Last year I presented to a group of 1st year Business School students on the topic of their use of Social Media and Social Networking websites and how this could have implications on their employability.

• Presentation: Social Media & how (students) can survive online (2010)

This year I’ve been privileged enough to be invited back into lecture slots for all the first year under graduate Business School students (Law, Accounting & Finance, and Business). While the topic(s) and reflective activity the students are presented with are the same (including the majority of the responses given) the examples have been updated and improved … there are far more examples to choose from for a start!

Click to view

This year I have been able to incorporate the TurningPoint handsets (clickers, zappers, etc) to get real-time responses (and capture/record them too) to the content. The responses to each question are loaded to the SlideShare presentation above as well as the videos I showed. There were 98 students present, but not every one of them voted on every question (either they clicked their response before the voting was ‘open’ or they didn’t press the button/key hard enough to send the response in).

I ask the question at the beginning of the session “Do you consider your online activity ‘safe’?” and then again at the end when I’ve demonstrated different scenarios and examples of good and bad experiences of using Social Media. I was not surprised, as you should not be either, that there were more people at the end who are less confident of their activity online, but I was surprised that there is a such a wide swing from 41% at the start who thought they were not safe online to 80% by the end! The biggest swing is from students who were unsure if they were safe to ‘not safe’ (30% at the start to 2%).

By using real-world examples of how, in most cases, just one instance can have such a drastic consequence to someones credibility or employment circumstances, whether it is a good or bad ‘instance’, obviously struck a chord with these students who, from discussions I had with a few afterwards, had not considered their activity on Facebook or chat-rooms as something that an employer would be interested in.

For me this process was about joining the dots, in helping them realise that their activity online is not necessarily distinguishable between home, private, work, or professional use. Whether their Facebook use is restricted to their home/private life wont matter too much if they complain or insult their manager, a client, or colleague. If that content is found then it could bring their employer into disrepute, or even lose work/contracts and even respect.

What really warmed my heart was some of the comments left on the Unit blog (as requested during the presentation) about how the students left after the presentation, and how it made them think about their own use of these types of websites. The following comments are reproduced by kind permission from the Unit tutor, and are anonymous:

“This has been probably the most informative lecture I have had most likely due to how interactive it was. As I felt I was so part of the lecture (answering the questions interactively) I walked away feeling like I knew more than when I first walked into the lecture about Social Media which is ironic as I use it everyday! It was a nice touch using modern technology like interactive keypads when talking about such a modern topic such as Social Media as it helped highlight the points made. The warm up questions which might have seemed irrelevant at the time; such as what is your favourite drink was a good idea to get the audience into the interactive questions and to understand the bar charts/pie charts which will appear after. Asking questions such as “Can an employer check on employees through/using Social Media” really hit home how scary it is how advanced technology is and even when you think you’re safe online you really aren’t!  The integration of YouTube videos I felt kept my attention while still making a point on the main body of the lecture.  Leaving the lecture, myself and probably most people in the lecture went home to check that all their privacy settings was actually set to private!”

“I felt slightly alarmed after the lecture at the fact that this is an issue affecting much younger people than myself, it scares me sometimes when I see a friends little sister of the age of 10 on facebook!! With this comes a responsibility and one that I think schools need to be taking on. Schools should be providing the same kind of lecture to their students. I never had a talk on the dangers of facebook and so I’m sure neither have they but at such a young age they should as they are perhaps exposed more to dangers as they might not fully appreciate the need for privacy settings.”

“Some people might think that this lecture was common knowledge but I found it particularly helpful to bring home the fact that what happens on the Internet STAYS on the Internet…forever?”

“I think the most important thing is to think about the consequences of what you say before you say it and do not say anything online you would not say to your mum!! However, the lecture did make me think and when i got home i checked all my setting were on private. I have defiantly learnt not to post things that may jeopardize future employment as it is not worth it in the long run.”

“It [the presentation] really opened my eyes as to the lengths employers will go to find the most adept, and suitable candidate. In many ways it makes sense, with fewer jobs in today’s economic climate and a higher demand, employers are going to want the very best candidates.”

“Originally, I thought the social networking lecture would be like those we had several times at school and college, however, the session was much more interactive and in context to our sector of work which made it appeal to me much more. Many of the real life stories were particularly effective and made me take the comments and updates I write much more seriously. I think the importance of this matter has grown in recent years and it is evidently clear that one passing statement could have drastic consequences upon your future career and therefore upon your life.”

