Blogging Student Affairs and Technology

Inside Higher Ed - blogging about student affairs and technology - Eric Stoller

I am thrilled to announce that I’m going to be blogging about Student Affairs and Technology for Inside Higher Ed (IHE). As an avid reader of IHE, I am very excited to join the IHE blogging team. I think that my posts on student affairs + technology will complement Joshua Kim’s blog on Technology and Learning.

Recently, I held a contest via Twitter to name my new blog. The incentive — a $100 Amazon gift card — courtesy of Inside Higher Ed. Several folks came up with interesting/creative blog names. I think the #SAChat Community provided the majority of ideas. Student Affairs folks are uber creative.

Here are my 3 favorite submissions:

  • Jeff Jackson: The Stoller Strikes Back, Return of the Blogosphere, Student Affairs….I am Your Blogger
  • Zack Ford: Challenge and Tech Support
  • ACUHO-I (sent via DM): Binary Code of Conduct

Choosing a winner from these 3 has been extremely challenging. Star Wars references, Sanford, and an entire Association…how cool is that?!! After more than a week of deliberate (intentional ;-) ) deliberating I have decided that the winner of the gift card is:

eric-stoller-challenge-and-tech-support

Zack Ford’s submission made me laugh. It’s subtle….and I love subtlety. The obvious nod / homage to Nevitt Sanford warms the heart. Challenge and Support is one of my all-time favorite, and oft-used, student development theories.

It should be noted that Julie Larsen was correct…the official name of my new blog is going to be: Student Affairs and Technology. The name needed to be something that would be simple enough that any IHE reader would know exactly what it was about. The blog also needed to be search engine friendly…”Students Affairs + Technology” is simple and searchable.

Stay tuned for my first official post on Inside Higher Ed!

Honorable mention:

Julie P-Kirchmeier: Stoller: Resistance is Futile

Niki Rudolph: Epic Stoller

Justine Carpenter: Tech Tips for SAPs

Christopher Conzen: The Stoller Coaster

Academic Advising & Social Media

NACADA Tech in Advising Recommendations for Use of Online Social Communication in Academic Advising

The purpose of these recommendations is to provide guidance to Academic Advisors contemplating the inclusion of on-line social communication tools in their personal or programmatic advising design.

For the purposes of this discussion, Online Social Communications will be understood as externally hosted Web environments, sometimes referred to as Social Media Environments, in which information is aggregated, presented and shared. Further, where functionality exist, the environments allow you to document and filter connections between individuals, maintain profiles, support multimedia, and facilitate communication with a time shift supporting response at user-defined times. On-Line Social Communication environments include Facebook and other Online Social Networks, Twitter, YouTube, personal blogs and wiki pages. Since Facebook’s introduction in 2004, an ever-increasing number of advisors, student services specialists, academic units and universities have been leveraging the benefits of an on-line presence.

The expanding use of on-line social communication by advisors and advising offices, evidenced by numerous publications and presentations over the past five years, encouraged the NACADA Commission for Technology in Advising to proffer the following recommendations when considering inclusion of Social Communication tools in the delivery of advising information:

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Google Wave

Google has a new app called “Wave.” It’s billed as communication and collaboration tool. I would say that it’s probably going to be the tool of choice in the next 5 years for anyone who uses Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, WordPress, any IM Client, etc. If Google Wave catches on, Zuckerberg will wish that he’d sold Facebook when he had the chance.

Google Wave
Microsoft is the “new” IBM. They just don’t know it yet. Sorry Redmond.

Oregon State University Social Media Directory

Oregon State University has a new social media directory page. Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube and WordPress are the primary communication mediums for OSU’s social media presence. I’m sure this list will continue to grow as more and more departments engage in social media implementations.

Facebook pages and groups

Flickr photo feeds

Twitter Feeds

YouTube

Other Social Media, Video and Audio Sites

OSU Bloggers

Wikis

via the OSU Dialog blog

Student Affairs Technology: To Boldly Go

Student Affairs Technology: To Boldly Go

“They should have explained the basic concepts at the beginning (e.g.: podcasts, blogs, wikis, etc.).”

“Be less technical.”

“Helping me to boldly go where I’ve never been before.”

One of these statements is not like the other two. I’m sure you can guess which one gives me hope as a student affairs techie that we as a profession have not lost our willingness to learn, to explore and to stay positive about new technologies. This article represents a call to action for student affairs practitioners. The microblogging site, Twitter, has a feature that lets you “nudge” someone that you are following. This is me providing a gentle nudge to my fellow higher education administrators. I hope that you nudge me back. Let’s push the envelope. Let’s shift our professional paradigms. Let’s make technology (and learning about new technologies) a part of our daily practices.

Continue reading Student Affairs Technology: To Boldly Go

Web 2.0 footprint

Recently, the head space that I am devoting to various Web 2.0 sites and applications has begun to feel quite cumbersome. I decided to create a post on my “Web 2.0 footprint.” My usage of each of these sites ebbs and flows. This list represents Web 2.0 services that I use at least once per month. Without further ado, here is a list in no particular order (with links to my personal profiles) of the Web 2.0 sites and services that I currently engage with on the interwebs:

Wordpress.org
WordPress.org: It runs my blog. I’ve tried Blogger and heard a lot about Movable Type, but WordPress has my blogging heart in its php basket.

Twitter
Twitter: I’m still not sure what it’s good for ;-). My virtual journal consists of my blog, my live journal account and my twitter account. Sometimes I just need a few words in the Twitterspace to get something out of my head.

LiveJournal
LiveJournal: Everything that does not get posted on my blog or on Twitter is posted on my LiveJournal account. Private groups get treated to spectacular rants and it serves as a space for me and my local friends to share all sorts of thoughts and feelings.

Flickr
Flickr: Only a few of the gigabytes of photographs that I have taken are on my Flickr account. I really need to upload more when I get some spare time.

Facebook
Facebook: I use Facebook on a daily basis. It’s a great place to connect with friends. It enables me to stay connected with a lot more people than I probably would be able to in the “real” world. Facebook isn’t perfect, but in my opinion, it is the only show in town for my social networking needs.

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Random Post 3/23/07

The blogosphere is pulsating with ferocity this morning. I have about 50 potential posts floating around in the soup that makes up my consciousness…

Random Item number 1: This isn’t a link but I really want to post that I am super excited, happy, giddy, etc. that this Sunday, the 25th of March will be the 2 year anniversary for me and Wendy!

Random Item number 2: I just signed up to be the host for the Erase Racism Carnival in November of 2007. I am very excited, nervous, and exuberant about this opportunity.

Random Item number 3: I have cable creep that resembles the vine-laden jungles of Costa Rica. Fortunately, Macinstruct has a great tutorial on managing cable creep.

Continue reading Random Post 3/23/07

Cyber Communities – Emerging Issues Summit

PaperClip Communications is sponsoring a technology summit on Cyber Communities at the University of Tampa in January. I’ll be presenting two sessions on student development theory and the positive aspects of online communities/social networking sites. I’m charged with bringing a positive spin to the summit. I have two hours to educate participants that sites like Facebook and MySpace can add value to a student’s collegiate experience.

The irony of my PaperClip presentation is that they contacted me after they read this post. In the post I expressed my concerns regarding the vilification of technology within student affairs.

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