Monthly Archive for June, 2011

Academics and Colleges Split Their Personalities for Social Media

Published on June 25, 2011 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

By Jeffrey R. Young, The Chronicle of Higher Education

Rosemary G. Feal, executive director of the Modern Language Association, recently experienced something of an identity crisis through her use of social media.

Crashed on the couch at home one night, she sat watching the premiere of the PBS documentary Freedom Riders and tweeting her reactions to the film’s footage of civil-rights activists in the 1960s. After posting more than a dozen updates, she realized she was using the Twitter account she had set up for work, @mlaconvention, referring to the MLA’s annual meeting, where she began using the microblogging service a few years ago. Although nothing she typed was inappropriate, her short messages had little to do with her role as leader of a professional association of language and literature professors and scholars counting 30,000 members.

“I realized after two hours of live-tweeting that that wasn’t MLA-convention tweeting, that was Rosemary Feal, and she better have her own account,” Ms. Feal told me recently. Just a few hours after the documentary ended, she created a second Twitter account, @rgfeal, which she now uses for purely personal observations. She still posts to @mlaconvention for association-related comments. Occasionally she posts a message to both accounts.

Many professors and higher-education leaders are struggling to strike a balance between their personal and professional lives when using online social media, a realm that encourages widespread sharing of thoughts and opinions. Often that means creating multiple accounts, one for each of the hats they wear. Some professors use Facebook with friends and family, reserving Twitter for professional observations, or vice versa. Professors now have what amount to “daily me” networks online, with many outlets.

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Video: Innovators Present Their Ideas on How to Energize Education

Published on June 17, 2011 in News. 0 Comments

By Staff, eSchoolNews.com

In our recent story “Entrepreneurial ‘boot camp’ reveals ed-tech innovations,” we reported on how nearly two dozen people with big ideas for education received business advice as part of Kauffman Labs’ endeavor to spur school innovation.

Participants in the camp unveiled their ideas June 7 at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The 23 people who won a seat in Kauffman’s laboratory out of more than 1,000 applicants are spawning a wealth of ideas to invigorate the way schools work and how to educate children.

Now, Kauffman Labs has released a series of videos on each of the participants and their ideas. (The videos shown here are only a few of the many available at the organization’s website.)