Web/Tech « The Student Affairs Collaborative

Web/Tech

SA Team

Web/Tech — 1 Comment
7
Sep 11

Keeping Your Online Life Secure

Over the weekend, at student employee training for our Campus Center, I heard something that continues to be a pet peeve of mine. While talking about access to email, internal databases, and learning management systems, many of my students said, “Oh, I use the same password for everything.” While I have been guilty of this myself in the past, it’s important to change this habit, especially since many of us own a number of online accounts. Here are some recommendations, which I hope spur conversations with students and staff in your own organizations on this important topic:

1. Have FOUR Different, Complex Passwords: What’s worse than having one password for everything? Having that password be not complex. While it isn’t realistic to have a different password for each of your accounts, creating a complex password should be your first priority. Complex passwords are defined by having at least 14 characters, mixed with capital letters, numbers and characters (where allowed.) Microsoft has some great advice on this topic. Once you create your first complex password, create three more and rotate them across your accounts. You may also decide to categorize your passwords for personal, work, merchants, and social networks. Oh, and don’t forget, Windows users may also use SPACES as characters in passwords. It is a great way to mix things up.

A good password is more than just a complex password. It is one that is not easily guessed, but still easy to remember. It should be long, but still easy to type quickly with few errors.

2. Securing Your Facebook Account: If you visit the “Security Settings” tab, you can do a lot to make your Facebook account more secure, beyond your initial password. First, enable “Secure Browsing” so that you always log into Facebook on a secure (https) connection. Second, enable “Email Notifications” to be notified when your account is accessed from a computer or mobile device that you haven’t used before. By doing this, you actively record each device you use to access Facebook, so there is a record in case someone else tries to log in as you. If you are an active Facebook user, I highly recommend doing this.

3. Securing Your Google Accounts: If you use any Google product, want to make it more secure, and you own a smartphone, consider adding the 2-step authorization feature via the Google Authenticator App. All pertinent information is found here. Frankly, once you sell your digital soul to Google like I have, its important to add this extra layer of protection to ensure ALL your Google products (Gmail, YouTube, Calendar, Documents, etc.) are safe(r) and (more) secure.

4. Storing Passwords: Now that you have all your passwords, how will you keep up with all of them? There is not a right answer, only recommendations based on your comfort levels. Some will opt to write them all down and keep them in one or two places. Others will use programs like Evernote, add a super password and store them all on the cloud for access anywhere at anytime. My favorite way is to use a password storage services like KeePass and sync it with DropBox. According to KeePass’ site: “KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key file. So you only have to remember one single master password or select the key file to unlock the whole database. The databases are encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms currently known (AES and Twofish). ”

No matter how you choose to keep your passwords secure, make sure you do something and don’t leave this important information to chance.

How many passwords do you use for the various accounts you log into everyday? Is your password complex? Do you have a central storage system for your passwords? What advice do you have to share on this?

Lisa

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#sachat / Online Tools / Social Networks / Web/Tech — 11 Comments
11
Apr 11

Building Our Social Media Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

I was going to start this blog post on social media in student affairs with a full disclaimer about my admittedly self-perceived lack of technical know-how. After some thinking, reflecting and tweeting, however, I’ve begun to see that it is this seemingly innocent humour and language that may be one of the biggest stumbling blocks to integrating social media into our student affairs programming. Beyond building our technology IQ, perhaps it is time we also invest in nurturing our social media EQ-–identifying and confronting the underlying assumptions surrounding incorporating these tools into our professional practice. One of the many valuable lessons I’ve learnt in my time in student affairs has been the true power of words and language. Slang and other terms used in passing can distance us just as quickly as they can bring us together. In the case of social media, the way we talk about our tweets, Facebook posts or blogging can often do the same.

While facilitating presentations and engaging in discussions around social media at this year’s NASPA conference, one theme that came up rather frequently was the use of social media as a way to build community on campus, across institutions and throughout the student affairs profession. This desire for collaboration and unity is in stark contrast to the effect of several off-hand comments I heard during these discussions. For example, some colleagues I speak to about social media will laugh off their lack of knowledge around Twitter, claiming they’re ‘too old’ or ‘not hip enough’ to engage with this ‘new fangled technology’.

