As a Harvard student, Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook which has revolutionized the way university and college students interact and communicate. This new tool is changing the way that student's develop community which means that colleges and universities, especially student affairs staff, need to adapt.
To date staff in student affairs have created profiles on Facebook and used features like the event planning tool to share what will be happening on campus and photos to post what's already happened. Both of these features are fairly basic applications within facebook. However, the site is designed to encourage others to add features, or applications, which provides for a dynamic online community. More than 52,000 Facebook applications have been developed to date.
Ontario universities and colleges have not taken advantage of this opportunity though. A quick search for Facebook applications designed by Ontario post-secondary institutions reveal that only a handful have been developed. Some examples include the University of Western Ontario and the University of Guelph had applications that allowed users to track news on their school while the Ryerson University Library designed a tool for users to access some of its resources.
This 2006 USA Today article states that online learning has been growing more then expected. A similar trend likely exists in Canada. The Online College Education Network outlines some of the advantages that online education has over traditional education. One disadvantage, not highlighted, is community development. Students that do not having an opportunity to interact face-to-face will have a more difficult time to develop community. And student affairs staff know that students that do not feel as though they belong to their school's community are at a greater risk of dropping out.
Online enrolment numbers are destined to collide with community development practices at colleges and universities. This is an important issue for staff that work in student affairs and student life. It will be interesting to see how this issue evolves and how staff take advantage of these new opportunities.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Sunday, January 4, 2009
A Vision of Students Outside the Classroom
Nearly two years ago Web 2.0 became reality for me as I watched a video created by a Colorado school teacher that was called Shift Happens (here is version 2). Last year a friend and colleague from Clemson University shared a video called A Vision of Students Today that was created by a Kansas State University professor and his students.
Both videos deliver a powerful message in only a few minutes that was simply not as readily available five years ago. The videos have been a great educational tool for me so I wanted to highlight them in my blog. I have used the videos in student staff training and at the 2008 OACUHO Training Institute held at Carleton University.
When searching for the videos to create this post I discovered a new video called A Vision of K-12 Students Today. It was created "to inspire teachers to use technology in engaging ways to help students develop higher level thinking skills. Equally important, it serves to motivate district level leaders to provide teachers with the tools and training to do so."
When I first considered blogging about higher education a few months ago I did not discover many blogs that focused on student affairs and/or student life. Most of the blogs related to higher education highlight the use of technology, admissions, marketing and higher education in general. Lots of blogs exist for primary and secondary education as well.
Student Life and Student Affairs staff make such a strong contribution to the college or university student's experience, yet we have not taken advantage of tools like blogs and videos like others in the education industry have.
Some new approaches seem to be emerging from our associations as can be seen with the launch of iStudentAffairs.com and the ACUHO-I Network. My hope is this will lead to more individual efforts so the story of what our students do outside the classroom can be shared with a larger audience through the various Web 2.o tools that now exist. Perhap one day soon we'll see a video called A Vision of Students Outside the Classroom.
Both videos deliver a powerful message in only a few minutes that was simply not as readily available five years ago. The videos have been a great educational tool for me so I wanted to highlight them in my blog. I have used the videos in student staff training and at the 2008 OACUHO Training Institute held at Carleton University.
When searching for the videos to create this post I discovered a new video called A Vision of K-12 Students Today. It was created "to inspire teachers to use technology in engaging ways to help students develop higher level thinking skills. Equally important, it serves to motivate district level leaders to provide teachers with the tools and training to do so."
When I first considered blogging about higher education a few months ago I did not discover many blogs that focused on student affairs and/or student life. Most of the blogs related to higher education highlight the use of technology, admissions, marketing and higher education in general. Lots of blogs exist for primary and secondary education as well.
Student Life and Student Affairs staff make such a strong contribution to the college or university student's experience, yet we have not taken advantage of tools like blogs and videos like others in the education industry have.
Some new approaches seem to be emerging from our associations as can be seen with the launch of iStudentAffairs.com and the ACUHO-I Network. My hope is this will lead to more individual efforts so the story of what our students do outside the classroom can be shared with a larger audience through the various Web 2.o tools that now exist. Perhap one day soon we'll see a video called A Vision of Students Outside the Classroom.
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