Posts Tagged ‘education’

Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012

Spike Lee retweet threatens an elderly couple’s safety

As the controversy surrounding the murder of Trayvon Martin continues, more problems are popping up around it, such as an elderly couple feeling unsafe in their own home. Twitter user Marcus D. Higgins took to the social network last week to make known the supposed address of the man that shot Martin, George W. Zimmerman. He tweeted the address to a large amount of users that had tweeted about the case, such as Spike Lee. Lee retweeted the address to his 240,000 followers.

But it turned out that the address was not the address of the Zimmerman that shot Martin. It was actually the home of David McClain and his wife, Elaine. Elaine was previously married to a man with the last name of Zimmerman and George W. is her son. George has not lived at that address in seven years. David and Elaine had to flee to a hotel because of hate mail and people showing up at their house. Lee has since apologized and agreed to compensate them for the disruption.

NBA introduces line of Twitter handle t-shirts

Last week, the NBA began selling official t-shirts that feature the Twitter handles of some of the big names in the league, such as Jeremy Lin, Dwyane Wade, and Kevin Durant. The front of the shirts display a hashtag along with the logo of the player’s team. The back of the shirts are jersey-style, only instead of the player’s name above their number, it displays the player’s Twitter handle.

The NBA has always been one of the more social-savvy pro-sports leagues, and this idea seems to be a first in pro sports. Websites have sold t-shirts with similar ideas, and other sports leagues have featured Twitter handles on jerseys, this seems to be the first time a professional sports league has sold merchandise featuring Twitter handles. Would you wear one?

High school student expelled for tweeting profanity

Mere months before graduation, Austin Carroll was expelled from his Indiana high school for a tweet containing the “f-bomb.” The tweet was sent from his own home and from his personal account.

The problem is that the school told Carroll’s mother, Pam Smith, that Carroll was accessing Twitter from a school-issued laptop, although Carroll says that he was on his personal computer. Carroll is now attending an alternative high school and will be able to receive a diploma, but reports that he is disappointed that he won’t be able to partake in popular senior-year activities such as prom.

This only one of the several current examples of schools disciplining students for content posted on social networks. All examples are surrounded by controversy and debate because right now, the U.S. Supreme Court has not made clear how schools can punish students in cases involving social media.

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Weekly Wrap – Twitter Tuesday

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

Elon’s iMedia Twitter scholarship

Elon University is taking social media in education to a new place: the application process. The iMedia program at Elon is holding a Twitter contest from December 1 to March 15, in which two winners will receive $3,000 scholarships. The scholarship will be for applicants of the M.A. in Interactive Media program.

The contest asks prospective students to tweet about how the iMedia program will shift their career in new directions. Prospective students have to compose a single tweet answering that question and include mention of the program’s Twitter handle (@elonimedia) and the hashtag #shiftimedia.

The director of Elon’s M.A. in Interactive Media program, David Copeland, told E-Net! News, “This year, through one of the most interactive social media tools, we wanted to offer prospective iMedia students a creative and fun way to realize the value of a master’s degree in Interactive Media.”

Twitter rolling out self-serve advertising platform

Twitter has begun rolling out a self-serve advertising platform that will allow advertisers to buy advertisements directly through Twitter instead of going through a sales rep. The platform is currently being tested with a handful of existing advertisers and is slowly rolling out to everyone else. The rumor mill has been talking about this self-serve ad platform for a while, and the platform finally arrived in November.

The platform allows advertisers to easily buy promoted tweets, trends, or accounts. With the platform, advertisers can choose a product, set a price and duration and pay with a credit card through their web browser. Since it is still in test mode, only tweets and accounts can be purchased right now.

Xeni Jardin live tweets mammogram

It may no longer be Breast Cancer Awareness Month, but Xeni Jardin, technology writer and co-editor of Boing Boing, raised awareness last Thursday by live tweeting a mammogram appointment. Since two of her friends were diagnosed with breast cancer earlier this year, she went to get a mammogram as a precaution, but has since found out that she has breast cancer.

Jardin’s experience was full of social media influences. She tweeted pictures (or as she called it, “Instagrammed her mammogram”) from the clinic of the equipment and of herself in the robe the center provides that she said “make you feel like its gonna be ok.” She also created the hashtag #myfirstmammo. Finally, she even found the Pink Lotus Breast Center via Yelp and mentioned their Twitter account in her tweets.

