Beyond social media, there is also a clear disconnect between how college admins reach out to their students and what students actually pay attention to. While the average college admin, like most adults, is used to reading and sending emails, students are quickly moving away from using email in their daily lives and getting them to check it regularly is painful.
A fantastic New York Times article in the fall examined college student use of technology and the results were fascinating.
While some faculty members are hesitant to contact students on whichever social media platform is in vogue, others have explored texting as an alternative to email.
The paper, which is being presented at next month’s Information and Telecommunications Education and Research Association conference, also recommends colleges should consider using texting and social media platforms to reach students. However, the findings still suggest email can be an effective method of communication.
How Millennials use and control social media, Published
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Social Media Usage Trends Among Higher Education Faculty ;
Want to be smarter? Heredity is not the barrier you might think it is, says University of Michigan social psychologist Richard E. Nisbett, PhD. After analyzing decades of intelligence research, Nisbett maintains that past studies give too much credit to heritability’s role in intelligence. Culture, social class and education, he argues, matter more, and explain racial gaps in IQ.
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What’s The Difference Between Children’s Books In China And The U.S.?
psychologist Cecilia Cheung, a professor at University of California Riverside.
Cheung notes that children in China consistently score higher on academic tests compared to children in the U.S. and Mexico. But she says more research is needed to determine how much of that is due to the storybooks or even to the larger differences in cultural values that the books reflect. Other completely unrelated factors, such as different teaching techniques could be at work.
In the meantime, Cheung says her study suggests all three cultures might have something to learn from each other.
For instance American parents might want to take a cue from Chinese storybooks and supplement their children’s reading with more tales that promote a view of intelligence as changeable.
After all, says Cheung, if you think intelligence is gained through effort, then when you’re confronted with a challenge or even an outright failure, “you just put more effort into it. You try to learn from the experience and you think about different ways of approaching the problem rather than saying, ‘No, I’m just not smart and I’m just going to give up right away.'”
Like the millennials before them, Generation Z grew up as digital natives, with devices a fixture in the learning experience. According to the survey results, these students want “engaging, interactive learning experiences” and want to be “empowered to make their own decisions.” In addition, the students “expect technology to play an instrumental role in their educational experience.”
to cater to the digital appetites of tomorrow’s higher education learners, technology in education will need to play a bit of catch-up, states the New Media Consortium’s 2015 Course Apps report. According to NMC’s analysts, digital-textbook adoption was one of the leading trends helping to reinvent how higher education students learn. But publishers have not captured the innovations happening elsewhere in the digital marketplace.
The Generation Z report ranked the effectiveness of 11 education technology tools:
My note: the US News and World Report is behind times on its reporting, unless this article has been held for a while by their editor: teenagers moved from Snapchat as quickly as they moved away from Facebook to Twitter and from Twitter to Snapchat. The generation, which is running US News and World Report is way too slow to notice the nomadic social media moves of the Millennials.
The cited case from Nebraska, Katelyn Gilroy, a library media specialist, who is using Snapchat or school purposes, can undoubtedly have a niche in education, enticing students to learn about their library, reading, etc.
However, it is questionable to present the media specialist’s case from Nebraska as a blank statement; a case, which can be adopted nationwide. Ms. Pannoni fails to mention that since 15 years ago, when instant messaging was the “snapchat” of the times, U.S. students consider these applications their “virtual mall,” where they like to hang out, but are not keen to consider them for educational purposes. In the same fashion, U.S. students are somehow unique in considering Facebook, later Twitter, then Snapchat and now Kik, Yammer, Celly, or Elgg a domain reserved for their private, extracurricular activities.
More about use of social media in education in this IMS blog:
With an emerging Millennial workforce, organizations are struggling with an influx of new business requirements being defined by consumer based solutions. Expecting engaging content through social and fun applications, organizations that cling to traditional methods of communication, learning, networking and certification will find themselves challenged in their ability to attract and retain top talent.
Join this webinar to discover best practices on how to develop engaging content, including:
Key trends in learning engagement
Effective design of course material
Tips and trick on making content interesting
Time 11:00am ET
Audience: Enterprise
Presenter(s): Jeff Salin, Senior Instructional Designer and Team Lead, Creative Services Department, D2L
► Does the technology accommodate and differentiate for all learners’ needs?
