve on the ACPA Presidential Task Force on Social and Digital Technology. I'm also immensely pleased to... Continue Reading →
You might think of LinkedIn as just a tool that you use to create a profile, network, and search for jobs. LinkedIn, however, is making a big push into higher education using its treasure trove of data to help institutions engage with prospective students and alumni. Want to know how many people working for Google... Continue Reading →
Semi-weekly, I try to highlight innovative and interesting uses of social media in the higher education and student affairs space. The following is a review of all those highlighted in 2014. Follow along in the new year with new spotlights.
Out of a total of over 150,000 views, the following are my most visited blog posts from 2014. First up the top 5 funny posts, followed by the top 5 of my more serious content.
Semi-weekly, I try to highlight higher education and student affairs professional to follow on Twitter and online. The following is a review of all those highlighted in 2014. Follow along in the new year with new spotlights.
I have been on SlideShare since 2010 and am a big proponent of the platform. Think of it as the YouTube of presentations. This year I was designated a "Keynote Author" by SlideShare which saw the traffic to my content increase SIGNIFICANTLY. The following is a review of my most viewed presentations from 2014.
Semi-weekly, I try to highlight apps, web tools and websites that could be of use in the education space. The following is a review of all those highlighted in 2014. Follow along in the new year with new spotlights.
Dr. Laura Pasquini has been a good friend of mine for a very long time... since we worked at Miami University almost a decade ago. Although we didn't know it then, she and I share a research interest in all things Ed-Tech. She's incredibly knowledgeable, travels the world, and maintains a blog where she shares... Continue Reading →
We all get newsletters, promotions, and list-serve emails sent to our inbox every day. Remember that one item you bought from that one website one time? Now you get their daily emails. It’s information overload. Sometimes managing the email glut is as simple as going through an unsubscribe spree every few months, but other times... Continue Reading →
In 2010, Yale University produced this highly slick and fun admissions video to highlight the many features of its campus. They used the highly shareable strategy of creating a "musical" about their college. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGn3-RW8Ajk Of course, video memes almost always spawn parody and satire. This was the response from Harvard's comedy news show On Harvard... Continue Reading →
Brian is a new professional at Michigan State University that blogs about higher education, student affairs, web 2.0, LGBT issues and general life inspirations and observations. He's thoughtful, has some great insights, and is also your "go to" if you want to see tweeted pictures of cute animals (and who doesn't?). Check him out and give him a... Continue Reading →
More and more institutions are beginning to create "social media directories" or landing pages that catalog all of the different social media presences of their departments and offices. Harvard takes this one step further with their creation of a multimedia landing page that incorporates video, audio, photos, iTunesU podcasts and audio all into one page.... Continue Reading →
Forget transferring a gavel, this is the 21st century. Now we transfer Twitter accounts. The @ACPAprez account transfers from President to President every year during the Annual Business Meeting of ACPA-College Student Educators International. ACPA, one of the comprehensive professional associations in student affairs and higher education is an excellent account to follow, but don't... Continue Reading →
This week's tool is simple, but it does one thing very well. ClickToTweet is a website that allows you to generate links that, when clicked on by a user, present a pre-written tweet. In other words, if you want to promote something, and want the people tweeting your stuff to include a specific sample message or set... Continue Reading →
Oregon State University encouraged students and alumni to post pictures of a cut out of their famous "Benny the Beaver" mascot in various locations and tag them on Flickr with the hashtag #BennyOnTheMove. It's a great way to spread pride, a little bit of joy, and increase brad recognition. Of course, although OSU used Flickr,... Continue Reading →
The University of Houston is a leading institution in engaging with their students on social media. The following text and images come directly from the page they label "Why Follow UH?" which gives a number of great examples of how they're engaging their students. Check out their social media pages to learn more about what they're... Continue Reading →
As one of two of the comprehensive student affairs professional associations based in the United States, NASPA is one of the organizations you need to follow. You can also follow Kevin Krueger, the current president of NASPA, who tweets under his own @NASPApres account. Follow him to stay abreast of some of the goings on in Washington, as... Continue Reading →
TED-Ed comes from the creators of TED Talks as a means of turning any YouTube video into an interactive lesson. Choose a video and build discussion boards, multiple choice and open-ended quizzes, and links to additional resources. TED-Ed is a simple platform with few but straightforward features. Because TED-Ed lessons are bite-size pieces of content, they are... Continue Reading →
This isn't a social media example, per se, but it is a great example of deploying digital technologies to offer opportunities for guests and prospective students. Northeastern University utilizes a platform from YouVisit to power it's virtual video tours. They're engaging and feature a real tour guide. YouVisit also maintains a list of other colleges... Continue Reading →
Currently working at the New York Institute of Technology, Ann Marie has specialties in women's and gender studies, leadership, and social media. She constantly tries to ask the unasked question and always has something interesting to say. You can also follow her blog. She also contributes to a group blog, Firestarters at NYIT, a "place for innovators, disruptors... Continue Reading →
List.ly is a social list making and content curation site. If you're trying to crowdsource a list on something (ex. the best photography sites? your favorite eggplant parmigiana recipes? best restaurants in Boston?) then Listly can help. With Listly, you set the topic, and then add links to items you want included on your list.... Continue Reading →
The study abroad space is ripe for social media efforts. With students dispersed across the globe, communication is easier through social media. Additionally, with these once-in-a-liftime opportunities come some great photos and stories. Media that can aid in getting other students excited about a study abroad experience. Mississippi State University held photo and blogging contests... Continue Reading →
