Can Students Survive Without Social Media?

Readers,


Sometimes, I ask myself - "Can college students actually survive without technology?" Well, one college actually decided to see how college students would react to a sans technology campus. This university blocked Twitter and Facebook on campus computers. Here's the interesting caveat, I wonder if the students accessed the technology on their cell phones. hmmm.... Would this be considered "cheating"?

Well, the article addressed this as well...

Critics noted students could visit the sites with smartphones or by walking to nearby buildings with free WiFi. But Darr said the point was not to prevent access so much as to get people to think critically about the role of social media in their lives.

In my opinion, this was an ingenious strategy to enable college students to see what their lives would actually be like without having technological interruptions every few minutes.

Here were some interesting "findings":

But during the ban, 33 percent of students reported feeling less stressed. Twenty-one percent said they used their normal social networking time to do homework, while 10 percent said they read online news.

Some students changed their study methods. Darr cited a Facebook-based tutoring effort that was failing to explain a complex biology process to students; they grasped the concept only after a face-to-face meeting during the blackout, he said.

Here's the link to the article - http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2010/12/10/pa_college_social_media_blackout_wins_converts/

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

American Council on Education Report - "Recent Graduates Say Degrees Are Worth Time, Money Spent"

Readers,

Today, the American Council on Education released a reported, "Recent Graduates Say Degrees Are Worth Time, Money Spent".

This article featured the following figure:

Prepare for employment	28%
Prepare to be responsible citizens	11%
Teach to learn and think critically	31%
Conduct research that benefits community	1%
Serve the community	2%
Prepare to solve problems facing our country	17%
Produce innovations that fuel economic development	6%

This report focuses on the curricular and extra curricular benefits of higher education.

Here's the link to the article - Nearly 90% of Young Alumni Say Going to College Was Worth It, Survey Finds - Government - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Enjoy!

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

iPad Pilots at U Houston and CDI College Take Off -- Campus Technology

Readers,

As all of you probably know by now, I am a technology junkie. However, I love integrating technology in my courses. Unfortunately, I have only seen two other iPads (aside from my own) on campus and they belonged to the Communication Department and to another department on campus. As of today, I have not seen ANY students with iPads OR e-readers. However, a large amount of the students and faculty have iPod Touch devices and/or an iPhone.

Today, I read an article titled, "iPad Pilots at U Houston and CDI College Take Off -- Campus Technology". This is an AMAZING venture from the University of Houston's College of Communication and the U of H Educational Technology department. They have a course titled "Information and Communication Technologies", in which they equipped their students with iPads for the next eight weeks. Here's some more information about the project.

Kudos to the University of Houston right now. I would LOVE

to provide my students with such an exciting experience! I wonder where the research will be published. :)

Here's some additional information about the project:

"At the University of Houston a joint project between the School of Communication and the Education Technology and University Outreach organization will research the impact of 'anytime, anywhere' learning over the final eight weeks of the current semester. A team of professors has created an iPad application for an Information and Communication Technologies course with 30 students. COMM 3353 iApp, which will be used in an elective class in the journalism program, contains learning modules with video lectures, textbook material, presentations, tutorials, and simulations"

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Google vs. Blackboard - Is It a Reality?

Readers,

My husband and I are huge Google fans. In fact, I integrate Google into my blackboard course ANY POSSIBLE way that I can! Through my non-existent "power point slides"... they are all Google Presentations now... to my online assignments through Google Forms, I do not even have to log on to Blackboard (which can sometimes be a cumbersome process) to check students' progress on an assignment.

Lately, my husband has been asking... "So, why doesn't Google complete with Blackboard"? Apparently, a lot of people have been pondering the same question. Here's an article that I discovered today, "Google: Groupon? Not Blackboard?"

In the article, the author states, "Google should buy Blackboard and take the following actions:

• Move gBlackboard as quickly as the market will bear to an all cloud-based, multi-tenancy delivery system. This will drastically reduce implementation costs, allowing the price of the software to drop quickly.

• Deeply integrate gBlackboard with Google Apps for Education, gDrive (Google Storage), and the content available on YouTube/EDU.

• Follow a plan to bring the licensing fee for public institutions to gBlackboard down to zero.

These actions may prove to be great moves for the increasing amount of cash-strapped higher education institutions who are actively seeking cost-cutting measures to help them stay afloat.

Google - If you hear us, we need an intervention!

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.