A College Unfriends its Social-Networking President

After reading so many success stories and tales of the glories of social media recently, it was interesting to read a more honest view of what someone untrained in social media can really accomplish.  Some of these articles that I had read previously made promises that rivaled most old-school chain letters.  Where once we were promised years of success if we just forwarded this message to ten of our friends, today it seems that we are promised a lifetime of success and wealth if we only set up a Twitter account. 

In the article, “A College Unfriends Its Social-Networking President”, the author gives the background of how one man rises to the top of the academic ladder at a college in Rhode Island without stepping up the normal rungs of the ladder.  Instead, he got the job through a head hunter.  When he had his interview, he was extremely late, but was still able to impress the committee and land the job by showing that he was cutting edge and a visionary. 

Once he had landed the position of president of the college, he quickly stepped up and joined the ranks of the most tech savvy presidents in the country.  Between speeches delivered regularly via YouTube, blog posts, and over 175 thousend Twitter followers, according to the faculty, he spent more time working the social media than actually working with the college.  The faculty began to feel neglected and believed all the promises made by the new president to be broken before they could ever be followed through with.  Overall, while his vision for social media was successful, he was unable to fulfill his duties as president to the fullest because of his obsession with the social media. 

Young, J. R. (2011). A college unfriends its social-networking president. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 57(35).

Higher Education Migrates to YouTube and Social Networks

In the article, Higher Education Migrates to YouTube and Social Networks, the author quotes Heather Mansfield who owns a consulting firm that focuses on helping colleges and universities step on to the social media scene. Mansfield considers this step an absolute necessity stating, “The thing with higher ed and social media is that colleges really don’t understand that they have no choice whether they want to use social media.” In Mansfield’s mind, this does is not completed by simply having a school page on Facebook. Instead, she suggests different pages for alumni, admissions, academic departments, etc. allowing a different page for each interest or need. Mansfield also states that “If colleges don’t start profiles for their school on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc., then an alum or current student will do it for them. And by waiting or mis-thinking it is a fad, they run the risk of losing complete control of their brand online. It is very common.” 

Many schools have been hesitant to jump completely aboard the social media train as Mansfield and Gilroy have suggested. Instead they have stuck with one overarching page on a social media site or two believing that to be sufficient. But, I have to agree with Mansfield when she says, “Higher ed in general has been entirely too cautious, and they probably don’t realized the damage they are doing to themselves.” Social media is not the future of recruiting, it is today’s recruiting.

Gilroy, M. (2010). Higher Education Migrates to YouTube and Social Networks. The Education Digest 75(7), 18-22. Retrieved fromhttp://ezproxy.arbor.edu:80/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/ezproxy.arbor.edu/docview/218188936?accountid=13998

Using Social Media "Smartly" in the Admissions Process

Parrot and Tipton offer a very practical set of suggestions to college admissions offices in regards to implementing social media sites in their article, Using Social Media “Smartly” in the Admissions Process.  The authors offer three main reasons that today there is an increased need for colleges to have a social media presence.  First, the frequency with which traditional college prospects use social media outlets has drastically increased over the past few years.  Second, there are already many pages on social media outlets that are not sponsored by the colleges that allow the general public to talk about their experiences with the college.  Third, school sponsored pages on social media outlets allow recently accepted students a way to connect before classes start.

According to the survey that Parrot and Tipton conducted of five hundred freshman college students, only eighteen percent of the students listed school sponsored social media pages to be “’one of the most important’ or ‘very important’ sources of information in their application decision.”  However, when deciding on which school to actually attend after the application process, twenty six percent of students listed social media outlets as information sources. 

The solution for colleges, get a social media presence regardless of how small.  Then as technology and culture relies on social media more, so should your advertising and recruiting efforts.

Parrot, T. V., & Tipton, S. (2010, September 28).  Using Social Media “Smartly” in the Admissions Process. College and University, 86(1), 51-53. 

Online Portfolios for Future Employers

Patrick Lyons has many of his own students complete an online portfolio project at St. John’s University.  Lyons  states that there are actually three types of online portfolios: learning, showcase, and structured.  With showcase portfolios, the structure comes to the portfolio after the project is started.  It is a more go with the flow method of putting things together.  The structured portfolios are the complete opposite from the showcase since they are characterized by extremely detailed designs well in advance of the project actually starting.  The learning style is a mix of both showcase and structured as the design and organization of the project develops with the documentation that is being added to the project.

While portfolios have been used by colleges for several years now as a tool to help students build a collection of evidence of their strengths both academically and professionally, Lyons takes it to the next level by having his students put this collection online.  He believes that by placing the contents of a traditional portfolio online, it gives the students an advantage over other students with portfolios.  The first reason being that it shown how tech savvy the student is, which is becoming an important trait in the eyes of employers.  The second reason is based on the simplicity of sharing the portfolio with potential employers.  All a student needs to do in order to put his/her portfolio into the hands of a prospective employer is give them a link via e-mail, or even as a line item on their resume.  