If we want to continue building and sustaining what we claim to be valuable relationships amongst our colleagues and peers, we need to start talking about social media as a piece of the larger community building puzzle. Rather than viewing social media as a separate space for engagement, I choose to view it as an extension of my local student affairs community. This blog post and my Twitter account, for example, do not replace the connections I made face to face at NASPA or even in my office, but they instead help me to sustain those relationships once the conference is over or after I’ve left the office for the day. Social media, to me, is another way to interact and share–it does not take the place of in-person interactions but rather encourages conversations to continue beyond the boundaries of geographic location and time zones.

I am beginning to see the need for a shift in the way we talk about social media from a tool that discourages interaction to a new way of encouraging and fostering connections. I will admit to sometimes being the one who complains about ‘those people who are always on their phones’, especially as an extrovert who craves and enjoys social interaction. However, even those complaints done in jest only serve to further the apparent divide between those who embrace social media and those who seem more reluctant to sign up. As with anything new, the language used to describe and discuss it can often further the fear and hesitation that comes with adopting a new way of doing things. In the case of social media, we often overhear complaints about students and colleagues so wrapped up in their phones that they don’t look up long enough to engage with those around them. These complaints, often voiced as jokes about the ‘digital divide’ between the generations, seem to only push us apart rather than bring us together. If we as student affairs professionals claim community building and engagement as important values, we must begin to reframe how we discuss social media as a tool for fulfilling these goals and examine how the language we use may limit, rather than encourage, connections. The way in which we talk about social media can have a far greater impact on building our technological competency than any online tutorial.

As Thomas Earnest Hulme so eloquently describes:

“Language is by its very nature a communal thing; that is, it expresses never the exact thing but a compromise – that which is common to you, me, and everybody. “

Lisa Endersby is a Student Experience Advisor at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT).

Cindy

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Budgets / Campus Issues / Club/Org Recruitment / Collaborative Learning / Conferences / Creativity / Leadership Training / Low Cost Programming / Online Tools / Orientation / Professional Organizations / Technology and Programming / Uncategorized / University / Web/Tech — 25 Comments
20
Sep 10

Blog Reflections: Student Leader Development

I always hope for that perfect storm of aligned experiences when sending a small group of organization representatives to a conference. In my mind, the students will be empowered with questions and ideas to pursue upon the return home; their energy ignites a new sense of motivation in their group; and they begin to pursue their new definition of the future.

Sound great?

Hasn’t happened for me yet, either.

Sure, our students had some great presentations and excellent experiences but nearly always my student groups struggle to accurately communicate the true picture of what they experienced. They struggle to not use too many “inside jokes” when describing their time at the conference and nearly always ended up engaged in a conversation about “why can’t we send more people next year?” Given that our travel funds are not likely to increase anytime in the near future, we needed a new plan.

So, my insanely talented staff member (that’s you, Matt!) says, let’s try blogging.

Our office now requires any students traveling to conferences sponsored by our department to blog each day while they are there. We create a blogging site for the group’s travels and make each of them the authors. I love the fact that those of us not attending the conference can keep track of their experiences and that we can comment and have dialogue while they are there. We also send the site around to our student affairs colleagues and division leadership so that they can get some insight into student experiences.

This has enabled us to document these travel experiences and now see, in writing, what we already knew about the impact of spending time with other students who are similarly committed to common goals. As one of our student orientation coordinators posted, “I don’t think I ever got completely used to everyone actually understanding ‘Orientation Speak’ and being able to have in-depth conversations about different aspects of their programs.”

The use of blogs has enabled our students to do more active reflection on these conference experiences and has allowed us to use the sites to help other students understand what the experience might be like the next time around. We get pretty active commentary from participants about what they like and don’t like about the conferences and, when warranted, our structured reflection topics allow for some time for them to pause during a busy conference and make meaning of this experience that the university has offered to them.

For our department, we reported themes communicated in these blogs as part of our annual report in hope of illustrating the impact that off-campus professional travel has on our student leaders. Themes of increased pride in our university, increased confidence in their own leadership efficacy, and enhanced sense of community with other student leaders certainly made this student affairs professional proud.

If you’d like to take a look at one of them, here’s a link to the blog from our delegates at the National Greek Leadership Association conference in Hartford, CT this year.

http://bscgreeksgotongla.blogspot.com/

And just for fun…check out the Wordle the blog for our Student Orientation Coordinators’ trip to the regional NODA Conference (at the top of this post) and the Wordle for our Program Committee’s travels to the NACA regional conference (2) pasted below. Looks to me like they had a good experience…and had some fun along the way!

So, how do you facilitate reflection when your students travel? Any interested in blogging? If you are, let’s correspond and if our students attend the same conferences we can cross-promote their sites!