“The statistics about the internet, over all, were shocking and in some respects scary and it was interesting to see how many people changed their minds about the safety of the internet after watching the videos and seeing the articles where people had been affected.”

“It is very true that we live in a society today who are extra sensitive to ‘jokes’ about ‘bombs’ and ‘explosions’ given the events of the London bombings and more importantly ’9/11′ it is understandable that people may over react with insensitive and immature jokes about airports in particular. Therefore, this example in particular demonstrates, expressing yourself on social networking sites just for the sake of boredom, is just not worth it, it is more productive and sensible to just have a conversation with a friend.”

“I had had many of these lectures in secondary school so I thought I new the dangers and risks of social networks and internet usage, but this lecture really opened my eyes as to what I was exposing myself to by using the internet.”

So, a note to us all: let us be sensible when we use any online service (Facebook, Twitter, eBay, LinkedIn, etc), think about how we want to be viewed by whoever may find the content (whenever they find it) as it may just come back to bite you.

Here are a few of the examples/links I use in the presentation:

• I am blowing the airport sky high!
• The sacked nun, a baby called Facebook and the story of the worlds most popular website
• Don’t criticise your employer
• Fingered! Accidental tweet comes back to embarrass Huhne
• Cyber-bulling: Even in death, my Natasha cannot escape the bullies
• Queen of the Mommy Bloggers / Heather Armstrong
• The Job Interview Starts Before You Meet HR

A few more examples that I didn’t include, but could quite easily have done, include:

• Wayne Rooney And Seven Other Celebrity Twitter Fails
• TV chef Jamie Oliver in Twitter rant at binge-drinking cost to NHS
• UK politician arrested after Twitter rant against Muslim journalist
• 5 myths employees believe about Social Media
• 7 Secrets to Getting Your Next Job Using Social Media
• Epic fail for Quantas Twitter competition

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In business you will always hear about the value of having your ‘elevator pitch’ carefully planned and memorised. Whether it is about the product, the service, the company, or something else, it is an important weapon in your pocket.

So, what is the ‘elevator pitch’? Penny Loretto writing on the About.com Internship website describes the practice that is the ‘elevator pitch’ as coming:

“… from the time it takes to complete a normal elevator ride from the top to the bottom floor. An ‘elevator speech’ is an opportunity to get your point across in a timely manner; namely, who you are, what you’ve accomplished, and where you hope to go in the future.”

Aileen Pincus, writing for Bloomsberg BusinessWeek, defines the pitch, for a business, as:

“One of the most important things a businessperson can do—especially an owner or someone who is involved in sales—is learn how to speak about their business to others. Being able to sum up unique aspects of your service or product in a way that excites others should be a fundamental skill.”

So why are so few people in academia aware or prepared for this? I have only ever heard of this approach mentioned once at University when I overheard a supervisor talking to his student preparing to embark on her PhD. She was advised to have her ‘elevator pitch’ ready for meetings, conferences, chance encounters, etc so she could succinctly explain, in 30 seconds or under, everything her PhD will cover and accomplish.

Since I started attending conferences (and presenting at them too!) I have been aware that I ought to be a little more prepared for the chance meeting and the “so, who are you and what do you do?” question. I have also found approach the ‘elevator pitch’ takes is a good opportunity to explain what I do each day to someone who does not know or understand what a Learning Technologist is. With new staff joining the Business School all the time this approach is also used as we introduce ourselves around the table to each other.

So, here’s mine, based on an introduction to a new member of staff:

“Hi, I’m David Hopkins and I am a Learning Technologist in the Business School. I work closely with the academic and administrative teams in the School on all aspects of the VLE (myBU) as well as supplementary systems that include lecture capture, audience response handsets, use of video in the classroom, and other pedagogic applications for existing and developing technologies that encourage student engagement and enhance the student experience. I look forward to working with you.”

A bit of a mouthful I know, but each time I have to do this it changes depending on what I’ve been working on that morning, who I’m talking to, what mood I’m in, whether the conversation is based on work, training, research, etc. When I’m out and about at conferences the ‘pitch’ is tailored to the discipline and topic of the conference, as well as the person I’m talking to. ProtoScholar writes an excellent blog and his/her (?) post “The Academic Elevator Pitch” is worth a read, if for nothing other than the details on what the pitch should encapsulate.

Come on then dear reader(s), what is your ‘elevator pitch’? Do you have one? Do you want to leave a comment about mine? Please leave any and all comments below.