Lyons, P.. (2008). Student Portfolio Web Sites: Valuable Communication Aids to Future Employers. Review of Business, 28(3), 33-43.  Retrieved June 7, 2011, from Research Library. (Document ID: 1698822271). Retrieved from  http://proquest.umi.com.libproxy.bryan.edu/pqdweb?index=18&did=1698822271&SrchMode=1&sid=3&Fmt=6&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1307467483&clientId=7744

Educational Value of Online Portfolios

Traditional portfolios have been used as a tool to analyze a student's writing abilities since the early 1980's.  As technology has advanced over the past twenty years, and society has adapted these new technologies into everyday life, education has also adapted its learning style.  While printed portfolios have been extremely popular in academia over the years, there are two major issues that simply cannot be overcome by traditional portfolios: the difficulty to store them, and the lack of motivation on the part of the student to complete the project.  Part of the beauty of online portfolios is that it offers solutions to not one, but both of the issues caused by traditional portfolios.  Since online portfolios are completely digital, they are extremely simple to share.  All it takes is to copy and paste a link into an e-mail, or even have it listed as a line item on a resume, and the information is shared.  Plus, since the online portfolio is live on the internet from the beginning of the project, anyone can track the progress of that page.  So it is quite possible and probable that someone will view the website while it is still being build, so the student is seen as putting forth an incomplete project.  This is great motivation for a student to finish the project quickly. 

Johnson, C.S..  (2006). The Analytic Assessment of Online Portfolios in Undergraduate Technical Communication: A Model. Journal of Engineering Education, 95(4), 279-287.  Retrieved June 9, 2011, from http://proquest.umi.com.libproxy.bryan.edu/pqdweb?index=18&did=1698822271&SrchMode=1&sid=3&Fmt=6&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1307467483&clientId=7744

2010 U.S. Digital Year in Review

This report offered some interesting statistics on the “U.S. Social Networking Trends” for the 2010 year.  During 2010, the total number of internet users who visit one or more of the many social networking sites available each month grew to ninety percent.  Twelve percent of all the time spent on the internet is spent on these social networking sites.  When broken down into demographics, women spent almost seventeen percent of their online time on social networking sites, this equals approximately one out of every six minutes.

This report also offered statistics on the six most widely used social networking sites which are, in order from most popular to least: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tumblr, and Formspring.  When you take a look at the demographics of the individuals who are logging on to these sites, there has been a slight change over the last year.  The 18 to 34 year olds range has increased the number of users on Facebook by about one half of one percent, and by nine and a half percent on Twitter.  However, both sites lost between two and three percent of their 35 to 54 year olds group. 

Based on the current trend, the authors of this report are predicting that during 2011, companies that do not have a strong social media presence “… are likely to be left behind.”

ComScore. (2011) 2010 U.S. Digital Year In Review: A Recap of the Year in Digital Media. Retrieved from http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Presentations_Whitepapers/2011/2010_US_Digital_Year_in_Review

E-Readers in the Classroom

During the fall 2010 semester, digital textbooks represented three percent of all textbook sales for the semester.  While this number is still relatively low, experts expect this number to grow up to fifteen percent within the next two years.  Digital books are growing in popularity in the academic world for several reasons.  These e-books are a popular trend right, they are more portable than traditional books, and they are more cost efficient than traditional textbooks.  Many digital textbooks cost around seventy-five dollars each, which is a deep discount from their print costs. 

There are also benefits to choosing digital books over print for reasons other than cost.  Research has shown that classes using e-readers are more interactive during class sessions that classes using traditional texts.  The most notable benefit of using digital books according to a study at Houston Community College was the test grades.  The test scores of students with e-reader devices was compared to those within the same class without the devices at the beginning and the end of the semester.  At the beginning of the semester, the scores were similar.  However, when compared at the end of the semester, students using e-readers scores were on average a letter grade higher than those not using the devices. 

Delaney, M. (June 2011). Reading the Future. EdTech: Focus on Higher Education, 7(2), 20-23.

Implicit and explicit self-esteem in the context of internet addiction

People are using the internet in an ever growing number of ways in order to connect with other people.  Whether it is with social networking, e-mail, online multi-player games, or even searching the internet for information, the goal is to connect people.  With all of this connecting going on, the question arises, is there an inherent risk for addiction to the internet?  Researchers have found a way to predict the likelihood of a person to become an internet addict based on their levels of implicit and explicit self-esteem.  The study shows that individuals with low levels of explicit, and high levels on implicit self-esteem had a greater chance of becoming addicted to the internet.  This addiction can cause many problems socially and economically. 


Stieger, S., Burger, C. (2010).  Implicit and explicit self-esteem in the context of internet addiction. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. 13(6), 681-688. doi: 10.1089/cyber.2009.0426. Retrieved from: http://liebertonline.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/cyber.2009.0426.

NetThreats: Knowing the dos and don'ts of posting on social media

With the growing popularity of social media, few people stop and actually think about what happens to their information once they press the "post" button.  The biggest problem being faced by Americans today is that due to our posting obsession, is that we are putting ourselves as well as our American soldiers' lives at risk by giving out too much information on social media sites (SMS).  Soldiers, spouses, and family members post what they believe to be innocuous information about the location of military personnel overseas and end up giving enemy military organizations all the necessary information to plan an ambush.  Our military personnel are not the only one at risk.  Terrorists and other political or military enemies are not the only ones cruising the internet looking for potential targets.  Local criminal frequently use the location function on SMS to determine the best time to break into and rob a house.  So know what you are posting as well as who can view your posts in order to keep yourself and your loved ones safe. 

Campbell, M. (2011). NetThreats: Knowing the dos and don'ts of posting on social media. U.S. Department of Defense Information/FIND.Retrieved from http://proquest.umi.com/pdqweb?did=23286213