Social Networking: Use-Cases for the Classroom
There is an increasing number of college professors finding success with putting social networking tools to work for them inside of the classroom, including Facebook, Twitter, Wikis, and social bookmarking sites.
Highlights from the 2009 Community College Survey of Student Engagement
The Center for Community College Student Engagement has released their 2009 Survey results, and the winner is….social networking. This year, the survey focused on the importance of building relationships – among students, faculty, staff, and with the institution, itself. What they found was that “personal connections are the unanticipated success factor – a critical variable [...]
The Classroom Backchannel: Professors love the “chatter”
Purdue University recently unveiled Hotseat – a social networking-powered mobile Web application that allows students to provide feedback via Facebook, Twitter, and mobile devices during class and enables professors to adjust the course content and improve the learning experience.
Texas A&M Making Waves on Facebook
Texas A&M has found an outlet for their audience to engage in dialogue with prominent campus figures on Facebook, in a program they’re calling “Face 2 Face”.
Facebook for Yield: An Annotated Bibliography
Facebook is a very popular social networking for prospective students, so it offers many options for schools to market themselves to and connect with their audience in order to improve yield. This is a collection of resources on the topic of using Facebook in Admissions and Enrollment.
Community Colleges in the Spotlight
With 44% of all U.S. undergraduates enrolled in community college programs, the spotlight is finally hitting this population and shining light on the success that these programs have, not only in awarding degrees themselves, but in helping students graduate from 4-year schools.
Living with Facebook’s Updated Feeds
Over the weekend, about 300 million people were surprised to find that Facebook had changed the default home page, without any warning. There are completely different options for what shows up on your news feed now – you can view a “Live Feed”, which is a continuously-updated stream of *everything* your friends do, or a [...]
Christmas Shopping on Facebook?!
Facebook announced a revamped Gift Shop yesterday, complete with a “mall style” design that allows users to browse gifts by type. Aside from the old selection of virtual gifts, users can now purchase school-themed gifts from a number of major colleges like Oklahoma State, gifts by Causes that benefit charities and…music! It also looks like Facebook will be rolling out the option to purchase and have actual, physical gifts delivered.
UPDATE: Are Facebook Pages and Groups Merging?
According to AllFacebook.com, it appears that Facebook is possibly merging Pages and Groups. Some groups saw the changes on Tuesday, October 13th, but their Group layouts reverted back to the old design within 24 hours. Is Facebook merging the two? Do you think they should?
Facebook for Retention: An Annotated Bibliography
As more and more colleges and universities dive into using social media and social networking to attract and keep students, there is an increasing body of literature on the topic. The following is a collection of resources showing the success of using Facebook to keep students engaged and to increase retention in higher ed.
Are Schools Ready to Live With Social Media? A Resounding Yes!
This morning, the Baltimore Sun declared that colleges and universities are finally ready to live with social media. The article focused on the use of social networking sites – mostly Facebook – throughout the process of admissions and enrollment. The fact is that 86% of college-age students have profiles on Facebook, and they expect schools [...]
Build Communities That Will Last
Student retention is a growing concern for colleges and universities throughout the United States. With decreasing endowments, every student that pays tuition every year brings the campus valuable operating funds, not to mention a more vibrant community.
Engaging Alumni Using Social Media
In a Mashable article that was recently published, called “10 Ways Universities Are Engaging Alumni Using Social Media”, a number of colleges and universities were highlighted for their social media efforts. Schools were selected for different uses of strategies and tools to reach and engage the alumni community, and the same three seemed to show up repeatedly: Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Easily Build Your PLN and Your Knowledge
Personal Learning Networks, or PLNs, have been around forever. Originally, they were your family and friends, maybe people you worked with, but as the internet and web 2.0 tools have become nearly ubiquitous, PLNs can include tons of different communities – social networking sites like Facebook, blogs, Twitter, nings, social bookmarking tools, LinkedIn, and so many more. Basically, anyone that you [...]
How will today’s students use the web of tomorrow?
Last week, our CEO Michael Staton was on a panel during Internet Week New York, called “Beyond Facebook: How Will Today’s Students Use the Web of Tomorrow?” Hosted by Mark Moran of FindingDulcinea, the panel included 4 other executives of interactive online educational tools.
Inigral in New York
From June 3rd to June 6th, our CEO Michael Staton and I had the pleasure of attending the first ever Internet Week in New York City. Michael was one of five speakers on the “Beyond Facebook: How Will Today’s Students Use the Web of Tomorrow?” panel, hosted by FindingDulcinea on Thursday afternoon. The entire experience was enlightening.
