Helping Students Develop Their Digital Identity

NASPA session with Lisa Endersby from University of Ontario Institute of Technology and Inside Higher Ed's Eric Stoller . Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, twitter, tumblr., and google+' oh my!

Social media allows us to follow student development, digitally. So the good, the bad, and the ugly is all out there. But also unique ways to use social media, like Wake Forest's "Compliments" page.

Privacy in a social space is a fallacy.

Validation is easy to come by through social media ("likes", etc. ), so students will experiment or try these things out in those environments.

What are we doing on our campus to help students develop their digital identities? Orientation, Res Life, Career Services, Counseling? Good question. Others report that students complain they've already "had these conversations" in high school and don't want to hear a lecture. Some campuses allow students to run some organization/office social media accounts. Others have departments dedicated to offering training for departments and students on social media.

To complicate things, there are also multiple identities for multiple communities. For example, a RA has a professional identity on social media as well as a personal identity as a student. Show students examples of appropriate/inappropriate use of social media. For example, even corporations have screwed up and posted inappropriate messages -- Red Cross, GM.

Need to talk to freshmen in First Year courses about LinkedIn, rather than in senior year when a lot of questionable material may already be out there on the Internet where employers can find it.

Sometimes "safe" means "sanitized." Endersby advocates for "brave spaces," in which students acknowledge mess ups, and address those issues.

Generation Tightrope

Listening to Drs. Arthur Levine and Diane Dean at NASPA Conference talk about their new book, "Generation Tightrope: A Portrait of Today's College Student." Makes me feel very elder statesman, but I've got to get the book!

Here's the essence of what the researchers found regarding today's college student.

Digital natives
Most diverse, more global
More connected, yet more isolated
Most coddled, pampered
In worst economy

So colleges need to educate for:

Life in a time of profound change
Life in a digital society
Life in a diverse, global society
Life in an evolving information economy
Civic engagement

NASPA Conference

First time attending the NASPA conference. True to what everyone has told me, it's an enormous conference, and today is just the pre-conference portion, so all attendees haven't even arrived yet.

www.NASPA.org

Dr. Peter Lake, law prof at Stetson is leading my pre-conference workshop on legal issues in higher Ed.

NASPA Graduate Fair

Looking for new students to recruit into our Ed Leadership master's program at the NASPA Graduate Fair.

Thanks to my current students for allowing me to include your pictures in the looping slide show playing at the Grad Fair. Shout out to Kendra, Rachel, Jessica, Joe, and Petre. You guys look good!

Must-have Tech Skills for Teachers

This is a great article from Edudemic about must-have technology skills for teachers. It gives some very cool technology resources. I'm excited to explore Learnist and Zite!

http://edudemic.com/2013/03/the-10-skills-modern-teachers-must-have/

More MOOC News

I JUST brought the topic of MOOCs up at yesterday's Advising Council meeting -- discussing ways in which our students might use MOOCs. Most obvious was taking MOOCs to prep for CLEP tests (don't you just love Education's alphabet soup?).

Now this from Inside Higher Ed...

California lawmaker pushing state institutions to accept MOOCs for credit.

"The proposal is certain to draw plenty of attention in California and beyond. Its symbolic importance is enormous, observers said, as lawmakers in the nation’s largest state look for help from nonaccredited, for-profit companies to meet student demand. And the legislation could create the most promising credit-bearing path to emerge for MOOCs, which have been touted as a “disruptive” force in higher education."

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/03/13/california-bill-encourage-mooc-credit-public-colleges#ixzz2NQl1DdSf
Inside Higher Ed

USA COE ranked #111 in US News & World Report

Good news!

University of South Alabama College of Education is ranked #111 in US News and World Report list of Best Colleges of Education for 2013 tied with the University of Mississippi, Mississippi State University, and Univ. of West Virginia and ahead of several other well known Colleges of Education in the region.

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-education-schools/edu-rankings

South Alabama is 3rd highest ranked COE in the state and highest in the Gulf Coast region between Tallahassee (FSU) and Baton Rouge (LSU).

And we're only getting BETTER!

Students, faculty, staff...be proud!!