Your New Best Friend, Social Networking in the First Year Experience (Part 2)
The following is the second draft slice (here’s part one) of an upcoming curriculum supplement I am writing for Bedford / St. Martin’s press. Long time readers of this blog will recognize these ideas. Swift Kick, and Red Rover, have been focused on social capital and engagement for some time. As the overall curriculum comes […]
Design Matters
Red Rover is about lowering the barriers to connection and engagement. We set out to make something simple that would help. Pushing this forward, we’re about to release Red Rover 1.2, with a new design. Important changes: + It looks better, which makes it feel better to use. + We’ve switched from “% Interest Match” match […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
The Tech of Student Success: Comparing Facebook, Ning and Red Rover
John Jay College of Criminal Justice was reviewing a number of different social tools, trying to figure out where they wanted to invest their time and money. They asked me to help clarify how they fit together. I did it with a little video and I thought it came out pretty well – if just […]
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 […]
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 […]
Andre Malan: What Education Will Look Like
One of my favorite quotes comes at 20:30: Andre tells the story of John Beasley Murray assigning a Wikipedia change as an assignment. He is criticized for outsourcing the grading to Wikipedia editors, but his students came to his defense: Easy Money Cash Advance “It was harder [for the students] to get those grades from […]
Orientation Before Orientation: The New Work of First Year Social Network Development
We exist in overlapping, intertwined social networks: family, friends, neighbors, church groups, hobby acquaintances, Christmas card friends, etc., etc. It’s an old human thing, we’ve always been that way. We get emotional well-being from close family and friends. We get growth from topic groups. We need well-being first, then growth, it’s Maslow’s hierarchy. When a […]