Tom

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Web/Tech — No Comments
31
Aug 10

Twitter As A Free Campus, Group Text Messaging Provider (Updated)

In May 2009 I wrote a post on how to turn Twitter into a free SMS alert system for your campus. Back then, the major hang up was people had to have a Twitter account for it to work. With student adoption of Twitter hovering pretty low at colleges, this was a problem.

Last week Twitter recognized the issue and introduced an updated tool called Fast Follow.

"The mobile team here at Twitter has rolled out a new feature called Fast Follow, and its genius lies in its simplicity: text “follow [account]” to 40404 (Twitter’s U.S. shortcode) and you’ll immediately start getting that account’s tweets via SMS—without ever signing up for Twitter."

Eric Stoller, writer for Inside Higher Ed, reported on Fast Follow and how it could be integrated into the campus culture.

"You could place your school's admissions Twitter account name and the Twitter SMS number on your marketing collateral. A school could even have multiple Twitter accounts that could then be included on strategic mailings or promotional microsites. Campaign tracking would be a snap! Prospective students do not have to be on Twitter to use Fast Follow."

Enterprise SMS tools will have a hard time justifying large price tags when competing against…free. I suspect an advantage they will have is back end assessment data. Though, knowing Twitter's history of openness, might be provided by a third party tool soon.

Curious to know if anyone has tried mass, or even departmental adoption of Fast Follow at their campus?

Licinia

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#sachat / SA Humor / Technology and Programming / Television / Uncategorized / Web/Tech — 10 Comments
20
Jul 10

Party like it’s 1999

In recent news, Prince spoke out against the Internet stating, “All these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers, and that can’t be good for you.” After reading the article, I’ve imagined this is all a publicity stunt to promote his new album (which I’m not going to promote). But his comments do cause me to reflect on the impact technology has had on our learning and development. Can Prince be right about gadgets not being good for you? I also thought to myself, if technology is not good for us, then is what we do in student affairs not good either?

So I thought about mp3 players – I have several different versions – ones that hook right up to the computer with the USB port and of course, a ipod. Are they no good? Sure, I can load them up with useless songs, but I have found that mp3 players (the same as the old personal cassette and CD players) represent a part of our soul. We put music, podcasts, shows, pictures, and other items on these devices because they mean something to us. When I’m running and a song comes on, it immediately transports me to a different place and time. When I’m listening to a podcast like “Tech Therapy” from the Chronicle, I’m learning and reflecting. My physical presence hasn’t changed – I’m still running physically, but my mind is running all over previous held knowledge and new thoughts and ideas are emerging. I think sometimes, student affairs can be seen as a mp3 player. We provide a menu of options for students to engage in. We have weekend programs, community service projects, student activities, student groups, intramural teams, and the list goes on. Sometimes, we have large attendance and sometimes a program or new initiative fails. As student affairs professionals, we reflect and re-analyze our efforts to reach students and provide support to them. But it’s important to remember, just as a mp3 player, students participate in different college programs as a reflection of who they are. Similar to a playlist on a mp3 player, students pick and choose their engagement on what reflects their interests and what would help them grow. We may not see how our actions impact them in the moment, but perhaps students’ cognitive processes are in motion helping them further in their development.

I also thought of computers. Are they filling my head up with numbers and useless information? Are they leading us to be disengaged with others and ourselves? There are numerous scholarly articles and research examining the effect of technology on disengagement (i.e. Main, Student disengagement in higher education: Two Trends in Technology, and Lindos and Zolkos, Technology, Community, and Education in Neoliberal Society : A Review of Michael Bugeja’s Interpersonal Divide). In these articles, arguments are presented regarding technology’s threat to higher education by encouraging commercialism and disengagement among students. For example, in a survey conducted with 116 students with GPAs below 2.0, one-third of participants acknowledged the impact recreational computer use had on their academic performance (Farrell, 2005). Many electronic addictions are also becoming prevalent on campuses like gaming, gambling, and web surfing (Carr-Chellman, 2005; Farrell, 2005). So how does student affairs practices fit into this new era of engagement? Often, student affairs professionals are seen as the experts in student engagement, being sought out by others on our expertise and talents. We are not limited by time and space. Our business is students, which sometimes requires accessibility at all hours and in various forms. There are arguments out there that state that student affairs is useless to the enterprise of higher education, that we should simply be “house mothers” and let the learning be left for the experts (i.e. faculty). But student affairs, like technology, does have a role in educating students. We can assist students in maximizing their academic goals by developing strategies to reach them. We provide a framework for challenge and support as students navigate through their college experience. Technology does the same, if utilized and directed with intentionality and purpose.

