Joe Sabado – Higher Education & Technology Leadership

“Business intelligence refers to the skills, processes, technologies, applications and practices used to leverage an organization’s internal and external information assets to support and improve decision making. The purpose of business intelligence is to support the mission and goals of the institution through the enablement of fact based decision making. Its popularity is growing within higher education as institutions address an increased demand for accountability and complex enterprise wide requirements.”  Source: CollegiateProject.com

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I firmly believe that having some historical/theoretical knowledge and understanding of the purpose of student affairs have provided me a better perspective and appreciation of the use and impact of technology in student affairs. The knowledge and understanding have helped me in my role as a technology implementer/user for the Division of Student Affairs at UC Santa Barbara. I became familiar with contemporary issues, student development theories, history, and principles of student affairs through self-directed learning by reading textbooks, social media, and engaging with my personal learning network. It is with this perspective and background that I think about what would a course on technology in student affairs. What elements should this course contain so all student affairs professionals, regardless of their educational and previous professional background can use technology within the purpose of student affairs?

The idea of designing a course about technology in student affairs entered my mind from time to time the last few months but I never really committed to exploring what this course would even look like. I just recently began to explore this idea again as a result of my involvement with a professional development committee charged with defining the curriculum for new student affairs professionals at UCSB. I would like to include an introductory course about technology in student affairs as a part of the curriculum. One of the goals of the 1 year cohort-based program is to set a foundation of core competencies. The intended audiences are:

• Professionals who recently completed student affairs graduate programs
• Professionals who have student affairs administrative experience, but without formal student affairs graduate training
• Professionals newly entering students affairs from other industries or fields within higher education

What I find interesting is that based on this post by Eric Stoller, it seems student affairs graduate programs do not offer courses in technology. This is an issue that Eric has raised for discussion several times.  What topics then should be included in a technology course to provide new professionals theoretical/practical knowledge to do their job effectively?

Here are some elements I think should be considered given the audience and the purpose of providing theoretical/practical knowledge to new student affairs professionals:

General Introduction to Student Affairs (Principles, History). Effective use of technology in student affairs must start with understanding how technology should be used with the purpose of student affairs in mind. Ideally, it would also be nice to have an overview of the history/purpose of the student affairs on the audience’s campus.

Student Development/Ecology Theories. Theories can serve as guides to understanding how technology impacts student learning and personal development. How technology impacts digital identity, student engagement, retention, and learning are key issues

History of Technology in Student Affairs. I have read Kevin Guidry’s research on the history of student affairs technology including the topic of technology as a competency and his research provided me a greater appreciation of how technology has impacted the student affairs profession as way back as the 1920’s. Social media, mobile, and cloud computing are the technologies used today but I think it’s important to recognize the evolution of technology as drivers and as tools to accommodate the needs given the time periods.

Innovation and Change Management. Most of the issues I have encountered (and requiring most attention) throughout my years of implementing technology solutions have not been the technologies themselves. Effectively communicating changes, managing people’s expectations and dealing with stress/conflicts resulting from ambiguities and uncertainties have been keys to successful projects. Some participants in this course may be leading/implementing technology projects in the futures and most certainly, all participants will be impacted by the introduction of new technologies as end-users.

Assessment. The effectiveness/impact of technology use should be measured for the purpose of accountability and improving its use with respect to the programs/services it is being applied.

Frameworks for understanding technology use. This document, “Guidelines for Creating Student Services Online“, categorizes the different uses of technology to provide online student services. Technology is also used throughout student affairs for administrative and employee support services. Viewing technology use from different perspectives can provide the audience wi

Current and Future of Student Affairs and How to Prepare/Adapt. Student affairs does not exist in a vacuum. Globalization, internationalization, economic changes, changing demographics, and technological advances are just a few variables impacting the role of student affairs in higher education. How do we, as a profession and as individuals, prepare ourselves so we can adapt to meet the changes? How can we better understand the needs/wants of our current students and how do we tailor technology to meet them?

Ethics/Legal/Confidentiality Considerations. As end-users, educators and providers, we need to practice appropriate and ethical use of technology and within the boundaries of  campus, state, federal policies/guidelines. Part of this discussion includes developing decision-making frameworks
in navigating between policies and practices that may well be in conflict with each other.

Ideally, this course should be flexible enough to be offered as a one-day introductory course or as part of a masters program curriculum. Content can either be expanded or some may be excluded/generalized depending on the purpose of the course. While this course is intended for new professionals, those who have in student affairs for years could benefit from this course.

What other elements would you add? How should the course be organized?

Ideas for this course came from links provided within the post as well as the following:

• Envisioning the Future of Student Affairs (NASPA)
• What is Technology in Student Affairs? (Kristen Abell)
• Campus Ecology Theory and Websites: One Example of Applying Traditional Student Affairs Theory to Technology
• Four Elements of Technology in Student Affairs (Dr. Will Barratt)
• Technology, Student Affairs and Graduate Programs (Eric Stoller/Dr. Leslie Dare)
• Is Student Affairs Still Relevant for the 21st Century?
• EAC 595C – Technology in Student Affairs (Dr. Leslie Dare)
• SAA 701 Student Affairs and Technology Course (Dr J Vianden)
• New Realities in the Management of Student Affairs: Emerging Specialist Roles and Structures for Changing Times
• Technology in Student Affairs: Supporting Student Learning and Services: New Directions for Student Services, Number 112 (J-B SS Single Issue Student Services)
• College 2020
• Student Affairs Programs and Technology (Joe Sabado)
• StudentAffairs.com 2004 Virtual Case Study – University of West Florida (ppt)
• StudentAffairs.com 2004 Virtual Case Study Entries

Don’t you just hate it when you’re in a meeting and you share an idea but get ignored, yet another person says it and the room acknowledges the idea? What if you’re the other person who is acknowledged?

I was speaking with a student recently about this unfortunate experience. in her situation, she had proposed a topic to be included in a curriculum but it was ignored by the people in the room. However, when a male faculty member mentioned the same topic, it was readily accepted. My first reaction was that the other person’s position as faculty member might have been the factor as to why this happened. However, she tells me these unfortunate situations typically involve males. As a male, I am not always cognizant of my privileges based on my gender.

We all carry privileges we may not always be aware of. These could include any influence we have in our organizations based on formal titles or stature. While It’s probably easier to notice when we are ignored and get frustrated,  let us all be more cognizant about how others are being treated. When appropriate, use whatever privilege we may have and be the one to make sure their ideas are heard and appreciated.

“We design for end-users and we (developers) are not the end-users” – this was a quote I once read in a software development book. In designing student information systems and related systems, the customer perspectives, which include students, staff/faculty, and parents cannot be ignored. This concept may sound simple and naive but within the realities of a bureaucratic campus, it’s very easy for staff, including myself, to forget the end-users of the systems. Politics, financial constraints, mandates, siloed thinking, and personal motivations of those involved in the process impact the decisions driving the project  and derail from the purpose of the systems. The customer perspective is different from campus providers. While the campus may be divided into organizational hierarchies and divisions for bureaucratic reasons, customers may not necessarily view their college experience based on how the campus is organized. Websites generally reflect the structure of the campus bureaucracy. Lack of coordination, conflicting priorities and misunderstood policies can lead to disjointed systems, inconsistent user interfaces, and isolated/duplicate data.

Keeping the customer perspective and needs in mind, thinking holistically, and designing systems to minimize/eliminate pain points at the “moments of truth” when customers interact with the system, are considerations included in the diagram below. Click on the image to view the full size version.

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