I receive the daily emails from Wired Campus, a blog part of The Chronicle of Higher Education. Their articles are great stories and reflections on “the latest news on tech and education.”
Here are some of my favorites from recent postings:
On Friday, September 23, I was thrilled to welcome to campus @alexiahudson, a research library from @PSUAbington. I invited Alexia to come speak to my honors research methods course, as all of the students at a recent open mic for Constitution Day said they did not have Twitter accounts and didn’t see the use for one. I immediately knew Alexia could come and talk about some exciting uses and trends with Twitter. Why Alexia, when I use Twitter myself? Alexia had the honor of being one of about 40 people selected to join President Obama in the first-ever White House Twitter Town Hall!
Alexia started with a simple (or not-so-simple question)… is Twitter a lens or a microscope? That led into the following highlights from her talk:
Alexia also shared some interesting uses of Twitter beyond the White House tweetup, such as the Columbia Business School’s decision to have students write in 200 characters or less why they should be admitted – yes, that was the application essay! (see article 1 and article 2 for more information) She also shared how the Library of Congress is archiving tweets (see article 1 and article 2) – yes, what you post online really won’t go away.
In the end, Alexia summarized her thoughts by stating that Twitter is the merger of personal, communal, public and civic engagement. I couldn’t agree more. Apparently, the students are on board with this as well – one student, currently upset about a certain issue, has created a Twitter account to spread the word and hopefully see some positive action come out of her concern!
Alexia recommends reading the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project report on Twitter 2011. I’m asking my students to come up with a 140-character thank you for Alexia.
This 2010 NPR story titled Haiku Takes To Twitter, 140 Characters At A Time and 2009 NPR story titled Twitterers Message by Haiku remind me of my own haiku/Twitter experience earlier this year. I even created a Storify about it, titled #AGU11AbstractHaiku – What happens to scientists when an abstract deadline for a national conference approaches. I wonder how I could bring haiku tweets to my classroom?
View “#AGU11AbstractHaiku” on Storify
Wow, I did not see this one coming… although, I should not be surprised. On July 6, 2011, President Obama posted his first tweet on The White House Twitter account (see below).
This is what kicked off the first-ever Townhall at The White House: http://askobama.twitter.com/
Before the events, everyone in the Twitter-universe was invited to #AskObama a question via Twitter. Some tweets were selected and appeared on a screen during the event. The President was not restricted to 140 characters in his responses (he responded verbally), but The White House twitter feed summarized each response in a few posts.
People were also able to apply to be one of 30 selected to attend the Townhall in person. One of the Penn State Abington librarians was selected to be in the audience at The White House – how exciting for her! Her story is definitely worth reading. Here, I repeat Alexia Hudson’s statement that was the reason for her selection for the event:
Six days earlier, she and an unknown number of other @Whitehouse followers responded to a Tweet asking why they should be invited to the high-profile event. Hudson’s answer: Librarians are champions of equitable access to information and digital literacy yet they are rarely included in political discourse.
In addition to the official event website, several Storifies have been generated, capturing all the tweets. Here is the link to one of many that summarizes the event.
I wonder if others will follow this format – “others” being, for example, the President of Penn State, CEO of a corporation, head of a nonprofit agency, etc. What a wonderful way to connect with the net-connected generation.
After seeing such a visible presence of QR codes at the beginning of presentations and at posters, and witnessing the flood of tweets with the conference hashtag at #ISTE11, I was reminded of this article I saw in the Chronicle of Higher Education. It’s not only happening at educational technology conferences!
Using Twitter and QR Codes at Conferences
May 11, 2011
On Wednesday, May 4, I saw this tweet by the American Museum of Natural History (@AMNH):
I was THRILLED to see that this talk between two amazing paleoanthropologists, Donald Johanson and Richard Leakey, was going to be shown online with a live video feed through ustream (I was in State College and unable to attend the lecture in person). I’ve seen each person speak separately, never together. And, a hashtag was established for the event #humanorigins, which was my cue to jump onto Twitter to participate on the Twitter backchannel.