Image from Derek Key

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Today I confirmed the abstract of my presentation to the eAssessment Scotland Conference, hosted by the  University of Dundee, on August 25/26, 2011 – www.e-assessment-scotland.org.

Here is what I will be delivering to the distinguished delegates:

Title: “24-hour Papers: the Open-Book Alternative to Exams for Online Assessment”

Abstract: “Common unit specifications covering delivery of subject-identical units across different courses, often with different delivery methods, are increasingly being implemented. The inclusion of a ‘coursework’ element of assessment allows for flexibility. This is different when an ‘exam’ is required; with students on a fully-online course, unable to attend an exam centre, due to differences in time zones and/or locations, the concept of an open-book exam is used. The exam paper is released to students through our VLE (Blackboard) at a time that is agreed and broadcast to students in advance. Submission of their work is required within a 24-hour window via an upload of their files to the VLE (using either the standard submission tool or Turnitin).”

“This presentation will draw upon the Bournemouth University’s substantial experience of presenting ‘Time-Constrained Papers’ to students studying at a distance and will consider the issues surrounding this approach. Particular consideration will be given to the importance of question design to limit scope for academic dishonesty and the University’s plans to modify this approach in the forthcoming academic year.”

I will be following Dr. Sharon Flynn on Friday morning (Parallel session A), where I will also talk about the use of Turnitin with distant learners within the scope of Time-Constrained Papers. I hope you can join us there.

Related posts:

1. Reading: "Developing a better understanding of technology-based pedagogy"
2. Reading: "Learning from the Learners' Experience"
3. Distance Learning / Distance Education

Another poster I am involved in at today’s ‘Excellent education: the heart of the student experience‘ Conference at Bournemouth University is on our work using QR Codes with the student in and around their final year Project (with Milena Bobeva: @milenabobeva).

The poster, titled “QR codes in education: The Business School experience” builds on research and testing of QR Codes in a learning environment, and also on my blog here – see the Resource page for a page of resources, Delicious tags, etc.

“Quick Response (QR) codes, the 2-D bar code, are becoming the new norm for businesses to reach their customers and provide a fast user-friendly way to access relevant content online through the use of mobile technology. Educational institutions are on the uptake in making use of these 21^st century tools as a way to engage their main stakeholders, i.e. students.

“Within the Business School we have recently experimented with using QR codes across several programmes. This has stared with codes leading to library materials and has expanded gradually into further areas such as marketing, programme contact details and learning resources.

“This presentation is going to introduce our experience, including some statistics on user involvement and feedback from students and staff, as well as some innovative endeavours in exploiting these free resources.”

You can view and download the poster, in full, from SlideShare: QR codes in education: The Business School experience.

If you are going to quote or cite this in any work please use the following details (in the style of Harvard Referencing):

Hopkins, D. and Bobeva, M., 2011. QR Codes in Education: The Business School Experience. In: Bournemouth University Education Enhancement Conference 2011, 4 May 2011, Bournemouth University, Poole, England. Available from: http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/17750/.

Related posts:

1. Poster: Building Educational Confidence and Affinity Through Online Induction Activities
2. “Using QR Codes in Higher Education” Workshop: Jan 31st, 2012 #QRCode
3. QR Codes: Learning Technology

Today I am presenting the following poster at the Bournemouth University Enhancing Education 2011 Conference “Excellent education: the heart of the student experience” with two colleagues from the Business School, and wanted to share our work.

The poster, titled “Building Educational Confidence and Affinity Through Online Induction Activities” builds on previous work by the team to introduce and encourage our online an distant learners to engage with their studies, with us, and with each other.

The poster;

“… demonstrates the development and support taken throughout a week-long online Induction for geographically-disparate Business School students studying the fully-online BA (Hons) International Business & Management degree.

“From application through to enrolment and becoming an online student our students are likely to experience many emotions over this period. We recognise the different key foundation areas required to strengthen personal confidence and determination as an individual remote student. The intention is to help students overcome their initial personal apprehension by building intrinsic trust in the capabilities of the Business School from all standpoints including technical, educational and pastoral.

“By the end of this induction week students have the opportunity to formulate a clear picture of the environment in which they will be learning, establish an initial impression of degree level study, recognise the levels of support available to them, and begin to identify their own personal resolve and how to make this work for them whilst studying from a remote location.

“Through the induction programme we firmly believe that building strong roots empowers students to maximise their potential during the full course of their study.”

You can view and download the poster, in full, from SlideShare: Building Educational Confidence and Affinity Through Online Induction Activities.

