Sloan-C Conference

I’m in San Francisco right now attending the Sloan-C Conference on Emerging Technologies.  Today was the pre-conference session day and I was lucky enough to present during a workshop as part of a team discussing the use of Web 2.0 technologies and Cloud Computing for Student Services. I was asked to be part of the group by a man from the University of Illinois who presented at the Sloan conference last fall in Orlando.

I really like workshop sessions because it seems to be much more about the discussions than about providing content and today’s session was no exception. I was fortunate enough to meet several new people who all had fantastic questions, input, and experiences that they shared.  The other members of the presentation team discussed how they’re using wikis and google apps in their library, and how they’re using jing for screen captures and videos. I presented about how World Campus is using Facebook, twitter, Second Life, etc to build community and strengthen relationships between the university and all of our online students.  Lots of great questions were asked and fantastic discussion occured.  Sometimes it just takes someone giving you an example or talking about things from a different perspective for those doors to open up and then you begin to see opportunities you might not have considered before.

Huge thanks to everyone for participating and attending the session. I look forward to the sessions to come and I’m really glad to be here in such a wonderful city!

zen

Ever since I made the decision to only post work-related things on this blog, I find myself rarely using this blog at all. It’s certainly not that I’ve stopped working, but I think that when I’m feeling creative and in the mood to blog, I want to blog about things that are informal or personal and so they don’t end up here. Not sure that’s a great thing, but that’s where it stands for now.

This past Friday we had a work retreat.  Most work retreats I’ve been on through the years have basically consisted of going to an outside location – typically a conference room or meeting location, and we’ve spent the day working on a specific project or focused on a specific goal.  This past Friday, however, I was lucky enough to attend a retreat that truly felt like a retreat  – at the O’an Zendo Center here in Julian, Pennsylvania.  The O’an Zendo center is “devoted to the practice and teaching of Zen Buddhism” and it was a day to renew ourselves and our spirits and really take time to relax, refocus, and slow down.  I think our entire team needed this retreat more than we’ve needed a lot of things lately, and I am so thankful that I had an entire day to spend there.

We spent the day relaxing, learning about each other in ways that some might think are odd (touching each others hands, walking around each other in a large room with hardwood floors and huge windows with a view of the trees outside), and really looking at ourselves.  It was such a rare experience to have one day where you were told to do what you needed to do (including taking a nap if you felt you needed to)  because that’s what your body needed.  We had no technology, no pressures, no multi-tasking of things demanding our attention – just deep breaths, relaxation, and an awareness that we are all part of a bigger picture.  It was a really moving experience for several team members, including myself, and I find myself attempting to meditate now, even if it’s just for a few minutes to bring myself back to center and regain perspectives and focus.

I am so grateful to have spent the day learning about buddhism and meditation and even more thankful to have been able to learn those things as part of my work.

speaking with danah boyd

Yesterday was the TLT Symposium at Penn State and I was lucky enough to attend and be on the program committee this year. The symposium is always wonderful and this year the speakers were David Wiley and danah boyd – both fantastic.  It’s so energizing to hear people speak about things that you’re passionate about and watching people becoming excited, getting ideas, and learning from each other is so inspiring. I had two ‘favorite moments’ from the day. My favorite thing yesterday was listening to danah boyd talk about social networks and then getting to meet her afterward.  My second favorite moment was hearing an older professor stand up in a session about ‘friending’ on Facebook between instructors and students and talk about how important it is to him to have those personal connections with his students.

photo by colecamplese

TLT Symposium was a wonderful event, as always. Huge thanks to everyone that worked so hard to pull it all together.

TLT Symposium – reimagine

The TLT Symposium is coming up at Penn State and this year’s theme is ‘reimagine’. As we think about education and how things have changed in teaching and learning with technology, we start to reimagine the concepts of teacher/student and what exactly a ‘typical’ classroom is these days.

Leading up to the symposium, we recorded a podcast talking about our theme, the event, and the excitement that’s building.

Listen here!

Catching Up

Spring always seems to be such a busy time of year, but it’s the *good* kind of busy. The kind of busy where you feel creative, energized, and full of new ideas. It’s as though when the flowers start to push through the ground, we awaken as well and this feeling of newness spreads over everyone.

There are lots of exciting things going on at work these days, not the least of which is having the entire third floor of our current building move into a brand-new building and then have the rest of our staff move around into newly renovated areas in the current building. We currently have several people telecommuting and this change will mean that all of our team will be together again in our own dedicated space and I am personally very excited about it. I’m one of the telecommuters and I love working from home – I really do. There are, however, things I miss about working outside the office, too. I miss laughing and joking around with co-workers. I miss the energy and fun, I miss looking at photos of people’s families on their desks and I miss the spontaneous “meetings” with friends. I am very much looking forward to this summer when we’ll all be together and in the office again. I love change and this is exciting stuff.

We’ve also purchased another Second Life island and I’ve been hard at work there creating additional spaces to represent the university, spaces for students, and spaces for ‘fun’. We’re planning on a ‘beach party’ on the last day of classes as a way to celebrate the end of the semester and give our students a fun way to connect and meet each other.

We’re also in the process of developing a student blog, and talking about ways to use podcasts for our students. I’m personally excited about using video in a more personal way as well.

Lots of really exciting things happening and hopefully lots to share in the near future!

Penn State Dance Marathon

Officially Open

You may (or may not) have heard that last Wednesday was the official opening of the PSU World Campus island in the virtual world of Second Life. We’re using this space to give our online students their own ‘campus experience’ just like students on Penn State’s other campuses. If you ask undergraduate students the one thing they’ll always remember about Penn State, you’d have trouble finding a student on a physical campus that would mention anything at all about their courses, classwork, or ANGEL. They all mention things like The Diner, the creamery, and football games. The things they take with them from Penn State, are the social/outside the classroom things where they connect and meet other students. Using a virtual space like Second Life gives us a way to provide those sort of experiences for our students, too.

