At the annual conference of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, a panel of high school seniors and college freshmen told counselors they didn’t want a tweet or text from a college, preferring a good old-fashioned phone call.

They cited the phone as being “a lot more personal,” provided counselors call outside of school hours, when they’d be more likely to answer.

The students were also turned off by the idea of colleges connecting with them on social networks like Facebook, suggesting it was an invasion of their personal time. “Seeing a college on Facebook, it’s like, you’re in my face, and I’d appreciate it if you weren’t,” explained one panelist.

One compromise: using an interactive Facebook group rather than a one-sided fan page.

As another way to utilize new tech while respecting students’ privacy, schools should be more reactive in their social media strategies, letting students start conversations and guide discussion. This suggestion came from Jeannine Lalonde, senior assistant dean of admissions at the University of Virginia.

Finally, the young panel revealed a more old-school mentality when it came to applications: They would absolutely not submit their applications via mobile devices. After all – they have computers.

How is your school integrating new tech into the admissions process? Tell us in the comments section, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

Social networking sites like Twitter can be an effective tool to help boost student engagement and improve grades, according to a new study in the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. Researchers studied a group of 125 students taking a first-year course for pre-health professional major, splitting the group into 70 Twitter-users and a control group of 55.

The results: Students using Twitter were significantly more engaged in the class than the control group, and scored a higher G.P.A. for the semester.

Student-tweeters utilized it to communicate with faculty, who could answer tweeted questions outside the traditional classroom setting. It also increased peer contact, as students provided more support to each other via their online learning community.

Next on the researchers’ agenda: learning how social media impacts first- and second-year students.

Does your school use social networking as an academic tool? Tell us how in the comments section, and don’t forget to follow us on (of course) Twitter.

Not so fast.

It all depends on what categories you’re looking at. Here are the stats according to DigitalTrends.com:

• Login every day: Facebook 41%; Twitter 27%
• Login via mobile devices: Facebook 30%; Twitter 37%
• Update status every day: Facebook 12%; Twitter 52%
• Located outside the U.S.: Facebook 70%; Twitter 60%
• Male/female percentages: Facebook 54% women, 46% men; Twitter 52% women, 48% men
• Income: Virtually the same, with the $26K-50K segment in the majority, comprising about a third of the users for Facebook and Twitter.
• Ages: Facebook — majority of users (29%) between 18-25; Twitter — majority of users (33%) between 26-34.

Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter!

First, a recent study found students using Twitter to communicate with faculty and classmates earned higher grades — half a point higher, to be exact — than those who didn’t. Reason? Using Twitter engaged students in the learning process.

Then there is a Faculty Focus survey, which looked at how approximately 1,400 college faculty are using Twitter and found:

• The number of professors using Twitter jumped nearly 5% since last year, accounting for more than one-third of respondents.
• The number of respondents who never used Twitter fell by almost 9%
• The most common instructional uses of Twitter include communicating with students and serving as a learning tool in class.

Here’s what some professors are doing:

At the University of Texas in Dallas, history professor Monica Rankin uses Twitter to post students’ questions on a large screen in class. The benefit? Increased student participation, she says.

At Vermont’s Champlain College, business professor Elaine Young encourages students to use Twitter as a way to build their professional network.

In his social media class at University of California-Berkeley, Howard Rheingold shares info with students on Twitter that’s not on his syllabus – readings notes and videos, for example.

He calls his Twitter usage “student-to-teacher-to-student ambient office hours,” according to  U.S. News & World Report.

While it seems Twitter is slowly finding its place in higher ed, there are still some who consider it little more than a time waster.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments section below.

• Be careful about what you post on social media networks: Whatever you write online can be searched and found by prospective employers. Privacy settings don’t mean anything if someone has shared your info. So whether you’re writing on Facebook, Twitter or your own blog, consider the fact that you future employer may be able to read it.
• Limit yourself: Create an online profile — but limit yourself to only two or three social networking sites. Putting six or seven profiles out there will only irritate prospective employers. Focus on creating one solid profile. The most popular social networking sites HR managers use are: LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
• Let people know: Keep your profile updated and let prospective employers know you’re looking. If you’re not in a position to announce it to the world, Dan Schwabel of Millenial Branding told The Wall Street Journal you should come up with a “personal brand statement, that depicts who you are, what you do, and what audience you serve, so that people get a feeling for how you can benefit their company.”

