Group items tagged

Blog post by Lisa Lane early this month (November 2012 explaining to another online instructor how she built a system for aggregating students' blog posts that may be relevant to WLStudio series and "sharing" activities? She uses FeedWordPress. Excerpt: "Participants set up their own blog wherever. Then I need to get the feeds from those blogs into the Pedagogy First! aggregated blog, using FeedWordPress. I use the Add Link widget (yes, I know it's old) so participants can add their own, and have provided more extensive instructions for them about blogs and feeds. In particular, we want people who post on many subjects to not only use the "potcert" tags for their posts, but use the feed for that tag only. This is so only their class-related posts show up on the class blog. The back end of this process is a little more complicated. When participants enter their information in Add Link, it goes directly into the Blogroll. The Blogroll is what feeds into FeedWordPress as a default. I customize the titles of feeds and the names of participants to use their real names for everything. I change the titles of feeds by going into FWP's Syndication area and using Feeds & Updates. Using the drop down menu to bring up a particular blog, I change the title and click manual control so it doesn't revert back the next time the feed updates. When I do this, it seems to update automatically in the Links area. Then I go to Users and make sure their names are their full names by editing them individually."

Blog by Kevin O'Keefe, "Real Lawyers Have Blogs," on the topic of the law, firm marketing, social media, and baseball, February 23, 2014. O'Keefe reviews a study by Gerry Moran on using social media to teach, not to sell. Other key points that O'Keefe makes: Build a large social network of people modeled after your customers and their influencers. 75% of B2B decision makers use social media to learn. (wonder where this stat comes from?) Pass on valuable information. Don't use your social media and networking channels to promote yourself. You want to be known for handing out knowledge and not brochures. Use social so that people will want to visit with you in person. 73% of customers are willing to engage with you on social media, so the opportunity is there. Use social media to teach, not sell. Selling is best done face-to-face. However, Social Media Today reports B2B buyers look at an average of over 10 digital resources before ever making a purchase. Since customers need to learn before they buy, use this opportunity on social media to connect. Teach and connect with today's technology. Connect and get on the radar of your customers and potential networks by retweeting, sharing, commenting and favoriting others' content. Develop Insights. Before you teach and connect with your customers, you need to listen to the customer and their customers. Social is an excellent listening tool. Be a publisher. In addition to curating and passing on the great content to your network, create your own assets on a blog. Organizations who blog get clients. Later Excerpt: Over the years LexBlog as been all about helping lawyers understand how to use the Internet in a real and effective fashion so as to grow their practices. By sharing information from third parties along our own insight via blogs and other social media we established a reputation as trusted advisors. Even when I reach out to meet with lawyers and law firms I have never met f

by Rahul Bhargava in the summer issue. Nice article on effective use of data for organizations. He stresses that "to use data effectively, orgs need architecture - people, process, and technology-driven structures that support the effective and intentional use of data to further their mission - for data management, data security, data culture, and data use." Nice use of graphic icons to simplify most sections.

by Rahul Bhargava in the summer issue. Nice article on effective use of data for organizations. He stresses that "to use data effectively, orgs need architecture - people, process, and technology-driven structures that support the effective and intentional use of data to further their mission - for data management, data security, data culture, and data use." Nice use of graphic icons to simplify most sections.

Four minute video by Michael Wesch in St. George, KS, an assistant professor of anthropology. His video chronicles the evolution of the technical internet through html, XML phases and how the current use of code enables us to share our ideas at an unprecedented rate because anyone can click to write and publish to the world with the simplicity of an off/on TV control. We are (re)creating something new every second and can build relationships with people we never knew existed before. It's now one degree of separation between internet residents even though people may be miles apart in location, employment, lifestyle, temperament, etc. We can choose to collaborate with anyone who agrees to work with us. In fact, we can learn from afar from anyone without affiliating with them or they with us if they have some presence on the internet. We must figure out how to organize the things that matter to us that we harvest from across the internet. Tagging helps us do this. The web 2.0 transition has already had and will have impacts on copyright laws and practices, self-identity in different contexts, privacy, relationships, etc. Are you ready? Am I ready?

