Group items tagged

Is this what we need to do on a regular basis with WLStudio? #EdChat http://www.facebook.com/EdchatPLN This is a different type of group - #Edchat is Twitter based. In their own words, "#Edchat is a hashtag discussion among educators from all over the world on education related topics. It happens every Tuesday at Noon EDT and 7PM EDT. To join us simply follow the #Edchat hashtag on Twitter!" The Facebook Page keeps users up on discussion topics, and provides additional resources.

#change11, blog post by Bon Stewart, May 2, 2012 And here's the rub... "The original MOOCs - the connectivist MOOCs a la Siemens & Downes, and the work of David Wiley and Alec Couros and others - have been, for the most part, about harnessing the capacity of participatory media to connect people and ideas. They've been built around lateral, distributed structures, encouraging blog posts and extensive peer-to-peer discussion formats. Even in live sessions showcasing facilitator's expertise, these ur-MOOCs have tended towards lively backchannel chats, exploring participants' knowledge and experiences and ideas. They've been, in short, actively modelled on the Internet itself. They've been experiential and user-driven. Their openness hasn't stopped at registration capacity, but extended to curricular tangents and participatory contributions and above all, to connections: they've given learners not just access to information but to networks. They've been messy, sometimes, but they have definitely not been business as usual. The problem with EdX is that, scale and cost aside, it IS essentially a traditional learning model revamped for a new business era. It puts decision-making power, agency, and the right to determine what counts as knowledge pretty much straight back into the hands of gatekeeping institutions."

"Pinterest, with its 70 million users, is driving an avalanche of referral traffic to websites and blogs. Right now, Pinterest drives more referral traffic than Twitter, StumbleUpon, Reddit, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Google+ … combined. And contrary to popular belief, maybe contrary to even your belief, that traffic is converting … because many pinners use the site specifically for product and content discovery. (Get ready for some compelling stats about this in a minute.) This makes Pinterest a powerful tool for ecommerce."

CORE4Women is a free organization where women can share and discover online learning. From their website: Why CORE4Women? Traditional websites are a one-way flow of information from a computer to an end-user. CORE4Women is a live, interactive discussion among women about online learning. There are volunteers who have life experiences that have been significantly influenced by online learning. These volunteers want to mentor and share their experiences with other women. There are also scholarships available to members enrolled in fully online programs!

CORE4Women provides a way for mentors to dialogue directly with women who are looking for answers about online learning. These mentors can explain how to locate degree programs, how to seek funding, how to register, how to engage with others in the online environment, and how to balance many responsibilities while completing course work.

More info and stats on mobile/smartphone users.

blog from Huffington Tech on FaceBook and Twitter stats. interesting stats such as: 32% of all Internet users use Twitter.

blog post by Allison Stadd on Media Bistro, December 9, 2013. Shows how Twitter users have moved from original purpose (what are you doing now?) to more worthwhile pursuits on Twitter. "When I explained that I use Twitter for purely professional and informational purposes - keeping up with news in real time, tracking trends, reading interesting articles, and cultivating relationships - she was surprised, and shared that she'd like to try that out. I was equally surprised at her impression of Twitter in the first place."

article by Tim Wu in NYT weekly magazine, June 3, 2014 in Culture. Maintaining your brand The euphemism is "sharing," but Klein would probably just call it selling a personal brand, whether you consider yourself the pretty young thing with literary tastes and a traditional side, the family man who brews his own beer or the tough lawyer with a sense of humor. It can be nice to share, but brand maintenance takes constant work and demands consistency. A serious self-brand should have some presence on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Foursquare, Google+ and Tumblr; keeping it all up can feel like working as an unpaid intern for a Z-list celebrity known as Oneself. excerpt Any old-timer will tell you that anonymity online is nothing new, but how things originally were. There has, of course, always been an anonymous culture, usually tied to deviancy or dissidents. In the '80s and '90s, anonymity was indelibly linked to online culture, concurrent with getting at stuff that was otherwise hard to find or illegal. It was kind of the point really, to go where, as one early adopter wrote, "no one knows you're a dog." It allowed users to escape to a place with few restrictions, where you could say things, and maybe do things wholly without social consequence. In the early days, there was no need for any consistency with the rest of your life, and that's what was so great about it.