So I go back to my original question: Is technology no good for our brain? I don’t have a clear answer to that, but I know that my mind has been challenged by what technology has provided me. Technology makes me think of my practices. It delivers information to me daily that requires me to mull, reflect, act, and react to. I use a cell-phone to communicate with friends and family. I use a computer to manage all my professional responsibilities. I skype, I twit, I blog, I post, I read, I reflect, and I learn. Technology for the good or bad allows me to grow. So maybe Prince wants us to stay partying like it’s 1999, but I prefer to party it on into the future and let my mind keep growing.

Licinia “Lulu” Barrueco Kaliher, Ed.D., is a Ray Street Complex Director at the University of Delaware.

References

Carr-Chellman, A. A. (Ed.). (2005). Global Perspectives on E-learning: Rhetoric and Reality. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Farrell, E. F. (2005, September 2). Logging on, tuning out: When students lose themselves in online worlds, it can be hard to bring them back to reality. The Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A46.

Mike

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#sachat / Careers / SA Job Listings / Web/Tech — 33 Comments
21
Apr 10

Job Search Success via Twitter? I’m a Believer Now

Social media as a job search tool? Sure I’d heard about it but didn’t really put much faith into it beyond employer/employee fact checking and social background research. By the time we had a position moving through our HR process in January I’d been contributing to studentbranding.com for a several months so I knew the networking expectations for both employers and candidates in the non-higher education arena. As such, I figured I didn’t have anything to lose by sharing news of our process on twitter.

While I had been engaged in the #sachat community not much came of this tweet (note no #sachat hashtag) until we progressed as a community into discussions on job searches, of course triggered by Ed Cabellon. Here is a sequence of tweets than ensued over the course of sixteen minutes.

As promised, when our position was finally approved right before #NASPA10 I sent a tweet sharing the news and our process from that point forward. I didn’t have a live link yet so several people requested the job description as a result of these tweets:

Several members of the #sachat and twitter community requested a job description after these tweets. Anyone who expressed interest in the position or had asked questions about the job, university and location via twitter was on the radar for us. As we progressed through the search, all search committee members, including me, unfollowed all of the twitter candidates to maintain the integrity of our process. Communication with candidates became more formal and traditional – email and phone – but by that point the networking had reaped its rewards.

Twitter can change the search process

While unexpected, twitter and the #sachat community fundamentally changed the search process by decreasing the size of an already small profession. Certainly candidates still had to successfully navigate the gauntlet of our search process but our knowledge of them through social media outlets was very informative.

As an employer our engagement on twitter, whether individually or through our office account, helped us put information in the public domain that we wanted to share about the future direction of our office and our work environment. Knowing that I was being followed by several candidates didn’t change how I interacted on twitter but it did reassure me that when we got to the point of fit questions that these candidates were probably better informed about us than those who were not accessing our information.

As a candidate you need to think through how you use twitter and what degree of access you want to provide. It can be hugely beneficial for employers to triangulate your professional perspective and network connections. On the other hand it can also be detrimental, particularly related to candidate authenticity and consistency in different settings if your interviews and application materials don’t align well with your presence in social media.

Social media expertise will be a required job criteria for all future searches

Our job description listed social media expertise as a preferred requirement. It became a more prominent factor in our search every step of the way as our discussions to balance expertise and needs within our office became more focused. In our next search social media engagement will be a required component.

In response to:

You may be asking:

Based on our candidate pool and how they identified their skill set as it related to our job description I would disagree that most people in gen-y have them in some form. Facebook doesn’t cut it anymore. That is now below the minimum – fan pages, connections, etc. Different institutions will measure social media skills differently based upon their needs and the expertise currently on staff. We were looking for someone who had the interest in and ability to give us traction in areas where we knew we needed to be engaged but were spinning our wheels – Facebook a bit, twitter, and blogs. (Again social media served as only two of thirteen criteria in our search process.) In particular, we were looking for a solid knowledge base of how to use twitter and, ideally, high quality engagement in the student affairs community and #sachat in particular.

