Is technology putting children ahead of the curve?

After church last night, I was talking with a few friends when my friend's two year old, soon to be three, son, Drew, came up showing off pictures someone had pulled up on their phone. He kept asking his mom for her phone so he could see more pictures. I pulled out my iPhone because I had a picture of Drew and his friend Noah from a few weeks ago. Drew right away knew how to push the pictures to get to the next one. He's not even three yet!!

Today when I was browsing Mashable, I came across the new Sesame Street iPhone app, Elmo's Monster Maker. The article included a brief video of Elmo showing how to create a monster.

So how do these to things relate?

Technology is becoming simpler and simpler that children as young as two, if not younger, are able to use. But do they understand what they are using? And what are the implications of children adapting to technology at such a young age?

Children know how to navigate their parents cell phones, how to use computers and how to program the DVR to record their cartoon shows. Are schools able to keep up with the technology to provide children everything they need to make learning interesting? Or will we be able to "unplug" children long enough to memorize their multiplication tables?

I guess my main issue/question is: are children ahead or behind the curve intellectually because of technology?

I would love to hear your input!

Can we unplug the digital nation?

When I was in college, there were several specials we watched in class. We watched Still Killing Us Softly twice, we watched several specials about advertising, we watched Growing Up Online and many more.

Growing Up Online was one that struck me the most. The majority of my life I have been in one way or another around computers and technology. I was not 100% immersed in it like the sixteen year olds today are. I remember having an old Apple computer we had to write prompts to play until about kindergarten.

The biggest turning point for me with technology and the internet was probably around third grade. For Christmas we opened a new color computer, and our parents bought AOL dialup connection for us.

Yesterday PBS aired a followup on Growing Up Online called Digital Nation.

Digital Nation is about how everyone is wired in. People are always using a phone, an mp3 player, a GPS or a computer. The time people spend away from technology is shrinking and soon might only be the time we are sleeping. Which that might not even be possible seeing how I have sleep texted before, and I have a few friends who have as well.

I started thinking about how if we unplugged for just a little longer during the day we could perform better at what we are doing. For example, volleyball practice. I help coach two different volleyball teams. Each practice the girls walk in while texting, listening to music or talking on the phone.

First of all, why a fourth grader has a cell phone blows my mind. I didn't have one until I was 17.

What if there was a buffer in place on each side of practice? Ten minutes prior to practice all electronic devices should be turned off and would stay off and out of sight until five minutes after practice. The girls would then only have volleyball to worry about instead of who is texting me.

Now how can we apply this?

Unplug at night. I know it can be hard. I have tried my best to make sure when I get home to leave my computer stowed away until the morning or only use it for no longer than 30 minutes a night. This has caused me to find other things to do in the evenings. But the hardest part is having an iPhone. I can jump on my phone and do almost everything I could do on my computer.

Buffer your morning. This is by far the hardest for me. Don't use your computer or phone until a specific time. Since I love sleeping, when my alarm goes off for the fifth or sixth time in the morning I usually check all my email from my phone before getting up.

Try this for a few days and see what happens. See how much extra time you find in your day that you think you are missing. Those extra 5-7 hours you want to put into the day you might find.

Are you using the right SM station to broadcast your message?

The past few months there has been debates about linking Twitter with Facebook. With the introduction of Twitter to LinkedIn updates, I'm sure the debate will continue. Here's something to keep in mind:

Social Media is like television stations.

Think about that for a moment or two. When you're watching TV there are certain channels that appeal to different demographics, but there is some overlap.

Let's take the news for example. Fox, CBS, NBC, CNN all can have a different take on a story, people will tune into the station they feel best suits them. Or they will change stations to get a different perspective on the story.

The same is true with Social Media. While there is overlap from Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn people use each for a different purposes and perspectives. The university might have similar audiences across channels, but they tune into each for different reasons.

While you can send out the same core message on each platform about an event or announcement change the messaging to fit the audience.

There is a reason we have so many news stations and there is a reason we have so many Social Media sites. Utilize them to their fullest.

Where are the two missing sides of the HighEdWeb Keynote situation?

