Thanks for the Links!

I have a few thanks today, TGIF, to all the bloggers out there who have so graciously linked back to School Communications 2.0 in the past month or so. I’m so behind in my thank-yous, which is a serious breach of netiquette. So here goes:

– Thanks to Topics About Los-angeles for mentioning my OneDayU post. I love being mentioned on the West Coast.

– Gracias to Netizen for linking to my Twitter post and lumping me in with such legendary websites as ReadWriteWeb and TechCrunch. Haven’t been in such illustrious company since I slept overnight at actor Cliff Robertson’s Hamptons estate in the 1980s. Seriously true!

– Blogger Mike McCready for linking to my Nings post from his blog on higher education, marketing and the social web. Great post over at McCready’s — check it out.

Thanks again to all my readers. I know I’ve been a bit lax about posting lately, but I’m back on my game!

OneDayU: For Lifelong Learners

I love to learn new stuff as an adult, most likely due to a misspent youth. As an undergraduate college student, I knew where the pool tables were located. Let’s just leave it at that.

If you’re like me, trying to make up for lost time, or if you just love to learn new things, check out OneDayU, an organization (or company) that’s offering one-day workshops and seminars on a variety of topics.

Here’s what they say:

We’ve gathered the country’s brightest professors from the world’s finest universities to create the most stimulating day of college available anywhere. Our class lineup lets you partake in the latest thinking on world affairs, science, politics, history, art, literature, and more—and you don’t need to spend $45,000 an academic year to enjoy it! At One Day University there are no entrance exams, no SATs to ace, and no stress. It’s just live classes taught by the most sought-after professors from America’s most prestigious schools.

Here’s a sampling of what they offer:

– On May 17, a one-day class with Will Shortz (he of the New York Times Crossword Puzzle), who will lead a two-hour live and interactive discussion in Manhattan, explaining how he creates his famous New York Times crossword puzzles, and highlighting some of the special “insider” tricks and tips you can use to solve the hard ones.

– On May 9, a series of professors will do a day-long event that will include Kenneth Miller of Brown University on “Science: God vs. Darwin — America’s Continuing Problem with Evolution,Richard Pious of Barnard/Columbia University on “History: Lincoln’s Constitutional Dictatorship & Lessons for Today, Paul Bracken of Yale University on “Foreign Affairs: The Global Economic Crisis — the U.S. in a Volatile World, and Sherwin Nuland of Yale, on “The Genius of Leonardo da Vinci.”

Although those two events happen to be taking place near me, in New York City, OneDayU holds sessions in Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and other locations.

Check out the website and sign up for lifelong learning.

Survey: Barriers to Web 2.0 Use in Schools Still Exist

A tag cloud with terms related to Web 2.Image via Wikipedia

Not surprisingly, a new survey shows that teachers and students are driving the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in schools, but that human and technological barriers are holding back the use of these technologies as learning tools in many classrooms.

The survey, commissioned by Lightspeed Systems and Thinkronize Inc., creator of the kids’ search engine netTrekker, shows that online communication tools for parents and students have caught on quickly, but online social networking for instruction has a long way to go.

The most frequently identified “human-factor” barriers to the use of Web 2.0 technology were:

– the need to monitor appropriate use of online social networks (55 percent)

– lack of teacher knowledge about how to use the technology effectively (51 percent)

– teacher perceptions about its lack of instructional value or appropriateness (48 percent)

The most frequent technology barriers were:

– concerns about student safety (76 percent)

– concerns about district network or data security (35 percent)

– limited support systems, including technology personnel (27 percent)

You can read more about the survey at eSchoolNews Online.

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Blackberry Interruptus: Whatever Happened to Eye Contact?

Monica Hesse has a fun story in today’s Washington Post that examines a trend in cultural disturbia — that of the Blackberry-interrupted conversation. Hasn’t this happened to you too many times to count?

Oh, no! He’s fading fast! Eyes drifting downward. Responses becoming monosyllabic. No! No, buddy! Pay attention! Did you hear the one about the foreclosed psychic? She was re-possessed. Ha, ha! Just stop that incessant thumb-typing, and give this exchange a chance!

Try to have a conversation with someone, an uninterrupted lunch or dinner, a heart-to-heart with your college-age son or daughter, or any kind of in-depth exchange these days, and you’ve inevitably been there. Playing sloppy seconds to a Blackberry, or a PDA of another name.

I love technology as much as anyone else, but come on. What happened to the “off” button? If you can turn it off during a Broadway play, can’t you make the effort when we’re trying to have a simple conversation?

Now all that you, the former half of two communicating people, can do is awkwardly stand there and deal with the fact that you are less engaging than a five-ounce piece of plastic. It’s maddening — or maybe it’s just a simple question of etiquette: What is the appropriate course of action when you have been abandoned for a Personal Digital Assistant?

Read about “the four stages of Blackberry abandonment” in Hesse’s timely piece, Text is Cheap.

Nings as Social Networks

Image representing Ning as depicted in CrunchBaseImage via CrunchBase

I know that I’ve written about Nings for educators before, but I was recently asked by the National School PR Association to write a description of how Nings can be useful for anyone as a tool for social networking. The key thing to remember about using Ning as a social network platform (for adults) is that it’s NOT Facebook or MySpace. Although I have a fairly active Facebook page for professional and personal use, adults I speak to often cringe at the mere thought of creating a Facebook account.

So Nings are friendly, but generally free of rock music downloads, college drinking photos and references to “Jackass” and “The Real World.”

Here’s my description of how Nings can be used by thoughtful adults, along with links to several to which I can claim membership:

Using a Ning to Build a Network

Nings have become an increasingly popular way to network with other people and groups who share similar interests with you and your school district. Ning currently hosts more than 500,000 networks on the web, and that number is growing.

Ning provides free, easy-to-navigate online software that allows you to create a social networking website available to a larger group of members. Once created, it can be used as a platform for sharing best practices, links, photos, videos and other information. Generally, the success of a Ning depends entirely on its members and how they use it.

Here are a few examples of how you can use a Ning:

Nings can be used for small niche networks (teachers within a department, for example) or in a larger way (national or state public relations professionals).You can set the privacy level, restricting membership by invitation only or keeping it open to anyone who wants to join. Free Ning tools include discussion forums, chats, video sharing, photo sharing, link sharing, and more. You can also set the frequency with which you’ll receive updates from your Ning groups.

The Ning Premium service, at $19.95 a month, allows you to point your Ning to a domain name and to add or delete advertising, among other details. But the free service fits most groups well. You can also choose the domain name option for $4.95 a month.

Here in the Hudson Valley region of New York, we have created a group Ning for school public relations professionals, where we can share best practices and put our collective brain trust together on such topics as the local press, school budget challenges, and upcoming meetings. We have also created several subgroups within the Ning, including one on using technology.

Here are links to the Hudson Valley PR Ning and other sample Nings on the web:

Classroom 2.0 (A professional development Ning for teachers with 18,000 members)

http://www.classroom20.com/

PR Open Mic (A Ning for PR students, faculty members and practitioners with 4,100 members.

http://www.propenmic.org/

The Hurricane Information Center (a Ning for individuals interested in hurricane updates, with 700 members)

http://gustav08.ning.com/

The HudSPRA Network (A newly created Ning created for school PR professionals in the NY Hudson Valley region.)

http://hudspra.ning.com/ (We might be creating a new domain name for this site, so if this link doesn’t work, try http://www.hudspra.org.)

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