Updated blog post by Linda Stone on screen and email apnea, Huffington Post, May 7, 2012. Eighty percent of us seem to have it. I broke the story about it in early 2008 on the Huffington Post, and called the phenomenon, "email apnea." Later in 2008, in talks and interviews, I referred to it interchangeably as "email apnea" and also, as "screen apnea." Definition: Shallow breathing or breath holding while doing email, or while working or playing in front of a screen. Excerpt: Recently, researchers, Gloria Mark, Stephen Voida, and Anthony Cardello, have made headway into formally validating the impact of email, using HRV. Why are we doing this? Our posture is often compromised, especially when we use laptops and smartphones. Arms forward, shoulders forward, we sit in a position where it's impossible to get a healthy and full inhale and exhale. Further, anticipation is generally accompanied by an inhale -- and email, texting, and viewing television shows generally includes a significant dose of anticipation. Meanwhile, the full exhale rarely follows. The stress-related physiology of email apnea or screen apnea is described in some detail in my 2008 post, linked to above. What's the remedy? A new way of interacting with technologies that I call: Conscious Computing. Technologies like the Heartmath emWave2, Huffington Post's GPS for the Soul, and a variety of optimal breathing techniques, can support us in using technologies in healthier ways. Instead of sending an email, call or walk over to your colleague's office. And there's always that other possibility: every now and then, just turn everything off. When you text or use email on your smartphone, when you check and respond to your email, are you breathing or do you hold your breath? Is it worse when you're using a laptop vs. an iPad? How might you incorporate some of the remedies?

Article in U.S. News & World Report on physicians using social media, January 1, 2013. About one in four U.S. doctors uses social media daily to scan or explore medical information, according to a new study. The survey of nearly 500 cancer specialists (oncologists) and primary-care doctors also found that 14 percent contribute new information via social media each day, said the researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center in Baltimore. Sixty-one percent of the doctors said they use social media once a week or more to look for information, and 46 percent said they contribute new information once a week or more, according to the study, which appeared recently in the Journal of Medical Internet Research. More than half of the respondents said they use only physician-only communities and only 7 percent said they use Twitter.

Article on web 2.0 marketing to millennials by Strategic Enrollment Management February 2009. "Although we are not going to dedicate our article to a recap of millennial marketing, we do want to reinforce the importance of understanding the millennial mindset before you begin to build your Web 2.0 plan. Consider that 64 percent of your audience (teens 12 to 17 years old) are reported to engage in at least one type of online content creation, up from 57 percent just four years ago. Understanding what they are doing online allows our plans to be more comprehensive and effective and fully integrated into a successful enrollment plan. There is even an emerging classification of teenagers using a host of technology options for dealing with family and friends, including traditional landline phones, cell phones, texting, social network sites, instant messaging and e-mail. These "super communicators" represent about 28 percent of the entire teen population (Guess 2008). And possibly the most interesting statistic to watch comes out of Noel-Levitz's "E-Expectations: The Class of 2007" report, which claims that 43 percent of high school juniors have a profile page designed for use in researching colleges (Lenhart & Madden 2007). This all means that if you are not already participating in an active use of online marketing you are overlooking a large group of your audience. Frankly, they are keenly aware of marketing, and as marketers we need to understand their mindset to build effective plans to reach and educate them. We cannot expect that they will conform to marketing as it has been done in a traditional way. Tools of the Trade: Components to Consider The goal of any Web 2.0 is to inform and connect. Simply stated, the tools you choose should work to reinforce that goal and integrate with the other tools of the trade you are using. Enrollment managers who know their audience understand the need to consider a variety of marketing options, from traditional adve

