The Ph.D. Movie Part Two

The Ph.D. Movie: Part Two

The exciting and satisfying conclusion of the two-part Ph.D. movie series. I will not spoil the story line. As I shared with notes of the first part of this series, the actors are all real graduate students and professors. The story line is both humerus and painful. And much too real. This is required viewing for anyone in graduate school as a student or a professor. I found it enormously helpful as I think about the complicated lives of the graduate students. Be sure to subscribe to the Ph.D. comic strip. It is based on real life events of graduate students.

Recent Social Media Web Bookmarks

• Why Do You Retweet? | Social Media Today Practical reasons for retweeting other people's Twitter messages. Social media is about interaction, conversation, and synergy. When retweeting, add a short comment to add value to the retweet and establish your own expertise with the topic.(tags: Twitter social_media)
• 10 Rules To Help You Become A Super Hero Guest Poster | Social Media Today (tags: social_media blogs)
• 57 Social Media Policy Examples and Resources | Social Media Today Wonderful collection of how social media is managed and used at nearly 60 organizations. Their experiences provides a roadmap of things to do and not do with a new organization strategy for use of social media. (tags: social_media social_media_policies)
• 5 Ways To Get More Retweets on Twitter | Social Media Today (tags: Twitter social_media)
• 5 Lecturecasting Tools That I Can't Live Without (and Why) - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education I use ScreenFlow to record my class lectures through my laptop. It does a wonderful job of capturing the PowerPoint slides, video clips, and my voice. I use an inexpensive Radio Shack wireless microphone (about $50) and then post the Quicktime movie to the course management system. it requires student password to enter and view the video. Students report average to high satisfaction with the process. One student even commented that they liked it better than listening to me since they felt comfortable in stopping the lecture any time they want, rewinding, and watching again. Now that is what you call "remote control" over the lecture. :-) (tags: screen_capture lecture_capturing instructional_technology)
• Teaching with Omeka - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education A sophisticated online software program for creating digital projects by individuals or groups. (tags: Omeka digital_storytelling collaboration_tools)
• News: Web Re(design) - Inside Higher Ed The basic issue is making web pages friendly for the consumers and not only for the web page designers and those at the institution that give direction to the designers. Reminds me of need for focus groups of potential users to guide the web page design. (tags: web_pages web_page_design)
• Mass Video Courses May Free Up Professors for Personalized Teaching - Technology - The Chronicle of Higher Education I have often thought about separating out the sections of my class sessions that are lecture-focused and placing them online, while reserving the class time for more intense interaction among students and with me. Good ideas in this article. (tags: instructional_technology video_courses personalized_teaching)
• How to Start Tweeting (and Why You Might Want To) - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education (tags: Twitter social_media)
• Ask a question on society.me A new service that can be used to establish credibility of a person with a specific content area. It is a form of social networking (a la LinkedIn) that brings together people with questions and those with answers. (tags: Society, Ask_me_anything social_media)
• Why America Needs a Smithsonian of Basic Skills - Commentary - The Chronicle of Higher Education (tags: developmental_level_courses learning_assistance,_de,_access)
• Using Data to Inform College Access Programming in the 21st Century High School (Using DICAP) | data.ed.gov This is the I3 grant funded for the Council on Opportunity in Education. It focuses on use of data to improve programs and decision making leading to higher college stuccess rates. (tags: I3 COE data_driven_decision-making grants)
• University of Minnesota Mail - Announcing ChimeIn Created by Colin McFadden and team at the University of Minnestoa, Chimeln is a clicker system that uses mobile devices (smartphones, iPads) as a class response system. Check out the video tutorial (tags: Chimeln classroom_clickers student_response_system)
• Simple, Powerful Uses for Google Books - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education Great suggestions for using Google Books both for personal research as well as replacement or supplement of free books for students in classes. (tags: Google_books Google)
• Three Keys to Being a Subject Matter Expert on Twitter | Social Media Today (tags: Twitter social_media)
• Managing Twitter Favorites - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education Very practical suggestions for identifying and sharing favorite Tweets. I create a "badge" through Twitter and then embed into a web page where I display my favorited Tweets. Nice way to share with others as well as save for my future use. (tags: Twitter social_media)
• Top 10 Sites for Creating Surveys Great free sites for creating surveys. Some of the sites provide enhanced services for a monthly fee. SurveyMonkey is one of the ten. (tags: online_surveys apps)