To see the other suggestions for online job hunters, click here.

Any tips you’d like to add? Let us know in the comments section below.

]]> http://www.higheredmorning.com/top-3-tips-for-online-job-hunting/feed 0 http://www.higheredmorning.com/social-media-dos-and-donts-for-students http://www.higheredmorning.com/social-media-dos-and-donts-for-students#comments Mon, 05 Jul 2010 06:00:55 +0000 Jacob Hawley http://www.higheredmorning.com/?p=4759 Students use social media more than ever – and so do potential employers. Here’s how students can make sure their online profiles won’t sabotage their real-world chances.

With up to 79% of employers saying they use social networks to screen job candidates, college students have to be that much more careful with what their networking habits reveal about them.

Here’s five pieces of expert advice from U.S. News &World Report for students heading into the job market:

1. Create positive content: This is more than just smiling in your profile pic. Posting links to interesting stories, following CEOs on Twitter and making LinkedIn connections with recruiters and internship coordinators shows employers you’re really interested in a prospective field.
2. Delete those embarrassing photos: Inappropriate pictures (including drug and alcohol-related content) account for over half of the reasons employers had for turning down an applicant. Upping your privacy settings is a good start, but deleting them altogether is the safer bet.
3. Google yourself: Find out what’s on the internet when people look for you, and learn how to use positive keywords and terms to bring people to your website or blog.
4. Quit complaining: Don’t let your status updates become a forum for ripping on friends, co-workers, authority figures or your current job. It looks unprofessional to future employers.
5. Expand your focus: Make your online presence about more than just what you’re eating for lunch or asking for jobs – be interactive and add something valuable to the ongoing conversation provided by social media.

What else do students need to know? Add to the list in the comments section.

Check out the results of a recent survey. About 1,000 professors at U.S. colleges took part in the survey “Social Media in Higher Education” by Babson Survey Research Group and New Marketing Labs and Pearson.

Here’s how professors are using social networks:

• Nearly 60% have two or more social network accounts — with almost 25% having four or more.
• More than 30% communicate with their students via social networks
• More than half (52%) have incorporated video, podcasts, blogs and wikis as teaching tools in their classrooms.
• More professors in Humanities and Social Sciences use social media than profs in Math, Science, Business and Economics.
• Faculty who’ve been teaching more than 20 years use social networks nearly as often as younger professors.

“The overall opinion is quite positive,” says Jeff Seaman, co-director of the Babson Survey Research Group, “with faculty reporting that social media has value for teaching by over a four to one margin.”

How do you use social media as a teaching tool? Let us know in the comments section below.

She refers to her students as “the wired generation,” she told The Minneapolis Star Tribune.

So she recently gave them the homework assignment to go without using any kind of technology that didn’t exist before 1984.

The result?

Only a few students were able to go three days — and by the fifth day, everyone was plugged in again.

As Lucy Knopff, a sophomore, told StarTribune.com,  when she accidentally turned on her iPod, “You don’t even think about it. It’s just a habit for me.”

LaMarre isn’t the first professor to task students with the challenge of going unplugged. It’s actually becoming something  of a trend across the country.

• University of Texas at Dallas: Students taking an introductory electronic communications course were asked to stay away from Facebook for a week.
• Augsuburg College: Freshmen were instructed this fall not to use any electronic device for 12 hours.
• Macalester College: A class called “Immedia” is in the works, and it will remove students from the high-tech world for two weeks.

Is unplugging students for a given length of time a good idea — or is it a useless attempt to turn the world back a few decades?

Tell us what you think in the comment section below.

So natural, in fact, that their grades aren’t affected even if they’re frequently using Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and/or blogs.

The study divided 1,127 students into light users (about a half hour or less per day) and heavy users (more than an hour per day).

Here are the results, according to PsychCentral.com:

• 65% of light users received high grades (straight A’s, or A’s and B’s) compared to 63% of heavy users
• 35% of light users received low grades (B’s and lower) compared to 37% of heavy users.