" 5 Reasons Why Job Boards Aren't As Effective Anymore Don Goodman November 24, 2015 Job Search At one time, job boards were the way to go for job seekers. It's where you could post your resume for employers and recruiters to view, and apply to job openings. But today, it's a different story. Related: Reactive Vs. Proactive Job Search Strategies Job boards are simply not as effective anymore since there are social media outlets like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter where you can pretty much network your way to the right contacts. The fact is, job boards have a 2-4% effectiveness rate whereas networking has over a 50% effectiveness rate." More than 85% of employers use Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to review and rank resumes according to skills, experience, keywords. Companies use internal algorithms, so out of an average of 400 resumes using these measures results in only 10 - 20 even looked at. Most hiring managers and recruiters use Linkedin first. Job board resumes are still viewed, but chances are the info is outdated so relying on Linkedin makes sense for recruiters. Niche job boards are worth going to, but to be more productive tie into direct networking through the right contacts.

" 5 Reasons Why Job Boards Aren't As Effective Anymore Don Goodman November 24, 2015 Job Search At one time, job boards were the way to go for job seekers. It's where you could post your resume for employers and recruiters to view, and apply to job openings. But today, it's a different story. Related: Reactive Vs. Proactive Job Search Strategies Job boards are simply not as effective anymore since there are social media outlets like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter where you can pretty much network your way to the right contacts. The fact is, job boards have a 2-4% effectiveness rate whereas networking has over a 50% effectiveness rate." More than 85% of employers use Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) to review and rank resumes according to skills, experience, keywords. Companies use internal algorithms, so out of an average of 400 resumes using these measures results in only 10 - 20 even looked at. Most hiring managers and recruiters use Linkedin first. Job board resumes are still viewed, but chances are the info is outdated so relying on Linkedin makes sense for recruiters. Niche job boards are worth going to, but to be more productive tie into direct networking through the right contacts.

video (18 minutes) by Clay Johnson, February 2012, hyping his book The Information Diet. Goes to food analogies again and again--pizza tastes better than broccoli--and abundance of entertainment, affirmation, and fear is secret pact between customer and media producers online. What is it that people want? What we tell them through our clicks and searches is that we want to be right acc: to Johnson. AP story--poll economic worries pose new snag for Obama. On Fox news, it says that Obama has big problem with white women. They changed headline and reduced story by 600 words, taking out everything positive about his work. They know that readers will read something negative about president. "Opinion tastes better than news." How AOL should make its editorial decisions--they want to spend no more than $84 on a piece of content. How they decide: traffic potential (using SEO to find out what people are searching for--no one is searching for Pentagon Papers or broccoli); bottom of list is editorial integrity because it is market inefficiency. Believes that we are living in land of info abundance where we want to be affirmed, not told the truth. SEOs complete the inquiry to present tabloid types of info that attract us and distract us and misinform us. Our clicks lead to poor information diets, a disease. Make a whole news movement, a slow news movement, demand that media change. We as readers need to upgrade. information over-consumption, not overload enable infoveganism--eat food, not too much, real food at bottom of food chain. 2. Use source material--show your work. 3. Let me pay you for ad free experience. 4. Content is not a commodity (for news producers)

"The Varied Functions of Badges" summary from HASTAC discussion, 9/2012 My interest in the functions of badges was spurred along when the MacArthur Foundation asked for help documenting the design principles for using digital badges that emerge across the 30 projects underway by the awardees in their Badges for Lifelong Learning project. We needed to come up with a manageable number of categories. Here is what we came up with: Recognizing Learning. This is the most obvious and arguably the primary function of badges. David Wiley has argued cogently that this should be the primary purpose of badges. If we focus only on purposes, then he may well be right. His point is that badges are credentials and not assessments. This is also consistent with the terrifically concise definition in Seven Things You Should Know About Badgesby Erin Knight and Carla Casilli. Assessing Learning. Nearly every application of digital badges includes some form of assessment. These assessments have either formative or summative functions and likely have both. In some cases, these are simply an assessment of whether somebody clicked on a few things or made a few comments. In other cases, there might be a project or essay that was reviewed and scored, or a test that was graded. In still other cases, peers might assess an individual, group, or project as badgeworthy. Motivating Learning. This is where the controversy comes in. Much of the debate over badges concerns the well-documented negative consequences of extrinsic incentive on intrinsic motivation and free choice engagement. This is why some argue that we should not use badges to motivate learning. However, if we use badges to recognize and assess learning, they are likely to impact motivation. So, we might as well harness this crucial function of badges and study these functions carefully while searching for both their positive and negative consequences for motivation. Evaluating Learning. The final category of