If you are going to quote or cite this in any work please use the following details (in the style of Harvard Referencing):

Hopkins, D., Wincott, M. and Hutchings, L., 2011. Building educational confidence and affinity through Online Induction Activities. In: Bournemouth University Education Enhancement Conference 2011, 4 May 2011, Bournemouth University, Poole, England. Available from: http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/17715/

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Twitter is becoming an important tool for backchannel chat and information exchange in conferences, exhibitions, and classroom activities where perhaps email and/or discussion forums were used before. Twitter has also become a very useful way for those unable to attend to keep up with speeches, presentations and conversations that surround the ‘event’, and I have virtually ‘attended’ a few conferences this year already without having to book tickets or take time off work. It is not the same as being there, but it is still extremely useful.

Using a tool that can send a tweet from your presentation isn’t only useful for those unable to attend your session, it is also a good way for you to send notes into the backchannel for attendees information. I have started planning my next delivery of the Social Media & how (students) can survive online presentation to include sending tweets to the different examples I show as well as the YouTube videos and any other background information that could benefit the students in their follow-up activity (reflective blogging).

So, if you’re interested in this too, you’ll need the AutoTweet tool, which is free and easy to download from here:

• PowerPoint AutoTweet (SAP 2.0)

You don’t have to install any other of the SAP 2.0 tools to make this work, but they’re worth a look for other aspects of including Twitter in presentations.

You will also need an account with a service like www.supertweet.net to enable the tweets to be sent due to the ‘API Proxy Account’, or something – anyway, you’ll need it. You can always revoke the application access from Twitter settings afterwards if you want.

AutoTweet will run as an ‘add-in’ in PowerPoint, which so far I have had to re-configure each time I open it to use (which makes testing the presentation a pain) but at least one option is to disable auto-tweeting until I’m ready to publish and tweet. One option available is that you can also display when a tweet has been sent (the bottom check-box in the settings image below) but I have found this slightly disruptive to the presentation but I know from colleagues that the students like it as it gives them an indication that content has been made available in the backchannel:

Now all you do is enter the hashtag in the box, as above, that you want to use and the tool will add this to the end of any text you specify to tweet from the slides.

To set the tweet content you just add the text and links (or even another hashtag) between the [twitter] [/twitter] code that you place in the slide ‘notes’ section, like this:

with the above example coming out like this:

Social Media Statistics: http://is.gd/jNZ7L2 #ignorethis

February 22, 2011 4:24 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@hopkinsdavid

David Hopkins

While it takes only minutes to set up it does take longer to plan the tweets for the slides and get the shortened URLs ready but it is worth it.

I’m looking forward to testing this with the students again in a couple of weeks, I’ll let you know how it goes – via Twitter of course (@hopkinsdavid)

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I’ve been lucky enough so far this term to be involved with two sets of students, both under-graduate first years (one unit called ‘Professional Studies’ even), and with both sets I have been surprised and slightly worried about the level of understanding they have about their use of Social Media, and how the little things can make a difference.

What surprised me, from a couple of informal questions to a few vocal and enthusiastic Facebook users, is that they have never considered what is viewable online, their ‘digital foot print’.

So, I asked around about what we do for the students to alert them to the risks, and how this could potentially affect their future employment prospects. I had some good answers but the one that made me groan was simply “why don’t you talk to them about it?” Me and my big mouth!

Social Media & Networks: How to survive online (or “your [next] employer is watching you”).
View more presentations from David Hopkins.

Update, 17 November 2010: I’ve been researching the United Airlines ‘breaks guitars’ example I use in the presentation above and have found some interesting figures. Not only has the original YouTube video been viewed/accessed over 9.5 million times since it was loaded last year, but it is reportedly the cause of a 10% drop in share price for United airlines, costing shareholders a whopping $180 million!

I took the class list (190+ students) and randomly searched for 10 students. I found 6 of them in Facebook easily and the other 4 had names that matched to 300+ other Facebook users, so I didn’t search for them. I used my personal Facebook account, which is not connected to my work or work colleagues in any way. This is important as I wanted to be sure there was no way I could have access through a friend of mine or theirs … this is the kind of set-up a future employer would have when searching.

What I found reaffirmed my belief that they don’t understand what they do, or how the privacy settings worked. I can say that all users had photos they’d uploaded that depicted some very good nights out, drunken behaviour, in one case smoking possibly dubious material, lots of holiday and beach pictures, and also photos they’d been tagged in by friends, so content they had had nothing to do with, but it appeared on their profile!

