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Kim Cofino on becoming a 21st century educator

4 June 2009 in From the Field by Kate | Comments

I’ve recently begun following the information musings of Kim Cofino at her blog, Always Learning. Kim is currently teaching at the International School Bangkok in Thailand as a 21st Century Literacy Specialist. She describes her positions as follows:

I see this role as a bridge between the library and technology, and therefore, a key aspect of this position, which makes it different than a traditional technology facilitation position, is the strength of collaboration between all three teams.”

Kim has a lot of very interesting and informative posts concerning optimizing the classroom setting using Web2.0 technologies. Some of our favorites are:

Moving a Community Forward – Some thoughts on how they’ve been fostering a sense of community – using both online an offline channels – at ISB as part of their work.
The First Steps Towards Becoming a 21st Century Educator – A few ways that teachers can start getting themselves familiar with Web2.0 technologies.
The Technology Tool Box: Choosing the Right Tool for the Task – How to best match your goals with the right tools.
Libraries and EdTech: Like Peanut Butter and Jelly – Why librarians and technology facilitators are a great match.
Making Connections: Social Networking in the Elementary Classroom – How social networking tools and techniques can be leveraged in elementary schools.

How to transition reluctant teachers to confident facilitators (deangroom.wordpress.com)
Create the Future: 21st Century Learning in Practice (123elearning.blogspot.com)
The 21st Century Librarian (laikaspoetnik.wordpress.com)

Thoughts on Harvard-MIT-Yale Cyberscholar Working Group

27 May 2009 in From the Field by Kate | Comments

Last Wednesday, I attended the Harvard-MIT-Yale Cyberscholar Working Group at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. The group is a combined effort between Berkman, MIT’s Comparative Media Studies Program and Yale Law School’s Information Society Program to showcase and create conversation around the research they’re doing through the peer review method.

Wednesday’s session included three pieces of research:

Aaron Shaw: Polanyi’s Penguin? Commons-Based Industry in the Neoliberal Knowledge Economy
Colleen Kaman: The World in the Network
Rasmus Kleis Nielsen: Mundane Tools and Mobilizational Practices in Two U.S. Congressional Campaigns

I found Rasmus’s talk most interesting. A few take-aways:

“Mundane” tools are much more effective in Congressional level campaigns than “emerging” tools (Mundane being things like email – tools that are now widely used and tools that people are highly comfortable with at this point. Emerging tools are, for the most part, new media platforms).
Why? Volunteers already use email, they don’t need to be trained. Political motivation is skewed by age. Volunteers are not usually early-adopters. Most interesting is the fact that the campaign managers decided to put less emphasis on new gadgets, but thought that meeting volunteers halfway would be most effective.
The tools that are considered “emerging” now will be “mundane” in a few years.

I would venture a guess that the majority of these findings stem from demographics. There are probably some very interesting specific pieces of information gathered in this research, but largely, that portion of it was not surprising.

However, I did find it comforting (and intelligent) that the campaign managers chose to forgo the “Build it and they will come” mentality, and opted for a set of tools that the knew would be easily adaptable, manageable and accessible for everyone.

While I definitely believe in the opportunities in the social media space, I also strongly believe in not reinventing the wheel, and really understanding what the best program is going to be for your target audience. Don’t just do something because the guy down the street is doing it. Only do it if it’ll work for you.

For the full description of their research, visit the event page.

Why the Linking Disconnent? Why aren’t more universities getting serious about social media?

5 May 2009 in Explanation, From the Field, Random Thoughts by Anya | Comments

Universities seem to finally be getting the picture that use of social media is vital to reaching their core constituents, especially given that Facebook and other social networks have surpassed e-mail as the best way to reach many of the university’s core audiences: students and alums.

Yet despite the idea that Facebook and Twitter are gaining popularity, universities still struggle with how much prominence to give these tools. Brad Ward’s blog had a great post on this subject in February, with some intriguing preliminary research on how social media tools are built into university Web sites.

Of almost 1400 schools investigated, only 20% had any kind of social media component built into their homepage, alumni page or admission page. While that seems like a pretty good amount, consider the fact that that leaves a whopping 80% of universities and colleges that don’t have any kind of social media component on any of these three key pages! What is even more amazing is that only 56 schools… 4% of the schools… had a social media component on more than one page. That means if alums get to your site they see it, but potential students don’t, or vice versa. These schools have forfeited huge chunks of their visitor population.

