The Value of Leveraging Network Nodes In The College Community
Last spring, I was traveling on a public bus from Laguardia Airport in New York to my hotel on the north side of Manhattan. When I got on the bus at the airport, the bus driver was in a heated argument with someone complaining about being charged twice for the ride. The bus driver was […]
The Anyone, Anything, Anytime, Anywhere Education
Whether educational institutions like it or not, education is changing and walled gardens are evaporating. New ideas in education are emerging…or, probably better to say, old ideas are finally able to be technologically implemented. Whichever the case, the change is no longer bound by old ideas like nationality, income, time, or location. ANYONE: The One […]
At Student Orientation, Don’t Forget About Bridging Social Capital
The Bystander Effect is a well-known psychological study conducted by Bibb Latane and John Darley that grew out of the stabbing death of Kitty Genovese in 1964 while eyewitnesses looked on but did nothing to help. According to Wikipedia: …individuals are less likely to offer help in an emergency situation when other people are present. […]
Stop Making Parents the Punchline and Include Them in the EdTech Conversation
Digitally ignorant parents find themselves once again the punchline of a new website dutifully called MyParentsJoinedFacebook.com. The site was created by a daughter after her dad joined Facebook and his social networking activity quickly became obnoxious to her. With a swift gain in popularity, MyParentsJoinedFacebook.com joins others in exploiting (right or wrong) parents’ naivete as […]
School Website Design is Part of the Student Engagement Problem
In the first version of Red Rover’s navigation bar, we included a ‘Live Help’ button (pictured below) that generated 5-8 sessions with students per day. As more students joined Red Rover, we realized the ‘Help’ section needed to include more options other than just ‘Live Help’. So we created a new ‘Help’ section (pictured below) […]
Facebook and The Adolescent Brain – The Emerging Employers’ Dilemma
Two weeks ago, I asked my Facebook followers if they’d post differently knowing that 60% of employers search the web when considering potential employees. Several students came back with strongly worded annoyances about not wanting to change their online behavior: Then my adult friends chimed in: Though we were talking about online behavior, the difference […]
How to Make Student Engagement Contagious
In 1969, famed psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a social experiment looking at the contagiousness of engagement. Wired magazine’s Jonah Lehrer accurately summarizes the experiment: In this study, Milgram had “confederates” stop on a busy city street and look upwards at the sky. He demonstrated that when one person was looking up, 40 percent of passerby […]
Tech Tip – Using Twitter as your Free Campus, Group Text Messaging Service
There are many group/campus text messaging companies that offer an array of services for a fee, but if you are just looking to communicate with a group via text, then Twitter might be your best free option. Mike Richwalsky over at HighEdWebTech demos how he uses Twitter as Allegheny College’s free text messaging service for […]
Speaker, Edtech and Peanut Butter – The Case for Reengineering Student Activities
In college, I tried to start an Entrepreneur Club but never got past the paperwork. The Student Activities office manager handed me three pages of clearly defined step-by-step guidelines she created on how to start a new group. It was evident she had spent a long time creating the document and was proud of the […]
2008 Swift Kick Program Calendar
As we close the door on 2008, here’s a look back at who we worked with: 01/02/08 APCA Advisors Institute 01/03/08 APCA Advisors Institute 01/04/08 APCA Advisors Institute 01/04/08 Shepherd U 01/19/08 Potsdam U 01/30/08 Emporia State 02/01/08 U. Of Alaska 02/08/08 Western State College 02/10/08 Wesley College 02/12/08 Boise State 02/15/08 27th Annual FYE […]