To view the complete study, click here.

Is the case closed — or do you think more research is needed to determine the connection between grades and social media?

Let us know in the comments section below.

Twitter’s everywhere – and with good reason.

In the list that follows, we’ve given you the top 10 ways your college can benefit from Twitter, according to BestCollegesOnline.com (just click the highlighted phrase):

1. What’s in it for me?: Check out the experiences of Twitter users in academia.
2. Getting started: A guide designed to help non-techies get started using Twitter.
3. Locate a college: Just Tweet It connects you to a directory of professors and students.
4. 18 professors you should follow: Here’s a list of people you’ll want to follow – and why – from Mashable.
5. Resources for higher ed: Ideas on making the best use of Twitter for higher ed.
6. Twitter Yellow Pages: Add yourself to this directory of tweeting professors.
7. In the classroom: Try Twitter for increasing class participation.

Don’t stop now – the full list includes 100 tips. Click here to view it in its entirety.

Do you have any Twitter tips you’d like to add? Let us know in the comments section below.

The goal of the course? To improve the quality of students’ tweets, making them sharper and more refined.

The idea for the course came about last summer when Twitter played a journalistic part during the Iranian protests.

Not all students are supportive of the new class. Some referred to it as a “waste of time.”

Are they right? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Twitter usage at the top 100 colleges and universities in the country (as determined by U.S. News and World Report 2010 rankings) was studied by UniversitiesAndColleges.org.

Here are some highlights of the study, which looked only at Twitter accounts affiliated with school administrations:

• The University of Florida had the greatest number of accounts with 24. The University of Georgia came in a close second with 22. The average number of Twitter accounts per college was 8.4.
• Of the colleges with the fewest number of accounts, the University of Denver and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry headed the list with just one each.
• Harvard University had the most Twitter followers — 18,955. Stanford University came in second with 10,873.
• Although Harvard had the most followers, the university itself  follows about only 39 other schools.
• The College of William & Mary followed the most accounts — 6,056.
• Who tweets the most? George Washington University, which sends out about 58 tweets each day. Second place goes to the University of Washington with 49.8. Most schools average between zero and 20 total tweets per day.

If you’re wondering what schools are tweeting about, the study determined usage falls into six basic categories:

• Delivering news updates
• News updates within the universities’ schools and departments
• News about student services
• Staying in touch with people outside the university community, such as alumni associations
• Updates on research and campus extensions
• News from university media

To see the methodology and results of the entire study, click here.

Is your school using of Twitter? Let us know in the comments section below.

The team’s coach, Mike Leach, made the decision after he was late for a team meeting – and a player tweeted about it. According to the Associated Press, the player wondered why he was waiting in a meeting room when “the head coach can’t even be on time.”

Well, that tweet’s gone now.

And Leach doesn’t want players writing about the team on Facebook, either, and plans to monitor their Facebook pages.

Calling the social networking sites “stupid” distractions, Leach said those who use them are “a bunch of narcissists that want to sit and type stuff about themselves all the time.”

What do you think of Leach’s actions? Let us know in the comments section below.

Turns out not all social networks are created equal when it comes to their effect on our brains.

Dr. Tracy Alloway of Scotland’s University of Stirling, says her study shows using Facebook stretches our “working memory” (our short-term or recent memory), while Twitter, YouTube and text messages tend to weaken it.

Alloway studies working memory and has developed a training program to increase the performance of children – ages 11 to 14 – who are slow learners. She found:

• Keeping up-to-date with Facebook improved the children’s IQ scores
• Playing video games – especially those that require planning and strategy – and Sudoku also were beneficial
• Using Twitter, YouTube and text messaging does not engage enough of the brain to be helpful, and actually reduce attention span. (Click here for the full story on Alloway’s study.)

“On Twitter, you receive an endless stream of information, but it’s also very succinct,” Alloway said. “You don’t have to process that information.”

She noted that Facebook requires you to keep track of past actions and then plan future actions, which stretches the working memory.

They might not be doing it to improve their memory, but prospective college students are increasingly using Facebook for more than just social interaction. According to a new Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions study, more than 70% of college admissions officials have received “friend requests” from students using Facebook and MySpace.

