“The Use of Social Media in Higher Education for Marketing and
Communications: A Guide for Professionals in Higher Education”
by Rachel Reuben

This guide is worthy of more than just a re-tweet this morning, so I’ve linked it here.

And for those not interested in reading the whole report (shame on you!) here are a couple of choice quotes from Rachel;

“What if we opened up courses for student reviews on our site? New students would be able to view reviews on classes when trying to make their selections, especially for general education courses. Courses with great reviews will likely receive higher enrollments, without any additional cost to market these classes. Administrators would likely worry about the classes that would receive poor reviews – but whether you enable this feature or not, these conversations are happening elsewhere, likely on sites you have no control over.”

“Social media comprises of activities that involve socializing and networking online through words, pictures and videos. Social media is redefining how we relate to each other as humans and how we as humans relate to the organizations that serve us. It is about dialog – two way discussions bringing people together to discover and share information.”

Admittedly the guide is slightly old now, written in 2008, it talks about “the two most popular social networking communities are Facebook and MySpace” which we know is not the case as it is Facebook or Twitter now (reports of 10 million users leaving MySpace a month have been seen recently) but it should not be discounted just because of it’s age. We may be better at thinking and using Social Media than we were three years ago, and the world of Social Media and Social Networks have changed with Smart Phones and Tablets allowing us to be more mobile with “when and where” activities, but we all have a responsibility to check and re-check our online activity, individually or as an organisation.

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I’ve been wading through the 2011 Horizon Report and find it fascinating reading and quite a thrill to realise that some of my thoughts are not too far off the mark with what other people /organisations are thinking, saying, or planning.

Here are few passages that caught my attention – mind you most of the report did this too!

“As the electronic book moves further from a digital reproduction of a printed piece, some writers are seeing it become something far richer, allowing journeys through worlds real and imagined, undertaken not alone but in company with other readers. The gestural interfaces of new electronic devices enhance the intellectual experience of reading with tactile interactions. Electronic books have the potential to transform the way we interact with reading material of all kinds, from popular titles to scholarly works”

This is something I have touched on in a previous post on January 17th, 2011 “The Future of eBooks … my vision“, and the video below is referred to in the report after the passage above;

The Future of the Book. from IDEO on Vimeo.

“Despite their obvious advantages of size and weight, electronic books are not as established among scholarly readers as they are among the general public. Several obstacles have stood in the way of general adoption among academic institutions: scarcity of academic titles, lack of necessary features in electronic readers to support scholarly work, a restrictive publishing model, and digital rights management (DRM) issues Despite their obvious advantages of size and weight, electronic books are not as established among scholarly readers as they are among the general public. Several obstacles have stood in the way of general adoption among academic institutions: scarcity of academic titles, lack of necessary features in electronic readers to support scholarly work, a restrictive publishing model, and digital rights management (DRM) issues”

“Until electronic textbooks are divorced from reader-dependent formats, broad adoption will continue to be problematic for universities. Nonetheless, the promise offered by the technology is such that electronic books are being explored in virtually every discipline.  Clear advantages for students (e.g., price and portability) are other factors that make this technology worth pursuing.”

“Mobile applications add easy social interaction around electronic books that could be marshaled in support of group study and focused teacher-student interaction at any point in the text. Electronic texts can be linked to a myriad of supporting materials that can extend and enrich them.”

I am still reading my way through the list of resources and links in the report, but there are some good ones there.

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Many thanks to Jacques Cool (@zecool) for this retweet this morning; The Tablet Takeover (you know I like infographics!).

“With the emergence of the iPad, media tablets have become poised like never before to dominate the home computer market. With their touch screens and chameleon like abilities to perform a bevy of tasks, one can only wonder if the takeover is sooner than we think.”

Personally I think this market might be bigger than the forecasts, depending on the quality of alternatives to the iPad; if the likes of Blackberry, Nokia, Samsung, etc, can build on the Apple success in a way that shows them as independent thinkers rather than Apple-followers then we are all in for a right royal treat!

Click to visit original image on www.focus.com

Related posts:

1. Reading “The iPad for Academics”
2. iPad – more resources on whether it is any good in the classroom
3. iPad – is it any good for the classroom or learning?

This article, by Inside Higher Ed called ‘The iPad for Academics” is a good read, and followers neatly on from my previous posts.

I want to draw attention to the following statements, but I’m no going to say why; just that they struck a chord with me (either positively or negatively);

“The iPad represents the genuine retailization of academic content.”

