Twitter for Professional Development

Every one of us knows that since the economy is tight so are our travel budgets for professional development. Twitter (and blogs of course!) provides us with great networking and resource sharing opportunities without ever leaving the comfort of our offices (although I would love to go back to Clearwater, FL). 

One of the first steps to get started with Twitter for professional development is to find knowledgable people in the field (in our case advisors) who will provide, via their "tweets", valuable information about how we can make our own programs better, what works and what doesn't, and perhaps even offer some valuable cameraderie. 

Some of the people I've been following on Twitter include:

ReaFacetoFace :  Academic advisor; Calgary. 

Bismark State College: Advising Office; North Dakota

The Chronicle: Get Chronicle news snippets via Twitter

super_trouper: Advising Administrator; Penn State

Also, feel free to follow me on Twitter. Whenever I post a new link to the blog, a tweet is also sent out so that you can be notified in real-time. It's also a fantastic way to dialogue with me about something you've seen on the blog. 

You can see a great example of a Twitter group via our NACADA Tech Seminar website;this log of "tweets" now serves as a conference record and allows users to continue adding to the conversation when they return to their institutions. Another good way to use Twitter is described in an article posted in The Chronicle of Higher Education; whenever you get a good tip or find something useful just send it to twitter. It helps you remember it later on and also shares the tip with the community that's following you. 

According to recent literature, Twitter can also help those of us who are a little shy but still have something to contribute to the conversation. It is much easier to send out a twitter message than it is to raise our hand in the middle of a crowded room to voice an opinion. On the flip side, Twitter is not a private application but rather spews out whatever we tweet to everyone who is "following" us. There is the potential for information to leak into the wrong hands if the application is not used correctly. 

Hiatus & NACADA Activities

First of all, apologies for the hiatus in posting. I was completing my comprehensive exams to get my master's degree so much of my time was occupied reading Pasacarella and Terenzini (1991, 2005). Hope everyone is still with me!

Secondly, I wanted to post a little reminder about some upcoming NACADA events that really have me excited!

Advising 2.0: Utilizing Technology Effectively for Campus-wide Advising

Being held February 12-13, 2009 in Clearwater, FL. the Technology Seminar is promising to be an exciting and informative event. I will be attending (Thanks to a NACADA Region 1 scholarship) and blogging at the event. It is my hope that readers will jump on board with comments and thoughts so that I can ask any questions you may have.

Some of the topics to be covered include: Social Networking Sites (i.e., Facebook, Ning), Wikis, Using Web Based Surveys, Blogs and Microblogs, Confidentiality, Web 2.0 and advising, Photosharing, and Making Connections Between Tools.

Faculty members include George Steele, Eric Stoller, Karen Thurmond, and Laura Pasquini.

You still have time to register! Come join us in Clearwater, FL. for some web "surfing" and sun.

NACADA Regional Conferences

Regional conferences are a fantastic way to network with your colleagues, but also stay close to your home-base. I would encourage everyone to check out their nearest Regional meeting and attend if at all possible.

I will be attending and presenting with one of my colleagues at the Region 1 Conference being held in Saratoga Springs, NY on March 11-13, 2009. My presentation is going to be on the use of social bookmarking as a tool for major and career exploration.

Many of the other Regions are still looking for proposals. I would encourage everyone to submit an abstract of something that your working on and get involved head-first with the organization. There is nothing more rewarding than sharing your work with others!

Anyone have any good presentation tips for me? I am all ears.

NACADA Annual Conference

NACADA is going deep into the heart of Texas for their next annual conference. I am looking forward to this one since I have never had the chance to go to Texas. I have submitted by Social Bookmarking proposal to the conference as well, but haven't heard anything yet about it being accepted or not.

The last Annual conference that I went to, Chicago, was amazing! There were so many great sessions and opportunities to network. All of my notes from those sessions are on the blog if anyone would like to look them over. That's actually how this blog got started--as a repository for notes and other professional development activities.

Finally, look for an upcoming post on the new 2009 Horizon Report. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the document, it presents the technologies to watch for the upcoming year in
education.

The Network is the Learning (Siemen's Theory of Connectivism)

Reading and viewing the work of George Siemens has long been on my to-do list. After having it bookmarked on my delicious account for so long, the opportunity finally presented itself to get it done. I would highly recommend that anyone interested in higher education, academic advising and technology take just 10 minutes to watch his Youtube videos. It is well worth your time. 

Brief Synopsis of George Siemens Big Ideas

Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age

• Knowledge is changing at a high rate of speed. What a student learns today may be obsolete by the time they complete their degree. 
• To keep up with these rapid changes, educators need to help students "know-where" to find information rather than simply knowing "how or what". 
• The practice of Connectivism will expose learners to a wide variety of ideas and opinions, assist them in connecting with scholars in the field, and help them to draw connections between areas of study. This is in stark contrast to the traditional notion of learning (i.e., student reads textbook which represents one point-of-view, authority is given to the disseminator of knowledge who may not be a scholar in the field and learning is linear). 
• Siemens states that "the network is the learning" rather than the actual knowledge being presented. 

Today's students are akin to the polymaths of the Renaissance. 

Our students are now expected to be knowledgeable in a wide-variety of disciplines no matter what their field of study. It is our job as advisors (Remember: Advising is teaching!) to assist them in honing their 21st century skills and learning how to find knowledge rather than trying to learn everything in a vacuum. The greatest skill we can teach them is how to locate the knowledge that they need to be successful. We can do this by implementing connectivism into our advising practice whenever possible. Some of us have already started. 

What ways can we implement Siemen's theory of connectivism into our practice?