While it’s debatable whether “friending” an admissions official gives a student an edge when applying to a given college, it’s reasonable to suggest students are using social network sites to help their chances of getting into the school of their choice.

Do you interact with students on Facebook? Let us know in the comments section below.

A twintern is an intern who’s responsible for posting a company’s Twitter messages.

Take Alexa Robinson, for example. The University of North Carolina grad has an internship at Pizza Hut in Dallas, Texas.

She went up against hundreds of competitors for the honor of posting Twitter messages and commenting on other people’s tweets when her company’s name comes up.

Not all companies use interns to handle the social networking site. McDonald’s asks its execs to monitor Twitter. At Jet Blue, tweets come under the job description of the corporate communications manager.

But according to DailyTech.com, Alexa’s doing well in her internship. With two months remaining, she’s increased Pizza Hut’s followers from 3,000 to 13,000.

And if you’re curious about what she’s tweeting, here’s a recent sample: “Currently the Stuffed Pizza Rolls are only available with pepperoni. I’ll keep you posted if anything changes.”

Do you think hiring someone to monitor Twitter is a business savvy idea? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

Seems the most commonly tweeted word is (hold the drum roll) “the.”

And because Twitter thrives on users talking about themselves, the second most commonly tweeted word is “I.” Interestingly, “I” ranks tenth in regular written communication.

Oxford University Press also found gerunds are heavily utilized by the Twitter crowd – among the most popular words are “going,” “getting” and “watching.” Tech terms such as “Google,” “Facebook,” “blog” and “Mac” also rank high with users.

Here’s more of what came from monitoring 1.5 million random tweets. There were:

• 2,098,630 total sentences
• 22,431,033 total words
• close to 15 words per tweet, and
• nearly 1.5 sentences per tweet.

And compared to formal writing, the casual lingo of Twitter includes a greater frequency of “OK” and “f***.”

So here’s the question: Is Twitter – along with instant messaging and texting – contributing to the destruction of language skills among college students?

Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

It’s true.

University of Chicago students Emmett Rensin and Alex Aciman say they’re combining the two most important forms of expression for their generation: literature and Twitter.

“After all, as great as the classics are, who has time to read those big, long books anymore?” the 19-year-olds ask on their Web site.

So you’d better come prepared with a sense of humor. “To be or not to be” may be chopped down to “To be,” since each work is limited to 20 140-character Tweets.

Penguin plans to have the book on the shelves before the year is out. Target audience: 18 to 35-year-olds.

“Twitter has refined to its purest form the instant-publishing, short-attention-span, all-digital-all-the-time, self-important age of info-deluge that is the essence of our contemporary world,” the authors say on their site.

Hmmm… that statement’s more than 140 characters.

What do you think about Twitterature? Let us know in the comments section below.

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More than 80 students have signed on to receive updates on whether washers and dryers are available for use.

For example, a message sent May 18 at 6 a.m. read: Two of two washers available, one of two dryers available.

Short, sweet and to the point, right?

You also can go to twitter.com/laundryroom to check out the washer/dryer status. There’s even a bio of the laundry room:  I am a laundry room at Olin College. I have two washers, two dryers, and a condom dispenser.

Twitter may not be necessary – but it sure beats dragging a bag of dirty laundry up and down the stairs for no reason.

What do you use Twitter for? Let us know in the comments section below.

They’re incorporating Twitter into their courses.

For example:

A professor at the University of Minnesota makes Twittering  a must for students in her public relations class. It’s a tool they’ll need in the professional world, she says.

At the University of Wisconsin-Stout, another professor requires students in her English composition classes to post 200 tweets for the semester. She touts it as a way for them to talk about class materials and share information about assignments.

Is encouraging students’ use of Twitter a good idea? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

At least that’s what it looks like according to a recent report by the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC).

Students’ entries on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other social networking sites are often viewed by college admission officials.

Here’s what else the NACAC study found:

• 88% of admissions offices consider these networking sites an important recruiting tool
• 53% of colleges look at social media for info about their institution, and
• 33% of colleges maintain a blog.

Do you consider social networking sites valuable tools? Let us know in the comments section below.