Since getting the results of the mammogram and confirming the results that she has breast cancer, the support from the Twitter community has been huge. She continues to tweet about what is to come and is encouraging her followers to go get mammograms.

#Cainwreck

You’ve probably heard that Herman Cain has suspended his bid for presidential nomination. However, you may not know that in his announcement, he quoted lyrics from a song from the Pokemon movie and ironically referred to his new website as “Plan B.” In the Twitterverse, fodder like that doesn’t go unnoticed.

The Twitterverse started talking about the announcement before it even happened, with the hashtag #possibleHermanCainAnnouncements trending. Once Cain’s announcement started, the tweets didn’t slow down. His quoting Pokemon got so many people talking about it that several topics about and characters from Pokemon began trending. The Twitterverse also came up with #Cainwreck to refer to the announcement and the hashtag trended.

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Kids “Yahooing” College Life

Thursday, July 28th, 2011

As another fall semester rolls around, Yahoo! began to notice some search trends.  College related searches have increased as the summer is coming to its second half, showing all those who are excited and nervous about their first year away from home.  Teens preparing for college are turning to the internet for advice on their freshman year.

Survival tips

Kids have been looking up ways to help them through the year and live comfortably.  Some of these searches include “how to survive freshman year,” “how to make friends,” “styles for freshman back to school,” “list of items for college freshman,” “dorm checklist,” “dorm bedding,” “dorm room ideas,” “how to make scrambled eggs,” “how to cook spaghetti,” and of course “how to do laundry.”

 

ALPHA GAMMA PHI?

 

Many incoming freshman have also been looking up information about Greek Life, which is very popular at many schools.  Some researched “reasons to join Greek life,” “Greek life policies,” “fraternity hazing,” “best fraternity houses,” what is fraternity hazing,” “how to know if a sorority is right for you,” “sorority initiation,” “sorority paddling stories,” and “sorority hazing pics.”  Clearly girls and boys are both worried about being accepted into these brother and sister organizations!

 

Oh yeah, We’re Here to go to School

 

Students have also been Yahooing how to grow up.  Thinking about their future, kids have looked up “what should I major in?,” “how to choose a major,” “how to save money,” “tuition,” “student loans,” “how to make a budget,” “cheap textbooks,” “internships,” and “rent textbooks.”

The internet and search engines, like Yahoo!, are helping kids prepare for college they best way they know how—by looking everything up on the internet!  Good luck to all incoming freshman; have fun and work hard!

 

WFLSQD

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National Teacher Day – Mr. Hoppa’s Salute to Great Educators

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011

National Teacher Day is a date for students, parents, and the community to recognize the importance of great teachers. It reminds us to thank and honor the educators in our lives that work tirelessly to teach their students in interesting and exciting ways. Day in and day out, teachers struggle with issues such as low school budgets and griping kids, yet many continue to be inspired to deliver a quality education to their students.

It is rumored that National Teacher Day began around 1944, when an Arkansas teacher named Mattye Whyte Woodridge came up with the idea and began writing to his local political and education leaders. Surprisingly, Woodridge was able to correspond with Eleanor Roosevelt, who agreed with the idea of a National Day for teachers and pushed for it to be passed in Congress in 1953. Unfortunately, it took another 32 years and the persuasion of the National Education Association for the day to be declared a National Holiday in 1985.

It seems like everyone can remember at least one, if not a dozen, teachers who truly made a difference in their life. Maybe they sparked your interest in a subject that would eventually become your career. Maybe they went above and beyond their assigned responsibilities and acted as a support system in a time of struggle for you or your child. Whatever the case may be, thank your favorite teacher today!

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Over One Million K-12 Graders Enrolled in Online Classes

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

Online classes used to be exclusively for college students, but now K-12 education is integrating online education into their curriculum. The addition of online classes is controversial since many see it as an easy way to comply with budget cuts in education.

Proponents emphasize the opportunity for online classes to offer not only an easy way to make up credits but also provide a wider range of electives and Advanced Placement courses when there are not enough interested students  to fill a classroom.

The largest growth of online education is make-up courses for students who have failed a class. The advantage being, the student now has the opportunity to work at his or her own pace.

However, critics are less than enthused as they see online education as a disguise to cut down on the number of teachers and school buildings especially with recent budget cuts to education. There is also no research suggesting that online education is comparable to face-to-face learning.

An accredited school in Memphis actually requires their high school students to enroll in at least one online course in order to graduate. Officials at Memphis City Schools hope to provide their students with the necessary skills they will need at college where online classes are becoming increasingly common.