So I’m in my hotel room and I visit the AMNH website to tune in for “Human Evolution and Why it Matters: A Conversation with Leakey and Johanson.” I fire up TweetDeck so I can post and follow the hashtag. And then began viewing a fascinating and engaging lecture, a lecture that I was even able to engage with via Twitter. It was exciting, it was fun, and the witty comments by Leakey and Johanson kept all the tweeters busy!
Was watching the lecture online the same as being there in person? Certainly not. But having the opportunity to “participate” via Twitter allowed me to connect with others during the lecture, helping me feel that I wasn’t watching this online stream alone.
Then, a few days later, I receive a tweet from Kate Wong (@katewong), a Scientific American editor:
I’m really surprised and honored that someone felt my tweets were worthy for a story! Kate’s Storify is very well done – be sure to check it out to see how she used the tweets, and most importantly, learn about the latest views by Leakey and Johanson on human evolution.
Now, I need to learn more about Storify…
I hope more museums will broadcast live video streams when speakers come to town. For example, dinosaur paleontologist Jack Horner is coming to speak at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia – and yet, I’ll be back in State College. It’s a shame I can’t be there to attend, to learn what Jack Horner has to say about dinosaurs. Hopefully, there will be audience members tweeting!
The lecture by Leakey and Johanson can be listened to here (LINK) and viewed and below.
I read this article with great fascination. It is from the Chronicle of Higher Education and was included in the daily Wired Campus announcements that I receive via email.
A College Unfriends its Social-Networking President (LINK)
At first, I didn’t understand the title. I thought it was some student club called the Social Networking Club that got rid of its president. Wow, was I surprised to realize this was the president of the Rhode Island School of Design! He’s on Twitter (@johnmaeda) and YouTube, but not on the “most popular” list with his faculty and students.
I encourage you to read the article for yourself, but here is my takeaway – when coming into a new community, a physical community dominated by face-to-face interactions and communications, don’t lose site of the immediate importance to build relationships face-to-face. There seems to have been too much of an emphasis on the online community BEFORE getting established on the campus. It will be interesting to see if John Maeda changes his online communication patterns and/or the online campus presence.
Hard to believe that Twitter is now?/only? five years old. It’s amazing who has embraced this form of social media, from television stars and athletes, to zoos and national parks. Even nonprofit organizations and the White House have their tweets! Twitter has played a notable and significant role in connecting people after natural disasters (Haiti, Japan) and during political demonstrations (Egypt).
It’s amazing how technology can bring us the news, the images, and the video from a devastating natural disaster. The magnitude 8.9 earthquake near the east coast of Honshu, Japan, is no different. I first learned about the earthquake through Twitter, through a flurry of posts from @geosociety, @EnnNews, @nytenvironment (no longer active), and @callanbentley, just to name a few. Stunning imagery came through on posts by @earthoutreach, such as links to pre/post Japan on the Google Lat Long blog. Even more impressive and interactive are the GeoEye satellite photos on the New York Times website (and a new set from NYT has been posted).
There were “reports” AND educational material posted online instantly. IRIS always pulls together an outstanding set of Recent Earthquake Teachable Moments, complete with PowerPoint and videos. And for those interested in showing students the power of social media in disseminating disaster information, ESRI has a created a map to show the public the worst-hit areas and to facilitate recovery planning.
The number of resources available immediately is overwhelming – and I haven’t even begun to touch on the outstanding materials available on the tsunami from NOAA. Talk about a teachable moment! There’s no reason an instructor should NOT incorporate current events into a geoscience/Earth science course.
(…and this earthquake has several geo-bloggers putting our discipline in perspective! Check out this excellent post by Geotripper on Why Geology is Important, Why Education is Important: The Sendai Earthquake in Perspective)
Earlier this year, one of my undergraduate researchers came across a community within the twitter-sphere – a group of K-12 teachers that come together in twitter for weekly discussions on educational topics. Yes, that’s right, they come together in twitter. A vote is held each week to select the topic for discussion, and twice on Tuesdays teachers log in and use the hashtag #edchat to follow the conversation. To learn more about #edchat, check out What is #edchat? and Join the Conversation.
If you would like to connect with a different group in twitter, perhaps one of the following more closely aligns with your interests: #scichat, #mathchat