“… publishers might object that piracy would be a concern, but honestly: If you’re selling content to universities that license it to tens of thousands of students living in highly-networked dorm rooms, is an app store really going to make the problem worse?”

“A key feature of the retailization of scholarly content is that it be reasonably free of digital rights management — and here academic publishing should learn from the music industry’s failed attempts to sell copy-protected music. The more open and reusable academic content is, the more reasons people will have to buy it. The great thing about PDFs is that, like MP3s, they are not copy-protected.”

“Overall by splitting the difference between dedicated devices and genuine computers, the iPad doesn’t show a lot of promise as a mobile platform for research and teaching. Of course if everyone is always carrying around an iPad already then they might start replacing voice recorders. It’s hard to tell.”

“While I can imagine some innovative pedagogic uses of the device, what academics do is still narrowly defined — and tied to institutional, political, and economic imperatives. Some imagined the Internet would cause us to rethink what it meant for a text to be coherent — and it has, to a certain extent. The academy might be too obdurate to be easily transformable.”

“Ultimately, academics need a world full of devices they can pour information in and out of. The more open and interoperable our new ecology of applications, devices, and content providers are, the more our learning will enrich human life — whether the people selling us our readers, software, and content are Apple, Amazon, or someone else entirely.”

I have also read through the current responses to the article, and there are some choice examples of people on both sides of the iPad and Apple love/hate divide. I recommend taking five minutes or so and scanning through them as there are some valid points.

If you have a iPad (yes, I’m ever so slightly jealous) and have been using it as part of your academic work, then please let me know how you find it, what apps your using, etc.

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There are many uses for Augmented Reality systems and applications already out there, but most I come across are for more generic “find a hotel” or “find a wifi spot”. These are great, but not really pushing the boundaries of what the technology can do.

I’ve read a little about how AR is being used in Education, which is good and I’ve spoken of these before – “Augmented Reality: does it have a place/future in education?“  and will continue to again as I find the links and research. But what about the other side of the education … not only in and out of the classroom, but to help the students around the Institution?

What about these ideas?

• Student Orientation: What’s the worst part of being in a new place? For me it’s not knowing where anything is. You may have a room number, or even a building name, but where is that? If an Institution were to develop something that covered the whole campus (buildings, rooms, facilities, lecture theatres, etc) then the students could use it to find directions to the right place. You could use this to show the student how the campus used to look 10, 15 or even 20 years ago, as well as the history of the Institution and it’s previous staff and students?
• Student Induction: Take the above one step further, the whole Induction process and programme could be incorporated (via QR Codes even?) into the app then the student could use the Induction programme to find their next session, the QR Code (placed outside the door to the /building room their about to enter?) to find out more about why they are there?
• Library: Why not have an Augmented Reality app for the Library? Search online for the book/journal you want and AR can direct you to the floor and even to the exact shelf where the book or journal is? That would save some time, even more if it could tell you if the book was already out on loan.

These thoughts came about from watching this video on YouTube; created for the Junaio iPhone app, it worked in this example in the indoor 2010 Kiosk Europe Expo to guide visitors around and to help them decide where to go, and when.

If you know of somewhere that is already doing this then please let me know, I’d be happy to know that my thoughts and ideas were already being put into practice.

Also, if you’re interested in developing something like this I’d love to be involved in whatever capacity I could help with! Drop me a line or a comment below

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The list of colleges and Universities signing up to iTunesU continues to grow. Since I last wrote about it – “Another Success Story (UCL)” – the likes of the OU (for those reading outside of the UK, this is The Open University) have a reported World Record as the first to reach 20 million downloads (source: Bee-It) since starting to use iTunesU in the Summer of 2008!

As reported in the Bee-It post, the OU says that;

“mobile phones are increasingly being used to download their tracks. Martin Bean, Vice-Chancellor of the Open University, says that the growth of the iTunesU concept reflects the changing ways that people are learning.”

Martin Bean continues by saying;

“The way people want to learn is changing. Many now actively seek out content they are interested in and which they can watch, read or listen to when it suits them. New channels are helping people to fit learning in with their lifestyles, and the OU has always kept pace with the changing world of technology.”

ReadWriteWeb report that iTunesU is “better than going to class“, but Jim Groom doesn’t think it’s going to make any difference. Jim has some good points (especially the one about “everyone is doing it”) but surely a bigger picture is that it raises the profile of the Institution and (hopefully) the quality and perception of the materials provided to enrolled students?