Blog post by Deborah Shane "According to a CareerBuilder survey "hiring managers are using social media to get a glimpse at the candidate's behavior and personality outside of the interview, and are most interested in professional presentation and how the candidate would fit with the company culture. Here are five strategies anyone can use to 'advance and own their professional development'." First three of five strategies are online: 1) Use Facebook in a hybrid way. Facebook can be one of the most effective and diverse self marketing, branding and networking assets of all of the social platforms. Posting professional questions, article linking, Facebook chats and using the Notes Feature are all great ways to brand yourself on Facebook. 2) Brand your LinkedIn and Twitter pages content and information. Having a content rich, branded landing page on LinkedIn and Twitter can make a strong first impression. Complete your profiles and tell your story in your job history. This makes you more personable and shows people you are serious, professional and you want to be remembered. 3) Launch your own blog or guest blog for other strategic sites. This is one of the best ways to share how you think and show your knowledge and expertise, as well as highlight others in your field that you admire or want to emulate. Some of the free sites you can use are WordPress, Weebly and Wix.

Another blog from workintelligent.ly. 3 simple signs your company is not understanding today's technology - most of which point to not trying to control what is used and how it is used, sharing tech info, knowledge and skills, and using the expertise of everyone that uses technology. A unnamed dig at Microsoft and Explorer as an example of what not to do.

A good model for us to think about: 3 signs your organization doesn't understand networked learning and/or PD could be a blog or promotional outreach for us.

From undercoverrecruiter.com: Indeed and Monster have more candidates without a college education, Careerbuilder has more candidates with a college education and degrees. Indeed and Monster cater to teenagers, temporary job seekers, those only with a high school education and those freshly out of college. Careerbuilder weeds out some of the less serious applicants and is used more by high-scale employers. Entry-level hiring employers use Monster. For employers, Indeed is cheapest to use, then Monster, with Careerbuilder being the most expensive. Employers still use Careerbuilder because it weeds out unqualified and less serious applicants.

From the State of Consumers and Technology report from Forrester. Released 12/19/12. Found that those who go online at least daily was 78% of US adults in 2011, and it jumped to 84% in 2012 due to the growing use of smartphones and tablets. At least 50% of US adults owns a smartphone, and 19% own a tablet.

Digital Literacy, NYC Department of Education "Digital literacy is more than knowing how to send a text or watch a music video. It means having the knowledge and ability to use a range of technology tools for varied purposes. A digitally literate person can use technology strategically to find and evaluate information, connect and collaborate with others, produce and share original content, and use the Internet and technology tools to achieve many academic, professional, and personal goals. "

"Digital literacy is more than knowing how to send a text or watch a music video. It means having the knowledge and ability to use a range of technology tools for varied purposes. A digitally literate person can use technology strategically to find and evaluate information, connect and collaborate with others, produce and share original content, and use the Internet and technology tools to achieve many academic, professional, and personal goals."

Bryan Eisenberg's blog about the About Us page and what to make sure is included in it. Interestingly, he doesn't seem to follow his own advice on his own About Us page!

