What should we do to help get more followers

Saw an info graphic about how to get more followers, and it made me think about why people think it's just the numbers. It's not about how many people you say it to, it's that you have something to say that's good enough that all those people want to know what you say.

That said, the graphic provides some insight into what things should be talked about in posts. I'm wondering if we can use this to help drive participation/interest in course tweets...

Multi-culturalism in the socially networked classroom

Last week we had Prieto Loreto on campus to help us think about how we might review online courses for infusion of multiculturalism. (That sentence seems incomplete, and not structured right, but after the cold weekend, I can't figure out why.)

Anyway, during the program, I dug around a bit trying to figure out the demographic information of those who use social networks. I came across a review that Facebook did of their users last year at this time. It's interesting reading (and their comments are too, but the comments make you wonder the demographic information of those people as well.)

Not sure what we can pull from this, but it's an interesting place to start the conversation about the digital divide and incorporation of Web 2.0 and social networking into the digital classroom.

Educause Study on Students and Technology

Educause Center for Applied Research has release this 2010 study based on qualitative data from students at both 4-year and 2-year institutions on how undergraduate student use information technology. The study is 120 pages, but, for a shorter synopsis, you can peruse their key findings which provides information of student use of desktops versus laptops, mobile devices, learning management systems, and social networking.

Scanner for Facebook Privacy

The website ReclaimPrivacy.org offers an interesting tool that will scan your Facebook settings and give you a report concerning what information you have made publicly available and how to change your settings if you are so compelled. If you use Facebook as an educator and are wary of the information about you do make available to your students, this might be a useful tool for keeping informed about the information you do share and who can see it.

Eighty Percent of College Faculty Using Social Media

According to a recent study entitled "Social Media in Higher Education" conducted by the publisher Pearson, more than eighty percent of faculty are using social media and half of those are using social media for teaching purposes. The study also offers some additional interesting data such as 30% of the faculty polled use social media with their students and 52% use video, podcast, blogs, and wikis as part of their classes.

Creating a Good Profile Picture

As a librarian, I like to have a picture of myself available in profile on D2L as well as the social networking tools we use in the library (like Facebook) so that should students venture into the library they may recognize me and feel more comfortable approaching me and also so they get a sense that I'm real person when interacting with me in the online classroom. The social media guide Mashable offers 5 Tips for Creating the Perfect Profile Pic which includes some tools that can help you be creative in the process.

Learn a new language for free!

Here is an interesting little language site I ran into recently it's called LiveMocha it allows you to learn languages at your own pace with the addition of a social network. You can speak with other members from other countries in their native language. I've used Rossetta Stone in the past which is a great product but the ability to converse with others online in their native language to practice what you've learned...genius!

Here is a little more on LiveMocha:

What we need from e-books

Gizmodo did a nice comparison between the Kindle.app and iBooks on the iPad. In addition, they talked about what we need, to really flesh out the potential of e-books.

What no one is doing is trying to figure out how all this stuff can be combined to help create better learning environments around digital text; though, some of what Gizmodo says is directly or indirectly related. The idea of integrating social networking into a text is great. But note-taking is missing. What students need are tools to help them learn:

• A way to create a glossary of terms on the fly with words and definitions and examples coming straight from the text;
• A way to ask a question of a teacher or classmates, straight from the text (quoting the part they don't understand);
• Analysis that will help students see over arching themes between notes taken between differing books...I just threw this one in...not sure how it will hold up after thinking about it more.

Anyway, good review. Check it out.

Integrating Facebook into D2L

Facebook has recently implemented a "Like" button that can be put on various websites. Fill in the wizard, and out pops the code to embed the button into a webpage (or news item, or discussion question, or whatever). This is kind of neat as it puts using facebook for a class only a click away for students, where before it might be several clicks away.

Still haven't tried it, but from what I can tell, it should work pretty easily. Set-up a group on Facebook for your class, get the button, and see what happens.

What will become of bit.ly?

Bit.ly is a wonderful link condenser with the added bonus of tracking link clicks and providing statistics about those links. We use it with this blog, and ECC Library also uses it to track the clicks on our Twitter and Facebook fan page feeds. One of the great assets of bit.ly is that it allows you to post your "Tweet" directly through its interface - there's no need to long into Twitter to do it - because of the relationship between the two services. However, Twitter's CEO Evan Williams just announced that Twitter is going to create its own link shortener which may mean a questionable fate for bit.ly. It remains to be seen whether the Twitter link shortener with feature tracking and statistics and whether bit.ly users will transition to it. This is something to be aware of if you use bit.ly to track student use of any of your links.

Who knows what tomorrow brings...?

ReadWriteWeb has published an article about social media and things that can be expected in the next year. With the proliferation of mobile computing and the social connections maintained by the media, new opportunities for learning will evolve. Take a look and see what is projected, and comment below if you have ideas on things you would like to try in your learning environments.

Social Networking and Connecting

A new study from the Pew Charitable Trusts examines the perceived social isolation coming about in our society. Common knowledge infers that increased use of personal technology is creating a rift in the social fabric of our society, isolating us from each other. From the link above: The study shows that "internet use in general and use of social networking services such as Facebook in particular are associated with more diverse social networks." Use of social networks in academic environments and students' percieved connection with classmates and their instructors should be looked at closely, especially in the context of how they might be used to affect retention and success.

How Colleges Should Be Using Social Media

The Chronicle of Higher Education interviewed S. Craig Watkins, an Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of The Young and the Digital: What the Migration to Social Network Sites, Games, and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means for Our Future about social network and the future of education. He speaks about the characteristics of this generation of technologically comfortable students and the manner in which technology is affecting instructor's teaching style and pedagogical techniques. Watkins also touches on concerns about privacy where higher education intersects with personal social network accounts.

Some news...

Some interesting things have come up in the context of data and the control of the data now that more and more data is stored "in the cloud."

• Student sues Amazon.com (seeking class-action status) for the removal of a purchased book from his Kindle, rendering his class notes useless;
• Thoughts on Amazon.com and it's "control" over purchased data, and implications;
• FCC looks at Apple's App Store and practices on approving and removing apps;
• Podcast of Talk of the Nation segment: "Who Really Owns Your Data?" (mp3, transcript)

All have relate to things we need to keep in mind as we start using more and more of the Web in our learning environments.

Slideshare: The best way to get your slides out there on the web

SlideShare is the world's largest community for sharing presentations.

- Individuals & organizations upload presentations to share their ideas, connect with others.
- Anyone can find presentations on topics that interest them. They can tag, download, or embed presentations into their own blogs & websites.

SlideShare is the best way to get your slides out there on the web, so your ideas can be found and shared by a wide audience. Are you a teacher looking to share your lesson plans?

Some of the things you can do on SlideShare

- Embed slideshows into your own blog or website.
- Share slideshows publicly or privately. There are several ways to share privately.
- Synch audio to your slides.
- Market your own event on slideshare.
- Join groups to connect with SlideShare members who share your interests
- Download the original file

A few useful links:

* A new plug-in for PPT to directly upload to SlideShare (haven’t used it yet)
* SlideShare application for Facebook
* SlideShare publishes a blog
* You can now upload Apple Keynote files to SlideShare
* The most viewed presentation all-time has over 800,000 views

'Twitterature': Tweeting Classics on the Web

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read each others' updates, known as tweets. Learn how two University of Chicago sophomores, have written a new book titled Twitterature: The World’s Greatest Books, Now Presented in Twenty Tweets or Less.

'Twitterature': Tweeting Classics on the Web