On Wednesday we spent a little over 12 hours meeting with students, colleagues and co-workers in Second Life. There were students from the US, Spain, and France, all ‘meeting’ each other for the first time.  Two of our students actually learned that they live very close to each other in Virginia and had no idea!  It was a wonderful time and really helped the students feel like a part of World Campus and a part of Penn State.  They said things like, “It is incredible the way a student can be involved with this university”, “I think it is an incredible environment ..I can interact with many people that live hundred of kilometers away from me”, and “I’ve been to several colleges over the years (including another major university in Ga Tech) and they always made me feel like just a number even when I was actually living on campus…Penn State feels more like a big extended family”.

The Penn State World Campus space in Second Life is a space for all of us – not just our students.  If we think about our co-workers in extension, located all over the state, or our telecommuters working outside the Outreach Building, or colleagues located all over campus, meeting in Second Life is an incredibly convenient, inexpensive way to connect with each other.  Having a community of Outreach employees, students, and even Penn State alumni having conversations and learning about each other starts to build a community of people that truly care about their experience and about Penn State.

Exciting Things Coming Up

This Wednesday, January 28 we will be hosting the official opening of our Second Life presence at PSU World Campus island in Second Life.  The island will be staffed all day from 8am-5pm Eastern Time so if you’re in Second Life, please stop by and say hello! We’ll have a snazzy World Campus polo shirt for you and you’ll get to spend time exploring our space.

This Friday evening, January 23 we’ll also be hosting a benefit concert at PSU World Campus island in Second Life to raise money for the Penn State Dance Marathon (THON).  Second Life musician, Rich DeSoto will be performing live starting at 8PM Eastern time. Come listen to some fantastic music, dance with us, and help raise money for an amazing cause.

Next Thursday, January 29, our last THON benefit concert in January will be held in Second Life.  Jax Streeter will be performing to help us, once again, raise money for the Penn State Dance Marathon.

Of Work, By Work and For Work

I’ve decided to make some blog-related changes so listen up!

This blog will from here on out be *only* about things related to my position and what’s happening at work. Things that are coming up, things I’m working on, etc.  None of my personal opinions or rants/viewpoints/perspectives will be found on this blog.  If you’d like to keep up with my personal blog, please visit http://www.mediacupcake.com and add that to your RSS Reader.  I’ve been double-posting here and there for a while now, but I think it’s time for a separation. I find myself wanting more and more to post at mediacupcake, but I know that a lot of folks are still following me here as well.

So, for all work-related news.. this is still the spot.  For anything else (personal feelings, opinions, reviews, videos, input, etc) please visit mediacupcake.com.

Please keep in mind that things non-work related will obviously show up on my personal blog. These could potentially include things that you might not care to see or follow and if that’s the case, then I’d just continue to stick with this blog.  My personal blog will contain things that I personally love (hence the reason it’s a PERSONAL blog) and I think that knowing someone’s opinions and interests tends to increase your connection with them as a person.

Thank you, and as always, I appreciate your patience as we move through this difficult time. (tee-hee)

The Popular Crowd

Doesn’t it seem like lately, there’s more and more discussion about twitter followers, being popular, and how to NOT be boring online? Maybe it’s just me, but I swear that every day I think I see more blog posts, tweets and discussions about this and I honestly just don’t get it.

It frustrates me to hear people talk about how many followers they have – there are people out there that seem to obsess over this and make a big deal about people un-following them – why? Why is that a concern for you? I guess I could understand it if you were a company and people were deciding not to listen to you – you might want to think about what your message is or how you might better engage your audience, but if you’re just you? Just a normal person like everyone else.. why does it matter how many twitter followers, or Facebook friends you have? Why is that important to you?

Just a few days ago I saw at least three different comments about how if someone isn’t listening to you, you must be ‘boring’ or not ‘worthy’ of being paid attention to. The other day on twitter I followed someone that I thought I could potentially learn something from and was greeted with an auto-response follow asking me if I’d seen a specific blog post on how to get more followers. It irritated me so much that I immediately unfollowed. It is NOT about the numbers, folks.. it’s about connections, networks, learning, growing, and listening. It’s about having conversations and expanding your perspectives. It’s about collaborating and interacting with each other. This is not junior high school – it’s not about your popularity.

Chris Brogan had a fantastic post today about exactly this sort of thing – perfect timing. Here’s an excerpt:

“I think people get confused by numbers. I am followed by 33,000 folks on Twitter. I had 245,000 unique visitors last month. I’m #6 in Advertising Age’s Power 150, #68 in the Technorati Top 100. Numbers, numbers, numbers. I think that’s part of the problem.

Because, even though I use those numbers as a gauge of what I’m doing here, what I spend my time and attention on is making connections. Many hours out of every day go into making relationships with you. Look at any given page of my twitter traffic. Realize that I’m my own #1 commenter on this blog. I spend hours every day answering email and phone calls from folks who often times want nothing more than to connect.”

Read the entire post here.

When I commented yesterday on twitter about this sort of thing, I received a response from a new follower that basically said “yes, but most people ARE boring!”. I just don’t agree with that. I think every single person on this planet has a unique story and if we had the time to listen to them all, I think we’d be amazed at how fascinating we all are.

So please, can we move past the numbers and popularity game and just try to treat each other with respect and consideration knowing that it’s not about winning – it’s about connecting and learning from each other.