Very few candidates provided social media information on their resume or in their cover letter (the best approach for me – hyperlinked to your profile in a PDF resume). Even some of the candidates we knew were on twitter didn’t identify that knowledge in their application materials. If you are engaged in the #sachat community your knowledge base sets you apart from the general student affairs community and you need to market that knowledge. Again, different institutions will measure social media skills differently based upon their needs and the expertise currently on staff but why make the hunt for that information difficult and allow employers to make inaccurate assumptions about your skill set?

In January I never would have guessed the impact social media would have on our search process. I’m a believer now though. Without getting into further details of our search I’d be glad to discuss your process as it relates to my perspective on social media and the role it can play in a successful search process for you.

What do you think? Make it a good day.

Mike Severy is the Director of Student Involvement and Leadership at UNC Pembroke. You can connect with Mike via Twitter.

Cindy

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#sachat / Professional Organizations / Social Networks / Web/Tech — 13 Comments
7
Apr 10

Confessions of a Twitter Newbie

Now that I truly feel like Twitter and I can change our Facebook status to “In a Relationship,” I can come clean.

I, @cindykane, once thought Twitter would be a waste of time.

There, I said it. I struggled, resisted, complained, and even frowned once or twice at the thought of introducing yet one more social media tool into my life. I was a frequent Facebooker and liked it that way and could not imagine why in the world the universe needed to hear from me through Facebook, through this blog site and now through Twitter. I thought to myself, “who the heck would read my tweets and who the heck has time to spend on this anyway?” Well, a quick purge of Facebook applications found some time available and I can still hold my head up high even without a Farm in Farmville. Regarding why the heck anyone would read my tweets, I’ll keep that one rhetorical for fear of inspiring “unfollowership.”

I had a few choices to make regarding my lack of love for Twitter. I could have just ignored it, but for some reason it just wouldn’t go away. I could have just decided to stay in my safe little Facebook friend circle and happily tended to my farm. However, that wasn’t doing much for me in the name of stepping outside of “my circle” and I’m really not a fan of sitting by the sidelines and not getting involved. (ok, I’m Director of Student Involvement on campus…this works). So, there was no choice. I jumped in and figured it out.

Right when I got started:

I took recommendations from friends about people to follow who “use it well.” I didn’t define what that meant because I didn’t really know. I just let my friends show me who was sharing good things.
I didn’t follow celebrities. Granted, I follow them now… but at first I stayed away. Yes, Ashton Kucher (I’m sure he is an avid follower of this blog!) I am the one follower you didn’t have.
I didn’t tweet much. I still was trying to figure out what to put out there. Using the cocktail party analogy, I just sat in the corner for a while and did some “people watching.”

While I started my “figure out Twitter” project, I also read Tara Hunt’s book The Whuffie Factor. These two forces aligned for me in a way that I finally understood social media and why I needed to figure this out. I also realized that this wasn’t just about me and my personal networking/connections with friends, it was about what ways I could take the opportunities social media presents to the world and translate it to campus and ways to reach out to students. (If you want to read more, I did a series of posts on this book starting with this post called What’s a Whuffie?)

So, after a lightning bolt of “aha” arrived into my Twitter life, I now really can’t imagine not being connected in that way. I have really found a professional network on there that I never knew existed and found a way to (economically!) challenge myself to meet new people and learn about new topics without having to travel from the comfort of my own computers. If you are still struggling to find the relevance of the world of Twitter in your life, I’m happy to offer a few stories:

Twitter is an equalizer. I have debated some “hot topic” issues with people many years my senior in the field and have also been “schooled” by a few new professionals in the same manner. These lively discussions wouldn’t happen across a conference table because we’re all too focused on rank and politics.
Twitter is concise. As someone known for being a tad verbose, Twitter has taught me how to hone my communication approach when needed. It’s amazing how much you can say when limited to 140 characters. The brevity of Twitter is what makes it so powerful.
Twitter is simple. While the world of “hashtags” (don’t call it a number sign…trust me!) and “@” and the “DM” was a bit much at first, if you learn these few pieces of Twitter trivia, you are golden. That’s it. If you mastered Facebook you will find Twitter to be refreshingly simple. (and if you’re still confused, read my friend Ed Cabellon’s post called Teaching Twitter to Colleagues.)
Twitter is a community. You get as much as you give. The main difference between Facebook and Twitter is that Facebook is a “closed” circle and Twitter is an open one. Using the cocktail party analogy again, if I just kept sitting in the corner and not saying anything then no one was going to come talk to me either. So, I jumped in and started talking. Now you can’t shut me up This includes talking to your “friends” as well as talking to those who reach out and talk to you.
Twitter connects people in “real” ways. Some of the participants in the weekly #sachat met up at the NACA, ACUI, NASPA and ACPA conventions this year. I was a bit apprehensive about what these “tweetups” would be like but I know for darned sure that I wanted to check these folks out in person! What I learned was that while we were meeting for the first time, we already knew each other. You got the chance to skip the small talk and just pick right up “where you left off” to the tune of the last 140 characters you may have read from that person.