I've talked about how much I enjoy the content curation site, Paper.li. Here are two examples of a Paper.li that I created for the higher education and student affairs masters students I teach. These sites pull content from social media postings that contain specific hashtags and format them into a visual newspaper. Once a week a new edition is dynamically created... Continue Reading →
If you want to follow someone who follows his heart and travels the world, Michael Anthony Goodman is the perfect add for your Follow Friday. Michael has a background in student affairs, but recently left his job in Indiana to head to China. He is an incredibly gifted writer who is able to give voice to... Continue Reading →
If you establish a hashtag for a campaign or program at your university, you'll want to know how it's used and what people say, right? Enter "Hachtracking." This web tool does exactly what its name suggests, track the analytics of a hashtag. This can be tremendously useful for assessment efforts and to gauge the success... Continue Reading →
Loyola University of Maryland started this very simple effort to promote their institution and develop a sense of community and belonging amongst their students. By creating pre-formatted Facebook cover photos, they are making it easier than ever for students to show their pride. Check out their landing page. Images are updated yearly for incoming classes... Continue Reading →
Paper.li is a tool I've been using for a while now in my classroom. The web service provides the ability to create automated weekly or daily "newsletters" that aggregate content around a particular hashtag or search term. Enter in a search term or hashtag and Paper.li will aggregate links shared across Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube... Continue Reading →
Snapchat is an odd social network/chat app to be using for engagement with your students, but a couple of institutions are trying it out. Most recently, the University of Michigan joined the University of Houston beginning efforts in this uncharted territory. With Snapchat being one of the most popular apps for students in the 18-24 year... Continue Reading →
Amma has an amazing ability to perfectly summarize anything she hears into 140 characters or less. If you want to follow the best live-tweeter in student affairs, Amma is it. Amma also maintains a blog, and frequently writes and speaks about introversion and about how humor can teach you about your work. Follow @AmmaMarfo This... Continue Reading →
If you're hosting an event or conference, you may want to display live tweets with a specific hashtag for all attendees to see. There are a number of high quality paid options out there, but also some that are free. Below you'll find some examples of "twitter walls" that I've had various success with using.... Continue Reading →
The use of first-person student blogs on admissions websites isn't new, but Cornell University has given broad latitude to its student bloggers to share their uncensored experiences. From the blog landing page, one has links to student blogs on independent platforms including Tumblr, Instagram, WordPress, and others. It's a refreshing take on student admissions blogs that... Continue Reading →
If you're reading this, you probably follow Ed already, but if you're not, do it right now. Ed was one of the early adopters of Twitter and has an expertise in social media in higher education and in college student union work. He's also been the initiator of a number of initiatives including #SAgrow, for... Continue Reading →
When you have exciting news to share with your students, do you stop to think "maybe we should tape this?" A number of college athletics teams are capturing moments such as when they are able to offer their students scholarships. Below are two examples of capturing these moments and sharing them with the internet. What... Continue Reading →
Dr. Cindi Love is the new Executive Director of ACPA-College Student Educators International. Cindi brings some excellent perspectives on social justice in higher education and what we can do to affect change. If you want to stay current on happenings in Washington impacting higher education, or just need a dose of inspiration, Cindi Love is... Continue Reading →
Haiku Deck is a free web-based presentation software platform that makes it easy to create highly visual slide decks. Haiku Deck doesn't get caught up in the camera panning zooms and crazy animations of Prezi, but instead focuses on high quality images and simple text. Access to these images is built right into and included with... Continue Reading →
This college President is way cooler than your college President. As a part of his inauguration, incoming Columbia College President, Dr. Scott Dalrymple, challenged his students to the game, Madden NFL '15. The prize if a student emerges victorious? He'll but their textbooks for the year. Let's hope he doesn't lose to a student int... Continue Reading →
I love Patrick Love. The current Vice President of Student Affairs at NYIT, Patrick has been a leader in higher education through roles as a scholar, a speaker, and a disruptor. It is perhaps this last quality that makes me appreciate Patrick the most. He is constant striving to look at things in new ways and... Continue Reading →
The new social network "Ello" has been getting a lot of press lately, so I thought this Wednesday's spotlight might be a good time to share some of my experiences with it. Is it going to be an EdTech tool any time in the near future? Absolutely not. Is the rise of interest in it... Continue Reading →
It's somewhat of a rarity to find faculty involved in university social media efforts, but extremely rare to find a content that is exclusively focused on faculty. Lehigh University put together a gem of a video with professors reading negative reviews of their teaching from the website RateMyProfessors.com. The video is a play off of Jimmy Kimmel's popular... Continue Reading →
Since it's my first Follow Friday post, it's only fitting I start with the woman who inspired me to begin this process. Josie Ahlquist is a Doctoral student in higher education, and a researcher and speaker on social media and college students, particularly as it relates to leadership and student self-presentation online. Josie shares her knowledge... Continue Reading →
For my first Wednesday spotlight, I wanted to showcase a tool I personally use in my teaching and presentations, Poll Everywhere. Poll Everywhere allows individuals to create quick polls, quizzes, and interactive message boards that can be integrated into presentation software for gathering feedback on the fly. Individuals can access and answer the polls via... Continue Reading →
The fraternity brothers of Delta Sigma Phi (Beta Mu chapter) at Transylvania University produced this viral video, "just for fun." But it was also a great way to showcase their organization and prepare for recruitment. They received wide press coverage (example, example) and appeared on a local news station to explain their goals and process.... Continue Reading →
In keeping with my goal to re-blog the posts of others that I find particularly interesting or illuminating, I wanted to share the following post that comes from my home institution, Boston College. Being a researcher of social and digital technologies in the higher education space, I am immensely privileged to be at an institution... Continue Reading →
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