Naturally when I present this I can’t show them the exact photos or say who I searched (I do not have the list of names saved anywhere!) but I hope this will at least raise the awareness of their online activity and, if nothing else, these students think about their use of Social Media, their privacy settings, as well as the kind of people they befriend online.

It is also very difficult to talk about Social Media or Social Networks without concentrating on Facebook; it seems that’s all they’re interested in, and the majority of news stories I researched all concentrated on it too.

Have you got, or had, a Social Media (horror) story or have you taken a similar approach with your students? Please leave all comments below.

Related posts:

1. Reflection on a presentation: Social Media and Social Network #SoMe
2. Presentation: ROI of Social Media
3. Policies for Staff use of Social Media and Social Networks

There you are, you’ve finished creating the masterpiece that is your PowerPoint presentation, saved it to the hard-drive, network and USB pen-drive, go to bed safe in the knowledge you’ll blow the audience away tomorrow with your superb presentation.

You wake the next morning, check the cat hasn’t eaten the pen-driver (or worse) and leave for the presentation. You get there a little late (train, bus, traffic, etc) and a little flustered – the time you were going to use to run through the presentation on someone else’s equipment is now no longer available … and you’re on.

Oops! This is where you realise that the font you used, on your own machine, is not standard and therefore available on the one being used to present from. Your slides and text are all wonky as the replacement font resembles

We’ve all been here (or will be soon), so what can you do to prevent this? A little known adaption in PowerPoint means you can embed the font character in the presentation, so it at least presents in the manner you designed it in.

You can stop this happening by preserving, or embedding, the font in the presentation so;

• it displays correctly on (almost) any machine
• you can continue to edit it on another machine

The screencast below shows you how to do this, in PowerPoint2007.

Preserving or embedding fonts in PowerPoint 2007

For those who can’t see the above screecast from Jing, here are some basic instructions;

• Click on the Microsoft Office button in the upper left hand corner of PowerPoint 2007 and choose “PowerPoint Options” at the bottom.
• From the new window of options you see select the ‘Save’ link on the left.
• Under the “Preserve fidelity when sharing this document” section, first choose your document, then check the box for “Embed fonts in the file” or “Embed only the characters used in the document”.

Now when you save the document, the fonts will be embedded for future use (and presentation).

Image Source

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Every now and then I see a presentation and think “wow, that’s good” or “that was brilliantly put together, the presenter never even looked at the screen”.

I was lucky enough to see Marc Prensky speak recently at a Bournemouth University event “Teaching Digital Natives“. He had tons of slides (literally) and he knew them so intimately he rarely looked at the screen unless it was to highlight a specific phrase or idea has was talking about. I tried to tweet along with Marc but, let’s be honest, it was far better to listen and engage than it was to be a slave to the keyboard.

So it got me thinking … what can you do, and  what should you avoid, when preparing and designing your presentation? Here are a few ideas and examples;

20 Quick Rules To Make Your Presentation Better (here are my selection from the list);

1. Prepare thoroughly by researching the audience.
2. Select a slide background that’s unobtrusive.
6. Use only simple graphics that highlight what’s important.
11. Use words that persuade rather than lecture.
13. Remove all the biz-blab and jargon.
14. Only use anecdotes or analogies that are vivid.
15. Rehearse the presentation until you’re comfortable.
19. Use the time effectively and appropriately.

Top 10 Reasons Your Presentation Sucks (again, my selection);

1. You read from your slides!
2. It was too long!
3. You drifted off topic!
5. You are all opinion, no fact!
9. Your slides are too fancy!

Here’s a presentation all about bad presentations … is that right?

Why most presentations suck
View more presentations from Slideware Manager

If that isn’t enough, how about this … video from Don McMillan that I’ve seen many people tweeting about and decided I had to show it here! Enjoy.

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As a follow-up to my (successful?) presentation ‘Twitter in Education” this one looks into the uses of Twitter, rather than the tool.

Twitter in Education: what next? | View more from David Hopkins

It is also worth keeping in mind the kind of resource that I haven’t been able to include in the presentation, but have provided links to for those who are interested, such as;

• Online Colleges: 25 Twitter Projects for the College Classroom
• Social Media for Working & Learning: Twitter in the classroom, 10 useful resources
• Mashable: How Twitter in the Classroom is Boosting Student Engagement
• Emerging Ed Tech: 6 Examples of Using Twitter in the Classroom
• Olivia Mitchell: How to present with Twitter (and other backchannels)

There we go; any and all comments welcome, and please feel free to link to or embed the presentation using the SlideShare code.

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