I confess, I had no idea what to expect when I met up with a group of student affairs people I had been writing in short sentences to since October 2009 in #sachat and beyond. What I found was a group of outgoing, hilarious, friendly, accepting people that were even more dynamic in person than they seemed online. In the wise words of Teri Bump, “you tweet who you are.” These people were the real deal and I easily could have spent my entire ACPA with them and not gotten enough time.

So, what are you waiting for? If you need some encouragement to climb on board just post a comment and I’m happy to help. As I recently learned, there’s an entire professional network out there just waiting for new participants and you just need to be yourself. Take it from me. The only way to figure it out is to just jump in!

SA Team

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#sachat / Myspace/Facebook Best Practices / Recap / Technology and Programming / Web/Tech — 1 Comment
29
Jan 10

Connecting With Students on Facebook – #SACHAT Recap

With both the DAYTIME #sachat and EVENING #sachat in full swing yesterday, it’s safe to declare Thursday as #sachat day! The topic yesterday was Connecting with Students on Facebook, and once again we set new records for conversing and learning. The conversation produced 581 comments from 87 student affairs professionals!

In case you missed it, below is a quick recap. If you haven’t yet participated in an #sachat, learn more here.

Full Transcripts
DAYTIME:
View as webpage
Download as PDF
EVENING:
*There was a tech error with the EVENING transcript. We’re working on getting the transcript.

Last Night’s Top Contributers
@edcabellon
@cindykane
@reyjunco
@debrasanborn
@pereirap80
@thestacyface
@brockter
@lvanlysal
@gballingerjr
@ediemccracken

Here’s to another successful #sachat. See you all next week! In the meantime, make sure to join our Facebook Page.

Original post

Social Networks / Technology and Programming / Web/Tech — 12 Comments
30
Aug 09

Connecting With Students, One Tweet At A Time

I officially love Twitter. Over the summer, I dove into the Twittersphere and have fully adopted it into my professional life. Even though I've been fortunate to gain a small following on my @edcabellon Twitter account, I've really wanted to grow our Campus Center Twitter account as well. I still believe that students are out there on Twitter, I just needed to find them. Well last night, I did just that.

I signed onto my "@BSCCampusCenter" Twitter account, knowing that First Year students had moved in and many returning students were about to make their trek back to campus. I went through "http://search.twitter.com" and typed in "BSC". As the search completed, many of the results turned in the tweets about the "Hertha BSC" German Football team, but a few turned back some Bridgewater State College commentary. One student's tweets though, stood out:

So I started following her on Twitter, read a few more lines of her Twitter feed, and then started reading her Blog that was linked from her Twitter bio. She had a video blog post up and some very insightful, and well written blog posts. Within about 15 minutes, she started following our @BSCCampusCenter account and then Tweeted:

Well, that got my attention So I read more of her Twitter feed and noticed some BSC references, but nothing too out of the ordinary, so I decided to send her a Direct Message (DM), which is a private message through Twitter that only she would be able to see:

Thinking nothing of it, I went along and continued my search for more BSC students. Within minutes though, I got a DM back, that just blew me away…..

At that moment, it dawned on me. That simple act of connecting and communicating from a BSC office made her feel more a part of the community. Then, in her Twitter feed, I noticed that she had tweeted to everyone:

I was beyond excited! Twitter had given us the opportunity to connect in such a unique way. We hadn't even met in person, yet she felt more engaged with the college. Her view of BSC changed in that one Tweet, at least enough to accept my invitation to come in and meet me and our staff to further our conversation. Her reply?

I will continue to use Twitter to connect with more students in this way and encourage you to do the same! Share this story with your colleagues who still may be weary about using Twitter to connect with students, because it can work!

Best wishes on a great opening for you all!

The Student Affairs Collaborative

Know-how from peers and professionals

Web/Tech

Keeping Your Online Life Secure

Blog Reflections: Student Leader Development

Twitter As A Free Campus, Group Text Messaging Provider (Updated)

Party like it’s 1999

Connecting With Students on Facebook – #SACHAT Recap

#sachat on Twitter

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