"Predicting the future is easy. It's trying to figure out what's going on now that's hard" (Dressler, 2005)
With the exception of 2012, I have participated every year in Jane Hart’s call asking what the top ten digital tools are that I use. For the 15th Annual Survey, my top ten tools are listed below. My choices this year reflect both the common themes I have used for quite a few years in… Read more My Top Tools for 2021
This week, I start teaching an 8-week course for Merrimack – ED6306 – Technology, Communication and School Improvement. One of the course objectives is for students to revise or develop a social media marketing plan for their school. And I am half-way through the Spring term at Northeastern for EDU6333 – Social Media and Beyond,… Read more Two Faces of Social Media
In my Creighton University ILD-831 course on Technology and Leadership this week, my students are reflecting on what “knowledge management” means in a cloud environment. Tom Davenport, originally with Ernst and Young, defined KM in 1994 – “Knowledge Management is the process of capturing, distributing, and effectively using knowledge.” That definition has certainly evolved in… Read more Knowledge Not College Mantra
This coming Friday, I will be in Boston to attend the Northeastern College of Professional Studies 2018 Faculty Development Conference. I have been teaching at Northeastern for 3 years, and enjoy both the classes and the progressive approach to education that is Northeastern. Given that I live 560 miles south of the campus, I usually… Read more Upcoming Conference
My last post noted that I had started Siva Vaidhyanathan’s new book, Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy. Siva Vaidhyanathan is the Robertson Professor of Media Studies and the Director of the Center for Media and Citizenship at the University of Virginia. A former professional journalist, he has published five previous books… Read more Social Media Resistance is Futile
My course – Social Media and Beyond (EDU-6333) for Northeastern University has just finished its first week. I enjoy this course because of the added engagement through social media…primarily Twitter. Only 10 students this term (I am used to double that) – and over the first week, they did well, sending 72 tweets to the… Read more The Social Media Question Mark
Last week, I posted about Centers For Teaching (CFT’s) as Centers for Excellence, inspired by my current reading of Tom Peters’ new book The Excellence Dividend: Meeting the Tech Tide with Work that Wows and Jobs that Last. As I noted, I have been reading Peters since his original 1982 bestseller that he co-wrote with… Read more CFT’s and Lifelong Learning
I am … and have always been… an optimist. I am a glass half full kind of person. So I tend to see the opportunities more than the perils. Alas, now there is Facebook…. Over the past few weeks, a firestorm has erupted over news that Cambridge Analytica, the data analysis firm that worked on… Read more My Cracked Rose Colored Glasses
There has been a lot on the news lately about artificial intelligence and how it is impacting the future. Already there are advice posts regarding how AI can enhance education, such as “7 Ways Artificial Intelligence Will Change Higher Education” or “Could Online Tutors and Artificial Intelligence be the Future of Teaching?”. Yet, this morning… Read more Will AI Do Improv?
At Northeastern University, I teach a graduate course on Social Media and Education – EDU 6333. I have been teaching it for two years, and it is fascinating to work and learn with (relatively) younger Masters students on this topic. The course is 12 weeks in length and flows like this, shifting between tools and… Read more Social Media and Education Redux