Another About Us page resource

Blog post by David Truss, Pair-A_Dimes, January 4, 2011, on learning at work by professionals, i.e., teachers. Has much more good stuff to say than this excerpt but I find this useful for Information Overload. Another term I ran across lately--practical obscurity--in relation to why we are now part of NSA's scope--because costs have fallen so low to monitor so much behavior online--voice and text--that what was once unavailable without a lot of costs is now quite feasible for someone to monitor, such as NSA, Google, Facebook, etc. Excerpt: "I read a post recently by Jeff Utecht, whom you have worked with, that said this: "Today at school I answered personal e-mail, updated my Facebook status, Tweeted, looked up flights for winter break, and even read articles that didn't pertain to school. And they say we're becoming less productive at work. What really is happening is the line between our work life and our social life is becoming blurred more and more every day." and he continues: "Sure I use some of my work time to do social things, yet I get home from work after 3pm and answer work e-mails, text faculty members about a computer problem, and work on lessons and things that need to be done. So it's an even swap. I'll use some of your time, you can use some of mine.""

Linda Stone's blog, April 20, 2012. Runs something called The Attention Project. New terms: conscious computing, email and screen apnea, continuous partial attention Excerpt: "Thirty years ago, personal computing technologies created a revolution in personal productivity, supporting a value on self-expression, output and efficiency. The personal communications technology era that followed the era of personal productivity amplified accessibility and responsiveness. Personal technologies have served us well as prosthetics for the mind, in service of thinking and doing. Our focus has been on technologies as prosthetics for the mind, and human-as-machine style productivity. This has led to burn-out, poor health, poor sleep, and what I call email apnea or screen apnea. We wonder where our attention has gone. Turns out, it's right where we left it - with our ability to breathe fully. We can use personal technologies that are prosthetics for our beings, to enhance our lives. I call this Conscious Computing. We can use technology to help enable Conscious Computing, or we can find it on our own, through attending to how we feel. For advice from a musician on how to do Conscious Computing, I interviewed the organist, Cameron Carpenter. Conscious Computing with the help of passive, ambient, non-invasive Heart Rate Variability (HRV) technology is poised to take off over the next few years. It has the potential to help all of us learn the skills that musicians, athletes and dancers have, that immunizes them from email apnea."

blog by Chuck Thompson, June 2009, in Men's Journal. To improve your athletic performance and to feel clearer all the time, start with the most fundamental act of life. Excerpt: "We all come into the world with the ability to take full, unencumbered breaths, but as we get older we forget how to breathe properly," says Don Campbell, a journalist turned wellness expert who champions a new movement among doctors and athletes known as "conscious breathing." A host of challenges conspire against our breathing well, Campbell says: "Poor posture, restrictive clothing, bad habits such as smoking, diets that lead to high blood pressure and racing hearts, increasingly rapid and emotionally stressful lives, lack of exercise, multitasking, polluted environments, and slouching in front of computers are just a few of the things that literally take our breath away, creating a lifestyle that's incongruent with proper breathing." Modern life causes the average person to use about a third of his natural lung capacity, while drawing about 15 breaths a minute." Breathing exercises: Relearn How To Breathe Do this exercise five times a day and you'll start thinking and performing better in no time: 1. Inhale deeply 2. Exhale with a short burst (as if blowing out a candle). This helps activate your diaphragm, which most people don't use. 3. Exhale with a long, slow finish to empty the lungs. Breathlessness comes from not expelling enough CO2. 4. Inhale, filling your lungs from the bottom to the top, instead of taking short sips. Most use a third of their lung capacity. 5. Hold for a moment to allow oxygen to saturate the cells. 6. Exhale slowly and completely. 7. Repeat steps 4 through 6 for five minutes. Read more: http://www.mensjournal.com/magazine/you-re-breathing-all-wrong-20130227#ixzz2t8BfTHcj Follow us: @mensjournal on Twitter | MensJournal on Facebook

"Did you know that the words you use within your content could drastically affect how much social media traffic you get? For example, if you want more Facebook traffic, then using words like "when," "tell us," "submit," "deals," and "discounts" can help you get more shares, likes and traffic to your site. On the other hand, if you use the words "contest," "promotion," or "coupon" on Facebook, you'll actually get fewer shares and likes and less traffic."