► Are students provided both voice and choice with technology, thereby increasing ownership and engagement?
► Are there opportunities for students to engage in peer feedback and collaborative work?
Having students bring their own devices to school is not a panacea for all the challenges in the secondary classroom. Yet if it is planned with thoughtfulness and intention, we have seen BYOD increase student engagement and relevance while reducing costs for the school. The best part: Teachers and students can be creative and autonomous in how this looks in classrooms.
In this rapid succession of examples, one can experience a showcase how to enhance students’ engagement by modernizing D2L experience through connection with social media. Bring your own examples and participate in a discussion, which aims finding the right tools for your class and field of study.
Audience: beginners to advanced
Prerequisite:
come with your own social media accounts: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Vine
Outcomes:
By the end of this session, the participants will have an idea about peculiarity of each of the social media tools: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Vine
By the end of the session, the participants will be familiar with the integration of each of the social media tool into D2L
By the end of the session, the participants will be able to asses to what extent each particular tool fits their field of study
By the end of the session, the participants will be able to compare the pedagogical advantages and disadvantages of the social media tools compared to D2L
D2L and Twitter
microblogging of 140 characters is often viewed as limiting. However, it can be the ultimate test how well students understand the learning material: making someone sum up in 140 characters what they learned this particular week in their class can take a lot of rewriting.
D2L allows a widget on its main page, where students can view and tweet. Students also can view and tweet from their mobile devices.
Tweeting during class is becoming mainstream in K12, also called “backchanneling.” Harnessing peers help to understand a concept discussed in class can save both time and efforts on the instructors’ side
Twitter is “making your twitter.com timeline more immersive by uncropping photos, so you can experience and present them as they were meant to be viewed.” https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/12/13/improvements-in-social-media-tools/
D2L and Vine
Vine is a social media services, which provides the ability to share 7 sec videos. Vine is becoming more popular then Instagram (15 sec videos), with the simplicity to create short videos. Students can take sequence of short videos, which amount to 7 sec to reflect the main points of a project. E.g.: chemical reaction, biology dissection, progress of engineering planning, solving a math formula.
URL to the vine can be posted in the D2L discussion area for further collaborative effort or for peers’ and instructions evaluation
Vines are a click away from a FB group page or, with the right handle and hashtag, to a Twitter discussion
The bottom-line to evaluate if fitting your field of study is: can the content be narrated or is it much better if visualized. If the latter, Vine can be your salvation. How to Create Social Videos With Your Smartphonehttps://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/01/10/social-videos-with-your-smartphone/
Per SCSU IT disclaimer: MediaSpace (Kaltura) is a free, cloud-based video repository solution for campus that allows faculty and staff to upload and distribute video and audio content for academic or administrative purposes. Facilitators will discuss potential uses of MediaSpace for campus, demonst rate how to create Webcam and screen recordings, upload audio/video, and embed or link to MediaSpace content from D2L or a web site. YouTube is owned by Google and the integration, including statistics and analytics by Google are way beyond MediaSpace. The only selling point of MediaSpace is the FERPA requirement by MnSCU to host privacy data on a MnSCU owned server
I can cover this in 5-15 minutes, just let me know what you prefer
Integrating Facebook Groups
I will show a couple of groups that I have used
I can also come up with an “exercise” that participants can do, just let me know: (1) if you want me to and (2) if participants are suppose to have a Facebook account that they can log into during the session
Title
Engage your students: gaming and gamification in the learning process.
Outline
As part of the broader discussion, a short discussion segment to form and agree on definitions and terms regarding games and gamification. Another short segment to seek consensus if this SCSU campus is ready to departure on the path of gamifying education. After several examples, of how games are used in education and gamification techniques, a discussion on how gaming and gamification can be streamlined amidst shrinking budget and increasing workload. More details and information about gaming and gamification at: http://scsu.mn/1F008Re
Audience: beginners to advanced
Outcomes:
By the end of this session, the participants will have a working definitions on play, games, serious games, game-based learning, digital game-based learning, gaming, gamification and badges. (more at http://scsu.mn/1F008Re)
By the end of the session, the participants will be familiar with the possibilities for integration of games in the educational process and for gamification of the educational process.
