Eric Stoller's Blog

I like to think of my blog as my virtual living room. It’s where I sit and ponder and engage with folks on a myriad of issues. Sometimes my posts on social justice issues have resulted in horrid comments being submitted to my site. I moderate all comments from first time commenters so that epithets, hate speech, aggressive hyperbole, and spam does not get to a published state. Recently while I was on vacation, an anonymous commenter left a number of comments on a few of my posts. I decided not to publish their comments because I didn’t want to engage with this person. People who comment without using their real name or email address are almost always visiting my site with mischievous intent. I deleted the comments and continued to enjoy my vacation. Unfortunately, this particular anonymous coward decided that their comments were so important to the world, and to my blog, that they tracked down my work phone number. I received the following email from one of our awesome student workers:

Just to give you a heads up I got a call today from an angry guy who was complaining about his comments being censured from your blog and that it was unethical. I took a message but I just wanted to let you know.

I spoke with the student who had to endure the phone call. I thanked her for being professional and I apologized to her. She should have never had to take that phone call. I was really upset that this had happened. I suppose that due to the nature of my writing that the potential for this has always been a possibility. I was so proud of my student for how she handled herself.

I have never had an official comments policy on my blog. I have never felt that it was necessary until now. Here goes: If you comment on my blog and I decide to delete or spam it, that is my choice. This site is “EricStoller.com.” It’s my virtual living room. I get to decide whether or not you get to hang out on the “couch.”

Photo credit: emdot

Have you ever wanted to embed an individual tweet from Twitter into a blog post? A couple of months ago, Twitter released “Blackbird Pie.” It’s a nifty web-based tool that generates embed code for a single Twitter post that you can paste into a blog post.

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Questions: Do you have a WordPress blog? Is it a self-hosted site (a non-WordPress.com site)? Have you ever accessed your blog via a smartphone?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, I would like to introduce you to the WPtouch plugin for WordPress:

“WPtouch automatically transforms your WordPress blog into an iPhone application-style theme, complete with ajax loading articles and effects, when viewed from an iPhone, iPod touch, Android, Opera Mini, Palm Pre and BlackBerry Storm mobile devices.”

WPtouch does a terrific job of stripping out your blog’s sidebar / extraneous features. Your site is instantly optimized for smartphones. Sample screenshots after the jump..

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Full disclosure: I am currently an academic advisor. It’s my first full-time academic advising experience. I actually was quite pro-active about avoiding academic advising experiences when I was in graduate school. I never thought that I would be an academic advisor. I’ve been in my current advising position for 3 years. It’s been an incredible experience. Having said that, this post is not about me. It’s for anyone who has ever been an academic advisor who has dealt with the subject matter of this post.

A friend of mine is an academic advisor. She’s currently looking for a new position within student affairs. Having applied for several positions that have not yielded an offer. She came to the conclusion that having “academic advisor” at the top of her most recent experiences on her resume was resulting in her application being ignored or devalued. We chatted about how her resume could be re-worked to be more of a skills-based document. While I wasn’t happy about the apparent devaluing of academic advising that seemed to be occurring, I could empathize with both my friend and prospective hiring departments.

The state of academic advising in higher education is that it is a field that is predominantly seen as being in academic affairs. What this means is that while academic advisors may do exactly the same kinds of work as their student affairs colleagues, they might not be recognized for this due to the “silo effect” in higher education.

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One of my mentors once told me that mentors are everywhere and that all I needed to do was to seek them out. At the time, I had been struggling with finding experienced practitioners who were as into learning / using technology within student affairs as I was. It took me a while to realize that what I had been looking for was the ultimate mentor. I was seeking someone who matched up with every nuance, every interest area, in effect, the “perfect” mentor.

When I woke up this morning, I had a realization. A thought that I had never really allowed to materialize. I currently have multiple individuals who I call “mentor.” No single person. Not a lone individual. I have multiple mentors. Some of my mentors provide professional advice. Some of my mentors assist me in the “apprenticeship of life.” This cadre of mentors provides me with an amazing breadth and depth of learning, experiences, and guidance. A community of mentors who I look to for strength, insight, humor, and caring.

My mentors come from all over the place. They have been instrumental in where I am and where I want to be. Here are a few ideas that I have been pondering about mentoring:

• Sometimes mentors bring mentorship into your life without it being strategic or intentional. It just happens.
• Age does not always equal wisdom. Be open to mentoring from anyone. Wisdom can surprise you.
• If your mentors are well-known, be prepared to spend less time with them. Learn as much as you can when you have access. Maximize your time with them.
• Social media spans the globe. Your access to mentors has just increased…be ready.
• Sometimes mentors and mentees switch roles depending on circumstances, timing, and need. It’s okay.

Photo credit: quacktaculous

My parents now have “the broadband” and are in need of a new computer. Their Dell desktop PC (that I customized for them when I lived in Chicago) is about 8 years old. It is now time for a new PC. Since I’m now a total Mac head, I am in need of some PC suggestions…my Macbook Pro is about 4 years old and I will never go back to a PC or MS Windows.

My parents have a budget of about $600 to $700 for a new computer. I’ve been looking at Dell.com and HP.com, but haven’t been able to configure a desktop that meets their requirements without going over budget. The added cost of Windows 7 Professional and Microsoft Office – the useful edition – keeps putting me above $700.

