Social Media in Higher Ed
I did a presentation this week regarding Social Media in Higher Ed i thought I might as well post it. I think it is a pretty good primer to give to beginner to intermediate level people about social media in higher ed. I gave the presentation to a group of communications and marketing people on campus and they were very receptive and had lots of questions. People are still following up with me regarding it, so maybe we will get more going here on campus.
Available is Not On-Demand
Social content on the internet has reached a blistering pace. My head spins, but my eyes twinkle at the possibilities. For example:
For all of you who enjoy regular podcasts, you now have your favorites. I listen to about 4 or 5 podcasters on a regular basis. Some have daily podcasts, but others are for less frequent. For those everyday podcasts, I find it hard to catch up. But a service has been out there for a few months that caught my eye. Pluggd has Hear Here, which allows you to search podcasts for appropriate content. So, let’s say you are listening to Chris Pirillo, but find his hour-long daily program too much. You just want to know more about the new ChaCha search engine. Type in ChaCha, or “search engine” and it will show you where in the hour-long program that may be discussed. Brilliant! I’m not supporting their service, but if you use it and like it, let me know.
How does this relate to you? It is now more important than ever to expand your walls of the .edu site. If there are no services that push people to your site (besides standard Google searches), you are missing the boat. Your podcasts, blogs, and events need to be found in aggregators, microformat searches, and blog searches.
It’s a crowded marketplace…your content needs to rise to the top.
Skype for Schools
I was talking to an admissions person at the school I work at. We were discussing student chat sessions using things like Chat University. It got me thinking why dont we do this with audio, like a confernce call? I have been using Skype for alot of my personal communication recently at home. I have a mic, the Skype client and a buddy (on my buddy list).
A little background for those of you who might not know about Skype:
It is like instant messanger but with audio. You have a buddy list and you click a person and start a chat. It literally has the same interface as an IM program. All you need to do it get a mic. Nothing special just a cheap one.
Anyways, so from here Skype has a thing called a Skypecast. You can have a free online confernce call or chat. You simply set it up on the site and then people can join in to the chat. Exactly like the old school chat sessions but with audio. I think it would be a bit more personal than simply a chat box. I am trying to run with this from here. There is new version of Skype coming out soon this will have stronger integration with Skypecast. It is currently in Beta.
Here are two articles with further info about the Beta and Skypecast integration
Skype 3.0 Beta - A Bloggers Paradise
First Look At Skype 3.0 Beta
You can also record the chats and make podcasts. And hey that is a buzzword so I’m sure you can sell someone on it 