By the end of the session, the participants will be able to asses to what extent games and gamification fit their field of study
Plan:
Introduce each other and share the reason and interest to attend this discussion; what are the expectations from this discussion
Your Brain on Video Game http://www.zaption.com/present/566b26d4cbda6b1c1c482aa6
(use presenter, ask for mobile devices)
Work on the definitions: play, games, serious games, game-based learning, gaming, gamification and badges
Title
Present and be presented: engage your students with modern ways to share information
Outline
Two trends plague education: the swamp of PowerPoint presentations and the lack of visual literacy. In this rapid succession of examples, one can experience a showcase of various cloud-based tools, which brings visual presentations way beyond PowerPoint and align with the Millennials demand for current social interaction. A discussion on how relevant these tools are to various disciplines and details on improving the interaction among instructors and students during the presentation. Ongoing discussion about design as part of visual literacy and the difference between blended learning and technology integration.
Audience: beginners to advanced
Outcomes:
By the end of this session, the participants will have understand the movement “Death by PowerPoint” and will understand the advantage of cloud-based presentation tools to MS PowerPoint
By the end of the session, the participants will be familiar with several tools, which successfully replace PowerPoint and well beyond.
By the end of the session, the participants will be able to asses to what extent games and gamification fit their field of study
By the end of the session, the participants will be able to discriminate between technology integration and blended learning.
Plan:
Introduce each other and share the reason and interest to attend this discussion; what are the expectations from this discussion
EdPuzzle https://edpuzzle.com/ https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2015/02/19/edpuzzle-flipped-lessons/
crops the video so one can watch only a segment. Does not make much sense, since YouTube gives an URL to the reference point, but it allows instructor’s audio feedback. It is still too much “instructor’s proprietary” and not so much students-engaging as Zaption Presenter and Kahoot.
Malone, K. (2007). The bubble‐wrap generation: children growing up in walled gardens. Environmental Education Research, 13(4), 513–527. http://doi.org/10.1080/13504620701581612http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13504620701581612
some of the changes in childhood environmental behaviours I explore children and parent relationships, in particular, the phenomena of ‘bubble‐wrapping’ children to appease the anxieties of some middle class parents.
Ivanova, A., & Ivanova, G. (2009). Net-generation Learning Style: A Challenge for Higher Education. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Systems and Technologies and Workshop for PhD Students in Computing (pp. 72:1–72:6). New York, NY, USA: ACM. http://doi.org/10.1145/1731740.1731818http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1731818
Lynch, K., & Hogan, J. (2012). How Irish Political Parties are Using Social Networking Sites to Reach Generation Z: an Insight into a New Online Social Network in a Small Democracy. Irish Communication Review, 13. Retrieved from http://arrow.dit.ie/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1124&context=buschmarart
Parker, K., Czech, D., Burdette, T., Stewart, J., Biber, D., Easton, L., … McDaniel, T. (2012). The Preferred Coaching Styles of Generation Z Athletes: A Qualitative Study. Journal of Coaching Education, 5(2), 5–97.
Greydanus, D. E., & Greydanus, M. M. (2012). Internet use, misuse, and addiction in adolescents: current issues and challenges. International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health, 24(4), 283–289. http://doi.org/10.1515/ijamh.2012.041
Learning made visible: successful ePortfolio patterns across the U.S.
Register for first AAEEBL webinar of 2015-2016 on September 16 at 1 pm US EDT. Jeff Yan of Digication addressing “Learning made visible: successful ePortfolio patterns across the U.S.”
Jeff, a former academic, is the CEO of Digication, one of the most successful eportfolio companies in the U. S. He will help us understand the big picture: how are eportfolios being used on campuses and what works best.
This Webinar is co-sponsored by AAC&U, EPAC and IJeP.
Once you register, you will see an acknowledgement page with the URL to go to on Wednesday. You will not need a password.
How does the ePortfolio support in helping students achieve those goals. The ePortfolio should not be another thing they (and the faculty) need to do on top of everything else they are already doing.