Great post on Resource Link, October 19, 2011, on value of twitter to professional learning community building. Found it via my Twitterers. Research has identified six 'common patterns of participation' for users of Twitter: Sharing Knowledge and Resources - sharing links to blogs, images or video clips of interest. Monitoring Educational New Sources - sourcing professional readings and research Digitally Attending Important Conferences - sharing thoughts and reflections from professional development sessions or conferences. Encouraging Reflection - engaging in a reflective conversation with others Gathering Instant Feedback - turning to Twitter as the first point of call when needing answers about their practice Mentoring Colleagues - turning to Twitter to find a digital mentor for yourself or a peer. (From Ferriter, W. M., Ramsden, J. T., & Sheninger, E. C. (2011). Communicating and Connecting with Social Media. Bloomington: Solution Tree Press.) How to get started: 1. Set up a Twitter account 2. Find people to follow 3. Learn some hashtags #_____ 4. Manage your posts

short interview with David Vladeck, former head of FTC Consumer Affairs on privacy issues online and how Google and Facebook failed to live up to protecting privacy of their users. by Jessica Leber, June 26, 2012.

Forbes, August 17, 2015 by George Anders on how Slack and other successful tech start-ups rely on those with a broader-based, or liberal arts education, to humanize and make apps and plug-ins more user-friendly and just plain friendly. The rebirth of the liberal arts education??

Hootsuite offers a Pro package for $9.99 a month (f you pay a year in advance, otherwise $15 a month) that allows the host and one other user to coordinate and initiate scheduled tweets in advance. Also does RSS feed on new blog posts. Also works for other social media such as LinkedIn and Facebook.

Adam Rogers, Science, Wired, 8.6.15, writes about how the Google tanking algorithm of positive and negative stories on the candidates could affect major elections 25% of the timer. This is the tyranny of the algorithm. They tested the impact in mock voter labs before elections in Australia and India where the impact of feeding positive stories about a candidate first shaped voters decisions between 24 and 72 percent of the time with certain voter groups. Voters in towns in the US that watch a local a Fox channel vote more conservatively because of recency and placement issues. While the numbers in real live do not add up to the impact achieved in the test research, when elections are decided by 1 or 2 percentage points, it's enough to turn the tide in favor of a candidate.

I think this addresses our registration problem, but will send to Kristen to find out.

Quote that Jane Hart found from Jane Bozarth, 12/6/14, rest of Jane Hart's post is just as interesting. well worth reading. "The thing that is going to change the game is - the learners …. They are changing the concept of training, and we are increasingly moving toward an age in which the adult worker will not sit still for training that just looks like more "school". They're becoming more sophisticated in their understanding of how learning looks and how it happens. We're going to have to figure out how to provide better performance support, in smaller bites, in places easy for them to access. And we'll need to offer time and space and support so they can create the user-generated help that others need. And if we don't? They won't wait for us. They'll find the means to do it anyway.""

I subscribe to Ramsey's Blog Tyrant blog and found this case study interesting. Although this is blog promotion, it seems as if it would be site promotion as well. Good info about Google Ads and Facebook ads and the return from them. Good information about the conversion of emails to subscribers and users, and the use of give aways. Most important - good content or no matter what you do people unsubscribe.

Some good lessons on marketing, content, conversions, launching or relaunching

user manual for Adobe Connect 9

Interesting article on free courses vs paid courses, and how charging for specific skill courses and rebroadcasts makes money and is becoming more prevalent.

paid vs free courses: online training business is attracting users and investors

excellent article by Jennifer Chandler and Kristen Scott Kennedy on building capacity through networks, February 5, 2016. 

good blog on why PDFs fall short on usability by journalists and others who are not looking to print them out