Personally, I would love to be involved in generating and managing an iTunesU account for the Business School; we have lectures recorded using Echo360, which are automatically created with associated MP3 and M4B iTunes Audiobook format, as well as other material recorded straight to camera tape or memory.

This is the kind of material that reflects the quality of the teaching staff in the Business School. Regarding the question of whether students like it or not, how about student work being (with appropriate permission sought and obtained) loaded that reflects the quality of student in the Business School? I haven’t seen any of that in iTunesU yet (or did I miss it?).

So do students like it? It’s difficult for me to tell as we at Bournemouth are not using it. From reading around the Internet it seems that, on the whole, yes they are, just look at the numbers above. I would like to hear about whether your students (or you, if you’re a student) like or dislike iTunesU, but please say why?

So, it’s worked for the OU … have you had any similar interest or success with your use of iTunesU, or has your Institution opted to not invest the time and effort? Please leave your comments below, or anyone of the ‘related posts’ links also shown below.

Image Source

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The paper given the accolade of being the best at this years ALT Conference was presented by John Traxler called “Students and mobile devices: choosing which dream”.

Read it here: Students and mobile devices: choosing which dream

“Mobile devices include smart-phones, games consoles, digital cameras, media players, netbooks, in-car sat nav and handheld computers. Almost every student owns one and uses one, often more than one. Not only do they own them and use them but they also invest considerable time, effort and resource choosing them, buying them, customising them and exploiting them. These devices express part or much of their owners’ values, affiliations, identity and individuality through their choice and their use. They are both pervasive and ubiquitous, both conspicuous and unobtrusive, both noteworthy and taken-for-granted in the lives of most — but not all — students.”

“Student devices unlock the dreams of agency, control, ownership and choice amongst students but put the dreams of equity, access and participation at risk. Universities cannot afford, procure, provide nor control these devices but they cannot ignore them either. Clearly such a stark choice is an over-simplification; there is no simple question and no simple answer.”

Related posts:

1. Reading: "Global Mobile Learning Research Report 2009"
2. Do we need to encourage Mobile Learning?
3. Are you ready for Mobile Learning?

“The potential of mobile handheld devices to enhance learning in a global context has been investigated in this learner‐centred research project. The views and ideas of students about how the visual interface of mobile technologies can increase engagement and enhance learning have been investigated and tested in a practical classroom environment.”

iPod Touch and Studywiz Mobile Learning Research Report 2009 Final

The findings from this research are fairly predictable;

• Students loved it, finding mobile learning “exciting and motivating”.
• Teachers were required to make substantial investment in time, curriculum innovation and pedagogy.
• Investment in time from both student and teacher in learning how to use the devices (iPod Touch) was considerable.
• The iPod device has “real learning value in teaching and learning” when coupled to the imagination of the teachers to integrate the technology in everyday situations.
• Issues surrounding charging the device was resolved with extra cables being gien to students so they can charge at home or at school.
• Network issues needed to be resolved to enable iTunes to be installed on school PCs so movies and podcasts could be downloaded and synch’d with the iPods at school.
• iPod Touch criticised for lack of capability for taking photo and video.

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It seems I can’t get away from mobile learning / mLearning and the iPod at the moment. From my previous post about the rumours of the new iPod Tablet to previous posts about how to use iPods in classes and learning environments, I just came across this:

• Association of Learning Technology: Learning on the go with an iPod Touch

This seems to be the first (published) study of use of iPods in class, in the UK. I’m sure there are most stories (I’ve been involved in a few locally, but none could be classed as a proper “study”) so if you know of any please let us all know by using the comments field below.

So, what about the study?

“The aim of this study was to evaluate whether mobile access to learning resources would enhance the students’ learning experience on a sport science course.”

The students were given the iPod Touches with 7 pre-loaded videos, which were also accessible through their Moodle VLE.

Question: why not use this as a proper mLearning study and ask them to find the video on YouTube or iTunes U?

It seems like this is the only aspect of the iPod that was ‘tested’. It is the only aspect of what is possible that the study refers to, surely that can’t be? What about wi-fi searching in class, what about social networks (Twitter, Facebook, etc) and Social Media (YouTube, etc), what about the many varied Apps from the iTunes App Store?

The section on “Findings” does talk about the students accessing the Internet on the devices, but it doesn’t seem part of the study, with no clear direction (to the students) on what they could, and should be looking to do with the iPods.

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James Clay: Mobile Learning

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