#NASPA15 Presentation: Towards A Digital College Student Development Theory
I am proud to be selected as one of this year’s SAspeaks presenters. SAspeaks talks are similar in style to TEDtalks. They are meant to be short (no more than 15 minutes) and focus on one main idea. This year I am doing an SAspeaks based off of my continuing research on the impact of social and digital technologies on college student development. In this talk I lead the audience towards understanding what digitized selfhood may look like. I hope you’ll join me, but if you are unable, it will be video… Read More
The Student Development Transit System Map
I had a lot of fun putting this together! You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to get the poster visually right while trying to make sure it makes sense conceptually and theoretically. Too reductionist? Maybe. Areas for improvement? I’m sure. Let me know how you’d try arranging it in the comments below. BUY this as a poster! Or a greeting card. Help fund my doctoral dissertation! The paid version uses a sharper, higher resolution file. For the poster, there are multiple price points, qualities, and sizes…. All proceeds help fund my dissertation…. Read More
Applying Bronfenbrenner’s Student Development Theory to College Students & Social Media
Tweet (One of my colleagues and friends, Paul Eaton, wrote a great blog post about Bronfenbrenner’s applicability to online/social media spaces. I also wanted to have a go at the topic, so I purposely didn’t re-read his post until after publishing this one… and there’s agreement… but with a twist… read on…) Urie Bronfenbrenner‘s theory of ecological development is a commonly taught theory in college student development courses. Although it was developed prior to the existence of the web, it nevertheless represents a highly useful tool for understanding the impact of the web on human… Read More
3 Insights on College Student Self Esteem from “Let me Take a #Selfie”
In the three months since it’s release, the video “#Selfie (Let Me Take a Selfie)” has been viewed nearly 100 million times on YouTube and has gone into heavy rotation. Although tongue-in-cheek, the video reveals some surprising nuggets of wisdom regarding social media engagement, particularly around Instagram. It also provides interesting insights into the underlying psychology of its users, particularly those of traditional college age. Colleges and universities are only now beginning to react to this trend. Some institutions have gone so far as to put in place “selfie bans,” while others have… Read More
The Cult of the Like and The Millennial Generation
One of the more interesting phenomena I’ve come across in some of my research on college student interactions through social media is something I call the “Cult of the Like.” The “Like,” or the “Favorite,” or whatever your preferred social media network happens to call it, is a way of indicating agreement, acknowledgement, or affinity for a social media posting. Facebook’s own help section describes it as follows:
