Joe Sabado – Higher Education & Technology Leadership

This year has been an intense learning experience for me. It was a year of learning driven by curiosity, the need for background information for projects with folks I met via social media, and in preparation for major projects at work. In addition, a significant portion of my learning came through reading, mostly on my iPhone and kindle app. The topics I read include the following:

• Change & Innovation
• Communication – Public Speaking
• Communication – Writing
• General Business & Productivity
• Higher Education
• Information Technology
• Leadership/Management
• Technology (Social Media, Big Data, Wearable Computing, Cloud, Mobile, …)

For the most part, I went through these books by skimming and scanning them. I then went back and deep-read those I found really interesting and/or those requiring more analysis. There are some books that could have been better written, but I always start a book with an open mind so I try to find new ideas from them. However, there have been some books I have had to return (Amazon allows electronic refund within a couple of days after purchase) as I either found them to be too hard to read (the author uses too many big words I don’t understand and I fall asleep/get headaches), or ideas are not well thought out, or just not very interesting. I found that in reading enough books on similar topics, I came to find themes. It is during times when I could combine themes from across disciplines/industries and analyze them as they relate to my current work and future of higher education that I find myself thinking about possibilities of where my world could be heading.

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I attended the Western Regional Career in Student Affairs Day (WRCSAD) at Long Beach State University last Saturday as a member of the UCSB NASPA Undergraduate Fellowship Program (NUFP) group. This was my first student affairs conference aside from a student affairs technology conference (satech) in Rhode Island two years ago.  I met a few folks I have known via Twitter in person (face-to-face) for the first time. I was also pleasantly surprised to meet a few student affairs pros who told me they’ve been following me on Twitter. The sessions I attended, including “Reflections from Senior Student Affairs Professionals,” “Professionals of Color,” and “Research in Student Affairs,” really invigorated me and validated the work that I do with students and through technology. The opening and closing keynote speakers were dynamic and provided personal perspectives on why they chose student affairs as a career. Another session I attended was “Social Media in Student Affairs.” The panel provided insights on their personal/professional use of social media. The students and professionals in attendance also asked questions about issues/concerns they have about social media, and one even shared their hesitation about using it. As I listened to the discussion, I thought about the different ways I use social media and how student affairs use it. I was also thinking about the message from the opening keynote speaker, Dr. Dyrell Foster, Dean of Student Affairs from Rio Hondo College. Here are some of the topics he shared and how I think social media relate:

Congruence of personal and professional values:

Dr. Foster spoke about how his personal life experience and the values he learned from his family are consistent with his professional value system. I think the topic of “authenticity” comes up from time to time when it comes to how one represents themself on and off social media. Do we share/relate with others online as we do “face-to-face”? In addition, how much can we separate our personal and professional lives on social media? Similarly, when it comes to our work, how much can we separate our values/perspectives from our work?

What is your reputation/legacy?

Dr. Foster asked the questions of what will be your reputation and the legacy we will leave behind. I think reputation is subjective; it’s how others define you from their perspectives. As personal as it is, I believe through our consistent actions and what we share, we develop a reputation(s), and we do have the ability to shape how others view us based on how we act online or what we share through our Facebook statuses, Instagram photos, Vine and YouTube videos, tweets, Linkedin profiles, and our blogs. With regards to legacy, what we write has the potential to be read and shared by more folks than we probably intended and, in some cases, even become the foundation for new projects at individual and institutional levels.

Who are your mentors/who will you mentor?

Dr. Foster also reminded the audience that student affairs are a tiny field and that the student/pro we are sitting with may be the one who will hire you or will connect you to the person who will be able to help you. Thank your mentors, he also said. I’ve met a few folks via social media who I’ve come to respect and follow. These are folks in student affairs, higher education, and technology fields. Since joining Twitter on August 9, 2010, I’ve had the opportunity to share some of my personal experiences and advice with graduate students and other student affairs professionals. I consider mentoring a relationship, so my experience with others on social media may not be defined as “mentorship.” However, the potential for conversations that started via social media could lead to meaningful mentoring relationships.

 As student affairs professionals, our identities and value systems are very much related to our work. I think the enjoyment and satisfaction we receive from our jobs relate to how aligned our value systems are with our work. The folks around us and the communities we work with also matter. Our communities have become more extensive in this digital age than on our physical campus. Social media also changes our identities and the impact of what we do.

This post is about student affairs technology competency.  Actually, this post is an invitation for readers to contribute some ideas on how to define and assess student affairs technology competency. I believe it’s a very important issue to resolve for our profession. It  will require a group effort to generate some ideas to move the discussion moving forward. Admittedly, the proposed ideas and approach are rudimentary so feedback is welcomed.

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One benefit of formal education is that students are provided guidance throughout their learning process via the curriculum of their studies.  Students are given materials and resources to study from and good teachers not only provide the knowledge and expertise but act as mentors in the education process. Self-directed learners, those who are motivated to learn on their own outside the structure of formal education, face challenges students in formal settings may not necessarily have to deal with. They also have the freedom to design their learning experience that may not be available to students in formal institutions. I am one of those self-directed learners. Using social media and personal learning networks, I have been able to teach myself about topics related to student affairs including student development theory,  technology in student affairs, higher education issues, technology, instructional design, social media and management and leadership.

In the course of learning about these topics, I have had to also learn the process of learning itself. I have had to figure out how to use technology, including social media, and my personal learning networks towards my goal of learning about the aforementioned topics. When I joined twitter on August 9, 2010, I could not have imagined the power of personal learning network and powerful social media are when it comes to informal learning. I have learned a lot since then and the learning process included adjustments along the way. Based on my experience, here are some ideas to consider:

Identify areas of study to pursue. For example, I wanted to learn about student affairs but I didn’t know where to start. I reviewed several student affairs graduate programs online to determine topics to study. In addition, I also regularly monitored topics being discussed on #sachat and #highered.  Monitoring the two hashtags provided me a sense of who are the credible contributors/thinkers which led me to reading their blogs.

Experiment with learning resources and adjust accordingly.  When I shared a diagram of my “social learning network” on twitter, there were a couple of folks who couldn’t believe the number of social networks I use. The diagram actually includes social networking sites I experimented with but may not use regularly. I had to figure out which sites are best suited for learning specific topics. There are sites like Quora and Google+ I rarely use now since I don’t find these sites as valuable as twitter and blogs when it comes to learning about student affairs and higher ed. In the last year, I discovered e-books (kindle) and added them my learning resources. I also started using Evernote as a site to store pretty much anything including notes, photos, web clippings, etc. The beauty and danger of the web and social media is that while there are so much information to consume, it’s easy to get distracted and waste time reading materials not relevant to your areas of study. I think part of digital literacy is the ability to recognize which resources are credible and which ones should be filtered and ignored.

Have a plan and a self-imposed discipline to go with it. There are no deadlines to meet and professors to nudge you to keep learning. Having a plan, including what areas of topics to learn and when to focus on them, is very important. However, be flexible enough in your plan to allow opportunities for experimentation.

This post was meant to provide some general approach to using social media and personal learning networks for self-directed learning. I hope you were able to get some ideas you can apply towards your informal learning. What other ideas would you add?

image credit: http://jfondas.wordpress.com

Social media in higher education can and should be used beyond marketing and communication purposes. Higher ed institutions are using social media in various ways.  Scholars such as Dr. Rey Junco has done research on the relationship of twitter and facebook and student engagement in the classroom. Purdue University is a leader in using social media and mobile to enhance student learning and connection in and outside the classroom.   In the course of doing personal research on various aspects of social media and technology use for student learning and development, the more questions come to mind.  As someone who is involved in promoting social media at my university, I often wonder what my other colleagues beyond my organization of student affairs are doing with social media. What topics are being discussed, what are the opportunities and issues? Who at my university are experimenting with social media in ways never done before?  How do we learn and integrate what others outside our university have done? These questions led me to the question of what if we have a group/a forum to at our university to discuss and explore the impact and significance of social media?

The idea of a university wide forum to discuss social media is nothing new. A social media council at Boston College was recently created “to promote collaboration, share best practices and set a strategic direction for strengthening the University’s overall social media presence”.  Beyond efforts towards marketing and communication, I think institutions should also look at the impact and opportunities of social media and technology in how we function as learning institutions. Here are some topics to discuss:

• How do we use social media as part of our business?
• How do we use social media for student engagement for improved retention?
• How are  web 2.0 and social media shaping pedagogy and learning theories including connectivism?
•  How can we utilize social media for alternative professional development?
• How do we handle issues including copyrights, plagiarism, ethics?
• Digital Identity – what does it mean?
• How do we use social media for lifetime engagement and advancement?
• How does social media and technology fit into student development theories and how do we apply them in practice?

I would like to form a group for my university to have these conversations. If you have ideas or have experience you can add to help me start and make this a productive group, I would love to hear them. What other topics would you discuss?