Our question today is… why? If schools recognize the importance of online tools, why aren’t they using them better? And if they’re not using them, what is the main barrier to adoption? Are there more professors and admissions people using these tools but higher levels of administration don’t buy it yet, or are there perceptions of this being a fad and schools are hesitant to jump as far as including these tools where the primary core of their web traffic would actually see and interact with the tools?

How are you seeing social media being used in higher ed?

What are the Real Questions about Women in Technology?

27 April 2009 in Modern Business by Anya | Comments

Anya wrote a great post over on the Girls in Tech blog concerning the current debate on women in technology.

This month’s TechCrunch UK event sparked a fierce debate about women in technology that has continued to spread through online and offline channels as men and women alike discuss the past, present and future of women in technology, and address certain barriers or perceived problems with what is undeniably a dearth of women in the field…..

Read the full article here.

Making Music for Thing-a-Day (Pop!Tech guest post)

26 March 2009 in Technology by Kate | Comments

Check out the piece I wrote over on the Pop!Tech blog about Ranjit Bhatnagar’s 28 hand-made musical instruments.

Girls in Tech Launch Event wrap-up

26 March 2009 in Conferences & Events by Kate | Comments

Tuesday evening marked a success for Girls in Tech Boston launch! Thank you everyone for coming, and we hope you had a really great time. We look forward to future events.

We’ll post up photos on Flickr once we’ve collected them, but in the meantime, below is a small clip from the evening.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3ujQUfmhz0[/youtube]

Event: Mass High Tech presents Women to Watch

26 February 2009 in Conferences & Events by Kate | Comments

Mass High Tech is having a great event on 12 March highlighting their “Women to Watch” in Technology. The program honors 10 New England-based women each year who are leading the way in entrepreneurship, technological innovation and lifelong learning.

This year’s honorees is another great group of motivation and influential women. For more information and to register, visit the events page.

You can also see MHT’s past honorees.

Other Side Group to Head the Girls in Tech Boston Chapter

14 January 2009 in Networking by Kate | Comments

Anya and I are very pleased to announce that we will be heading the newly formed Boston Chapter of Girls in Tech.

“Girls in Tech is a social network enterprise focused on the engagement, education and empowerment of like-minded, professional, intelligent and influential women in technology. As young women with the capacity to inspire, we made it our personal desire and passion to create and sustain an organization that focuses on the collaboration, promotion, growth and success of women in the technology sector.”

“Girls in Tech aims to offer a variety of resources and tools for women to supplement and further enhance their professional careers and aspirations in technology. Some of these resources include, educational workshops and lectures, networking functions, round table discussions, conferences, social engagements, and recruitment events.”

So far, GiT has been a wild success in its existing San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City chapters. Along with the Boston Chapter, new chapters were open in Austin, Portland, and London.

We feel that the Boston technology scene would be a perfect one for a group like this, and we’re excited to be a part of it.

We’ll be announcing our advisory team soon, as well as the relaunch of the GiT website to include all new chapters. In the meantime, please email me at kate@othersidegroup.com for more information or join or Facebook Group!

Women in Tech: Pledge for Ada Lovelace

8 January 2009 in Outreach by Kate | Comments

We’ve signed a pact to blog about Women in Tech on 24 March of this year.

According to PledgeBank:

“Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines. Whatever she does, whether she is a sysadmin or a tech entrepreneur, a programmer or a designer, developing software or hardware, a tech journalist or a tech consultant, we want to celebrate her achievements.”

Who was Ada do you ask?

Ada Lovelace was one of the world’s first computer programmers, and one of the first people to see computers as more than just a machine for doing sums. She wrote programmes for Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine, a general-purpose computing machine, despite the fact that it was never built. She also wrote the very first description of a computer and of software.

Ada Lovelace Day needs your support!

Technology

Kim Cofino on becoming a 21st century educator

Thoughts on Harvard-MIT-Yale Cyberscholar Working Group

What are the Real Questions about Women in Technology?

Making Music for Thing-a-Day (Pop!Tech guest post)

Girls in Tech Launch Event wrap-up

Event: Mass High Tech presents Women to Watch

Other Side Group to Head the Girls in Tech Boston Chapter

Women in Tech: Pledge for Ada Lovelace

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