Similar to Memphis, the state superintendent of education in Idaho, Mr. Luna, has plans to require high school students to take at least four online courses once legislature passed providing each student with a laptop.

“We can educate more students at a higher level with limited resources, and online technology and courses play a big part in that,” he said.

Some schools have seen an increase in the number of graduation students due to the option of online classes, but it seems only time will tell whether online courses are comparable to classroom learning with the addition of research.

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Social Media Playing Larger Role In College Admission Process

Monday, February 28th, 2011

The latest buzz that college recruiters are using Facebook and other social media sites to learn more about prospective students seems more like a confirmation of social media’s expansion as a business tool than a revelation.

Still, Kaplan’s report that says 82 percent of surveyed college recruiters use Facebook to recruit students is yet another eye opener to those who think their presentation on social media sites have no lasting consequences.

Others have chimed in on the subject, including Harvard interviewer Allison Otis. Otis confirms that Facebook is used when weeding through candidates and the impression left by social media sites can influence a final decision – sometimes for the worse.

Of course, there is a flip side to that.

Both Otis and Dean Tsouvalas, editor of StudentAdvisor, say that social media can be used to students’ advantages if managed responsibly.

“It is okay to be online doing your thing on social networks, just be smart and savvy about it, and use your skills to your advantage. Seize the opportunity to sell yourself and your assets to the schools you want to go to…” Tsouvalas said in his blog.

Using Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as a way to market yourself as a knowledgeable and engaged student can do nothing but help the cause. Tsouvalas mentioned linking to a recruitment video in applications as an example of showcasing a student’s extracurriculars before recruiters get a chance to discuss them.

Some seem to already understand that method. Kaplan disclosed that four of five surveyed recruiters admitted to being sent or knowing of colleagues being sent friend requests from applicants. It’s interesting that this new generation of social media users understand selling themselves on these platforms to get a jump on the recruitment process.

Of course for every on-the-ball student utilizing social networking proactively, there are five students who don’t get it. Listing Millard Fillmore as an interest could be beneficial. Listing Miller Lite as an interest would be the opposite of that.

While social media originally was all about having fun and networking with similar-aged peers, those days have long passed. For those who insist on broadcasting less professional status updates, quotes, photos, videos, etc, – changing privacy settings can certainly help. But the network is massive now and as social media grows up, so must its users.

So fear not, social users. In fact, get used to it, embrace it even.

It’s already well-known that employers scope out social profiles when looking at candidates. This is only the logical next step.

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Back on Track: Can GPS Get Students To Stay In School?

Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011

In news that will surely make 12 to 18-year-olds around the nation rejoice, Anaheim Union School District in California announced it will be implementing a 6-week trial program that will use GPS to track the whereabouts of truant students.

About 75 students, with their parents’ consent, agreed to be a part of the program which is targeting those who have had four or more unexcused absences in a year.

Each student will be given a hand-held GPS device (which actually looks like a bomb detonator from 90′s action movies) and will be made to check in five specific times during the day: leaving for school, arriving at school, lunchtime, when they leave school and – oddly enough – 8 p.m.

As if that wasn’t enough to make them feel like a convicted felon, students will be called throughout the week by a “coach” in order to discuss how to maintain this new-found punctuality. None of which are likely to include the words “ankle” or “bracelet”.

To be honest, the program has the right idea. It’s targeting kids who seem to be disenchanted with the school system and trying to get them to kick bad habits early. These aren’t even the students who care enough to forge a note or have their best friend call in with a ridiculous deep-voice, mind you. These are the ones who don’t care enough to come with an excuse for playing hooky at all.

Furthermore, letting children skip school unexcused is a crime, so this is more of a wake-up call for parents who either haven’t been aware of the absences or simply didn’t care. A $2,000 fine and the shipping of their child off to juvenile hall is the potential punishment so, you know, might as well give it a go with the GPS thing.

The program has been used successfully in other districts around the country,including in San Antonio and Baltimore. There, attendance rates leaped from 77 percent to a pretty remarkable 95 percent.

This adds to the long standing debate on how much a school should be involved with its students’ lives outside of the classroom. I’ve personally always been a firm believer that molding a child’s discipline and behavior starts at home. Unfortunately, some parental guidance is, well, absent for lack of a better term.

If they are going to change, it sometimes takes an outside presence to instill that change. Here’s hoping these programs continue to be that presence.

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