New Internet Bookmarks for 2010-07-23

• How Social Networking Helps Teaching (and Worries Some Professors) - Technology - The Chronicle of Higher Education (tags: social_media Twitter Facebook instructional_technology)
• Ten Ways to Record a Screencast from your Compure Some of the choices are free (limited use) and others paid. The one that I use is also the one they rate #1, "ScreenFlow." It costs about $100 and is feature rich. It is the one to buy. (tags: screen_capture instructional_technology)
• From Access To Success: A funder's guide to higher education A report on how the planned giving community is targeting more resources to support college completion efforts. The report provides recommendations for improvement of graduation with special attention for developmental-level courses. (tags: college_completion foundations learning_assistance,_de,_access developmental_level_courses)
• OCR Those PDFs Make them searchable - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education (tags: PDF_documents searchable)
• Rebuilding the Remedial Bridge to College Success Describes how the Education Commission of the States along with the Lumina Foundation is working to improve developmental-level courses that are often essential for students to bridge into college with success. (tags: developmental_level_courses learning_assistance,_de,_access Lumina_Foundation GettingPastGo Education_Commission_of_the_States)
• Top 20 Websites No Teacher Should Start the 2010-2011 Year Without (tags: social_media instructional_technology on)
• The Alumni Organization Social Network Matrix: 18 Use Cases - alumni futures (tags: alumni college_graduates social_media)
• 18 Ways to use Social Media with College Alumni (tags: social_media alumni college_graduates)
• Technology Enhanced Learning University College Falmouth Lots of resources related to instructional technology by professionals from the U.K. (tags: instructional_technology social_media apps)
• Learning Technology professionals on Twitter A list of 100 instructional technology professionals. (tags: Twitter instructional_technology social_media)
• Liking the NGA's Tune on "Complete to Compete" - Rick Hess Straight Up - Education Week The National Governors Association is promoting increased college completion with existing resources and without lowering quality. (tags: college_completion NGA)

New Web Booksmarks for 2010-07-16

• Study Finds No Link Between Social-Networking Sites and Academic Performance - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education (tags: social_media Facebook Twitter)
• Mobile Marketing Best Practices for Nonprofit Organizations (tags: Mobile_Web_Pages text_messaging social_media)
• Getting Started with LinkedIn (tags: LinkedIn social_media training)
• New User Starter Guide - LinkedIn Learning Center (tags: LinkedIn social_media training)
• How to Use LinkedIn | BNET
  Practical guide on how to get the most out of LinkedIn. (tags: LinkedIn social_media training)

New Web Bookmarts for 2010-07-08

• 10 Reasons You’re Not Getting Followers on Twitter | Social Media Today Helpful tips for understanding Twitter culture and the dynamics of why people follow and unfollow others. Best tip: "The ideal Twitter profile should consist of about 30% conversational @replies, 30% retweets and 40% interesting broadcast tweets, hopefully with an opinion or link, of which only about 25% (10% of total tweets) are self-promotional. This tells me that a) you’re trying to add value, b) you’re reading others’ content, and c) you’re conversing and aren’t all “me, me, me”. It’s worth noting that all @reply conversation can be as bad as all broadcast, so try and stay balanced." (tags: Twitter social_media)
• Six Ways to Avoid Letting Your Computer Distract You - ProfHacker - The Chronicle of Higher Education Clever collection of free or inexpensive software applications to help you focus and not be distracted by email, social media, surfing favorite web sites, etc. They are designed to help you stay focused on your writing. (tags: apps writing_applications computer_distractions)
• Top 10 web sites for mind mapping and brainstorming Great collection of free web sites for students and teachers to create mind maps and brainstorm ideas.(tags: apps instructional_technology mind_mapping brainstorming)
• Top 10 web sites for creating music Nice collection of web sites for students and teachers to create mu ic. Most of the sites provide the music clips that can be arranged to create the music. (tags: apps music_creation instructional_technology)
• Ten online sites for creating timelines Nice collection of web sites for creating timelines for use by students and teachers. (tags: apps timeline instructional_technology)

Social Media Usefulness: New Web Bookmarks for 2010-07-07

• Admission Officials' Tweets Fall on Deaf Ears - Wired Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education
  While college admissions officers are using Twitter increasingly, many prospective students do not. The article is fine, but the comments by readers are golden. They identify a number of authors, research studies, and online materials that merit futher review.
  (tags: Twitter social_media student_recruiting return_on_investment)
• Social Networking Guidelines : eCommunication Standards : University of Minnesota
  Recommendations on rules and best practices for use of social media by units at the University of Minnesota.
  (tags: social_media Higher_Education_(General) Univ._of_Minnesota-Twin_Cities)
• Social Media in Higher Education: A Useful Marketing and Communication Tool, OIT, University of Minnesota
  A basic primer on the use of social media within higher education with examples, suggestions, and cautions to derive the most from it.
  (tags: social_media Eductional_Institutions)
• How to Measure Social Media ROI for Business
  Understanding the real impact of social media through careful measurement of results can lead to improving its use or deciding to cancel due to low results.
  (tags: social_media Evaluation_Research return_on_investment)

Google for Scholars: New Web Bookmarks for 2010-07-06

• Automating Research with Google Scholar Alerts
  Google will automatically find web items matching key words and send to your Google reader. Great way to automate some of your research
  (tags: Google apps Google_Scholar_Alerts scholarly_research)
• All Things Google: Gmail Labs
  Google provides chance for Gmail users to experiment with new features that are under beta testing by the Google development team. Try out adding to Gmail a widget for Google calendar, quick access to Google docs, text messaging, and a chance to recall emails just sent.
  (tags: Google apps Gmail Gmail_Labs)