Well until about 3 weeks ago – no I didn’t. That’s when I began to use Facebook. When you “poke” someone in Facebook it’s the equivalent of waving at them when you pass them on the street or in the hall. No words are exchanged – just a quick acknowledgement.
And it took a bit of poking of another kind, by my mushroom eating colleague Keira McPhee, to get me on to Facebook in the first place. Those first few times were really unpleasant. A webpage full of sections and features that I didn’t understand and yet you’re supposed to able to teach yourself how to use it – no “facebook for dummies” required. My process of learning was one login at a time – each time learning one more feature and finally, after 8 – 10 times, getting to the point where I knew what the page was going to look like before it loaded. Feeling impatient rather than overwhelmed.
And yet, Keira’s poking continues. It’s not enough that I personally feel like a competent user of Facebook, now she wants me to expand my thinking about how we could use Facebook and other social networking tools to improve our services to students. Sheeeesh. First stop – the blogosphere to find out what others more advanced than I are thinking.
Darren Barefoot is a web commentator who recently posted: How Facebook Folds Time. Experienced facebookers (like myself) are aware that it is common for facebook users to join groups based on where they previously worked, volunteered, went to school etc. What Darren sees is the potential for past members to serve in somewhat of a mentoring capacity to the newcomers.
This stuff happens in the real world, but it’s rare, formalized and time-consuming. I see far more potential for informal, low impact and possibly fleeting relationships to form on a site like Facebook. Mentor programs are great, but few professionals have the time to devote to them. Those same professionals probably have 10 minutes a week to answer a question about which specialities a nursing student should consider.
Connecting our students with a network of people in the workplace who are engaged in careers of interest is something that all Career Centres imagine – or perhaps “dream of” is more accurate. Getting students to actively engage in this kind of networking throughout their university experience is never easy. But I wonder – with social networking tools like Facebook – perhaps it’s never been easier?
Next step – getting my colleagues excited by these kinds of possibilities. According to Joanne Berg, Lori Berquam, and Kathy Christoph from the University of Wisconson – they’ll likely need a poke as well. In their article Social Networking Technologies: A “Poke” for Campus Services they list some great conversation starters to get staff thinking and this “tested recipe for generating ideas:
…take a favorite social networking technology, add the college/university culture, the budget, and a few creative thinkers, and pour everything on top of current practices and IT services. Then listen carefully.
Categories: Carol's posts
Even when the purpose of blogging is primarily self-reflective it’s like a conversation with yourself unfolding over time. But it’s a conversation that happens primarily via text.
That’s enough to stop lots of people right there. There are a raft of other ways to engage online besides writing extensively. My partner describes using social bookmarks like del.ici.ous or furl as “blogging without writing”. I’ve been loving Twitter with it’s to the point question “what are you doing?” and 140 character limit to answer- even a busy, part-time professional mom has time for that. And if you’re not on Facebook yet, wait a week, and you will be!
But the deep, rich conversations seem to happen via blogs. There’s so much for career services and student services staff to be exploring and reflecting on these days. I’ll mark this workshop a rousing, roaring success if one or two attendees, along with those of us up at the front, started blogging our work.
Barbara Ganley asks other academics:
“…how can we understand what our students are experiencing if we don’t immerse ourselves in the very processes we ask them to explore? bgblogging
This is the key question for those of us in student services as well.
Ready to start your own blog? If you’re brand new, head on over to Blogger. Once you’re a bit more comfortable you may just find yourself wishing you could do customize things a little more easily. WordPress will let you trick things out just the way you want.
Categories: How-to · Keira's posts
When I comment on a blogpost I enter into a richer relationship with the person posting and the other commenters. I’ve joined the conversation. I also find the very act of writing clarifies my thinking. But often by the time I hit “publish” I feel like I don’t quite agree with what I’ve written.
It’s an uncomfortable moment. I still probably sweat this too much. Because if blogging is about anything (and commenting is as much blogging as posting to your own blog in my books) it’s about embracing a sense of process, of flow.
It’s ok if I change my mind: I can always comment again. If I change my mind as a result of someone else’s post or comment, well hallelujah: learning has occured!
I also love to see my name in lights and commenting is the easiest way to do that. Sometimes I get performance anxiety because I equate this to publishing a book or something. In the sense that the vast, vast majority of books only get read by a very, very few people it is exactly like that.
It’s just more accessible than book publishing. More of us can do it.
There is nothing that will energize a budding blogger more than getting feedback, and the impact is even larger when it comes from someone distant or unknown. It validates (or invalidates, or infuriates) a blogger’s writing. It says that you are not just spewing words out into the ether, that they land somewhere. And it connects us. From cogdogblog
Categories: How-to · Keira's posts
I’m a bloggish person. I read blogs, I comment occasionally and I contribute to a variety of blogs. But I don’t have one site that I post to regularly. I may not be a “blogger” my most definitions but I do think I blog. In this series of post I’m going to explain why.
Blogging is reading blogs. I have a news reader where I subscribe to blogs. Lots of them, in fact. I’m not religious about reading them. Somedays I read a lot, some weeks I don’t check at all. (I work part-time and being a mom doesn’t always allow for full engagement online.) But if I had to go figure out what to read everytime I went online I’d be paralyzed by choice. Instead I have my subscriptions that range from professionally relevant to personal interests to people I’m just interested in.
Advice: get a news reader and subscribe to some blogs:
Google describes their news reader as “your inbox for the web.” This is a fun vid that makes the case for using a RSS or new or feed reader (no diff!) I’d recommend Google Reader, Bloglines as a web-based reader, or Blogbridge for a more power.
How do you find blogs you’re interested in? Well you can start with my list of careers blogs or my edublogger subscriptions and go from there. Most people who blog have a blogroll of people they read and link to regularly somewhere in their sidebar. If you find a blogger you like, check out who they like. It’s just like how you make friends.
You can also use google’s blog search tool and try random keywords. There are career bloggers but not many (any) blogging from a student service perspective.
Categories: How-to · Keira's posts · Tools
11 participants responded to our preconference workshop survey with the following results:
- Approximately 50% are using Course Management Systems – 50% are not
- 73% are delivering career related instructional content via their websites
- 45% are using their websites as a centre for interaction with students, staff, or other communities of interest
- Familiarity with Social Software is approximiately a third, a third, a third – 1 third not familiar or haven’t experiemented, 1 third familiar with a few and experiemented with one, 1 third occassionally or regularly use tools
- 50 % are using social software tools to serve or interact with staff and students – 50% arent’
- Every living soul in this class today plans to use social software tools in the future
- Approxmately two thirds are receiving no or limited support from their IT departments with programming and educational support for Course Management Systems and Social Software applications.
- Of the 3 IT directors who responded, two thirds said they are providing moderate to full support with CMS’s and Social Software applications
Categories: Carol's posts
