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 […]
Embracing Hierarchy in Groups to Increase Engagement in Education
Two overlapping foundational concepts for this post: 1) Hierarchy Matters In his best lecture submission to “Big Ideas,” Mark Fournier opens by stating he will convince the audience that hierarchy formation in humans is natural, predictable, and consequential: “It is natural in that hierarchies will form wherever people congregate. It is predictable in that where […]
Laddering Student Engagement
In Swift Kick’s Dance Floor Theory leadership training, we teach students to recognize and be aware of the gradient of engagement on their campus. We teach them to understand the system and its parts so they can improve it. The simple comparison is a dance floor, where level 5 dancers are often in the middle […]
San Antonio’s Involvement Dashboard
San Antonio College was the first school to launch Red Rover in ’09 with the new involvement dashboard. Oh my is it fun? Talk about doing more with less in times of tight budgets: Two hours after they ran their orientation, Tyler Archer was able to go into the involvement dashboard and see what actually […]
Key Step for Setting Up Mozes
Julie of Navy MWR fame is playing around with Mozes and had a setup question. As I usually mention when talking about Mozes.com**, I love the service, but the actual website is pretty confusing. In the hopes of answering Julie’s question, I made a quick screencast showing the important initial setup, and I’m putting it […]
The Democratization of Activities: Bigger Than the Old Network
We’re tagging OSU’s group list as a way to pre-populate standard groups. (So if similar groups are already in the system they can pick or select all tags from the matching group pool.) Tagging at this volume is pretty tedious (but that’s the idea, this way, no one else will have to do it). We […]
Announcing Events Without Clogging The Drain: Recommendations for Student Affairs Professionals
Facebook debuted as a way for students to network and find “friends”. When asked, some professionals in Student Affairs are hesitant while others support its use as an innovative channel of communication – a place to directly connect with students and encourage their involvement on campus. In theory, it’s a great tool; however, quickly the […]
School Reactions to Myspace and Facebook
A closer look at how schools are reacting to Myspace and Facebook. The best place to start when deciding what type of policy your school should enact regarding Myspace and Facebook is to first see what other schools are doing. Then decide what is best for your school. When looking at over this list. Keep […]
Is Facebook Killing Email?
There’s been talk for awhile now about college students not checking e-mail, instead preferring new technology like text messaging and Facebook. Schools, in an understandably institutional response often now “require”** students to check their email, making the process exciting to the students by calling it “official”. I really do have sympathy for the institutions, especially […]
Ken Robinson: School Kills Creativity [VIDEO]
Sir Ken Robinson is an influential advocate for the importance of creativity in education. He makes an entertaining (and profoundly moving) case for overhauling our education system. [Recorded February, 2006 in Monterey, CA]