Here are the basic requirements for the new computer:

• Windows 7*
• Microsoft Office Home and Business 2010
• 4GB’s of ram
• 19 in. LCD

Does anyone have any ideas for a reliable yet inexpensive computer setup that meets these requirements?

*I wonder if Windows 7 Home Premium is as useless as Dell and HP make it seem to be? Is Windows 7 Professional worth the added cost?

**Every post that mentions computers should really include a Commodore 64. Just saying:

Bill Gates and I don’t often disagree. However, at the recent Techonomy conference, Bill was predicting the future of higher education. I took umbrage with some of his comments. Per his usual rhetoric, Bill positioned technology as the panacea for the future of higher education.

Here are some of Bill’s comments:

“The self-motivated [college] learner will be on the web and there will be far less place-based things.”
“College, except for the parties…. needs to be less place-based.”
“Place-based activity in that ‘college thing’ will be 5 times less important than it is today.”
“The room for innovation, thank God for charters, there’s no room for innovation in the standard system.”

Bill’s commentary at the conference was picked up by TechCrunch and posted as “Bill Gates: In Five Years The Best Education Will Come From The Web.”

The post quickly spread like a wildfire throughout Twitter:

The interesting thing is that the quote that’s being passed around on Twitter as originating from Bill Gates seems to have been actually just the post title from TechCrunch. I wasn’t able to find video or text where Bill Gates actually said what is being attributed to him by a lot of folks on Twitter.

The disturbing aspects of Bill’s quotes from the video are that he seems to have a negative attitude toward the physical spaces of higher education. Bill constructs his arguments around cost and access, but fails to adequately critique his own points. “Self-motivated learners” generally do not include students from traditionally marginalized groups. Bill Gates went to an exclusive preparatory high school and attended Harvard College. His is not a story of overcoming obstacles. Access issues are pervasive in higher education. Socioeconomic status catapulted Gates to where he is today. His arguments around access fail to include awareness of the digital divide in terms of both class and disability. Simply offering more web-based opportunities for learning will not improve access issues. And don’t get me started about the bit about “parties” being the only rationale for “place-based” institutions.

Bill’s rhetoric is consistently anti-student-involvement. Gates approaches his arguments from the position that every student is coming out of an innovative charter school and where self-motivated learners roam the higher education sphere. What Bill is forgetting is that involvement is crucial to student success. Can a student be successful when there primary involvement opportunities take place via the web — absolutely. However, most of our students benefit tremendously from their involvement and interactions within the brick and mortar activities of their educational institution.

Student involvement theory is a foundational element for student affairs professionals. Research has shown that increased involvement leads to higher amounts of persistence and greater academic success.

According to Alexander Astin (1984) [pdf]:

[S]tudent involvement refers to the amount of physical and psycho- logical energy that the student devotes to the academic experience. Thus, a highly involved student is one who, for example, devotes considerable energy to studying, spends much time on campus, participates actively in student organizations, and interacts frequently with faculty members and other students.

Astin (1984) concluded that “the greater the student’s involvement in college, the greater will be the amount of student learning and personal development.”

I wish that Bill Gates would offer a blended approach. Why can’t we have both? Amazing opportunities can be created to support students in both the virtual and physical spheres.

References
Astin, A. (1984). Student involvement: a developmental theory for higher education. Journal of College Student Personnel, 25(4), 297-308.

My new Droid X smartphone (hardware: Motorola, network: Verizon Wireless) has many nifty features. One of its most touted features is that it can serve as a 3G mobile wifi hotspot for up to 5 devices. In the promo video for the hotspot feature, the phone’s owner places the Droid X (unplugged) next to her and voilà, instant internet for all of the fortunate souls caught in the Droid X’s wifi force field.

Having had the Droid X for a little while now, I can say that the wifi hotspot works fairly well. The connection speeds are fairly quick and it works great for checking email and reading web content. Where it doesn’t work so great is when you try to doing anything that requires a fair amount of bandwidth. Watching YouTube videos and/or downloading anything large than a megabyte causes the Droid X hotspot to intermittently drop your connection. Your only recourse is to tap the 3G icon and restart the mobile hotspot service. It’s also important to note that the 3G hotspot drains your battery exceptionally fast. I only use it when I can plug my phone into my laptop. The Droid X gets extremely hot when you’re using it as a hotspot. That’s the result of copious amounts of battery charge consumption. My hope is that Android 2.2 (Froyo) will maximize battery life and fix the connection issue. Overall, the Droid X is a terrific phone….even if it doesn’t create a visible force field around you.

I started using Twitter on March 14, 2007. I didn’t “get” Twitter at first. It took me more than a year before I realized that Twitter was useful. When you first start using Twitter, it’s like being on Facebook without friends…It’s not exactly a party. Once I started following various Twitter accounts and being followed by folks, Twitter became much more useful. In fact, Twitter has turned out to be one of my favorite ways to connect with people in a variety of spheres.

Don’t worry if you don’t “get” Twitter right away. Be patient with it. Follow some folks. Engage with people/accounts. Take the time to learn how Twitter works.

Twitter stats courtesy of TweetStats.

What happens when Jimmy Fallon goes on the Engadget Show with Joshua Topolsky…uber nerdery ensues:

If you are looking for the play button, it’s on the bottom right of the video. Hello UI…anyone?!