Last week, over a month after the event, The Chronicle came out with an article about the David Galper Keynote from the HighEdWeb Conference in Milwaukee. After about forty comments, The Chronicle posted a follow-up article. Comments on both articles represented two sides of the situation, those who attended the conference and those who didn't.

Those who did not attend the keynote took the stance the Twitter Back Channel virtually "lynched" Galper, and the Tweeters like "hyenas" wanting blood. For the attendees, they reasoned what happened and attempted to give their side of the situation. But there are two perspectives of this story that have yet to be shown, the perspective of the HighEdWeb Association and the perspective of Galper himself.

The past five or so days, I have tried to contact Galper through everything short of calling him. I'm not one to just cold call someone, especially in this situation where I was in attendance at this particular keynote. I reached out to him via LinkedIn,

Hi David, I attended a conference you spoke at this year and would like to speak with you further about it. Please add me to your network.

I have yet to hear back from him. I disclosed the fact that I was in attendance at a presentation he gave because I did not want him to feel as if this was a bait and switch or that I was trying to harass him.

After doing some more searching, I went to the HighEdWeb site to see if his presentation was available there because he put all of his contact information on his last slide. It was not. I was informed by a HighEdWeb representative that the keynote presentations are the intellectual property of the presenter and they were not asked to let the association put it online.

Okay so what to do next? I asked for his email. No one on Twitter seemed to have it. So I asked HighEdWeb and was informed they would not give it out because they were trying to do what's right from the association perspective.

I have yet to ask anyone one from the HighEdWeb Committee for their opinion on this. After a few direct messages on Twitter with a couple, I'm not sure they would really have much to say on it, in the interest of the association.

Update: I missed this post. It does give some insight to the HighEdWeb perspective.

So will we ever see these two missing perspectives? I would enjoying hearing what they have to say. I think it would make this conversation come full circle.

Get Your Audience to Make the Decisions You Want

Another conference come and gone. SIM Tech 09 was just as good as HighEdWeb. Great people doing great things with not so great amount of money. There was so much information going back and forth that it was hard at times to absorb it all.

But, during presentations something small would be said and it would trigger a line of thoughts and tweets that would get attendees to collaborate on an issue. Or something would be said that would trigger and "ah ha" moment. Many times these "ah ha" moments were just clarifying and reinforcing what we already knew.

One of the biggest take aways was:

Create great usable content that will drive your audiences to the predetermined goals you wish them to get to through the tools that target them.

What does this mean?

Content, Content, Content. Create content that is engaging and of use to the audience. Draw them in and make the call to action. After you draw your audience in, give them the option for the outcome you have decided you want them make. But don't broadcast your message everywhere.

Do your research and find out where your audience is.

There are reasons why certain television shows are aired on certain stations. While there is some over lap in audience, different demographics go to different places. If you think about Websites, Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. as different television stations you'll start to see the that each is geared towards different audiences.

Make them make the choice you want them to. Don't send someone to buy milk in the chip aisle.

No matter what tool we use, we want our audience to do something. Unfortunately, there are so many options for them to take they miss the one thing we want them to do. If you send someone to a landing page to request information, don't give them 20+ options to navigate from the page. If you want someone to apply, don't bury the info 3+ links into your website.

So what can you do?

Re-evaluate your tools. Are you broadcasting on the right channels? Make sure your audience is making the choices which align with the goals you have set forth for them

Girls under Trees says "American"

Last week at #heweb09, I sat in on a presentation by Mark Heiman of Carleton College. Mark spoke about what they found high school Juniors were liking and looking for on college websites. One thing he noted was pictures of people under trees were more of a turn off than pictures of buildings. We came to know this as "Girls Under Trees."

Today I came across this website and tweeted "People under trees!! Ack!"


I thought I might get a few response from those who attend #heweb09, but to my surprise Wassan Humadi responded with an intriguing view point.

I never thought about it this way before. "American College" stereotype is not conveyed to me through pictures of people under trees. This opened up a great conversation. Wassan pointed out that we see the same things over and over. They seem staged. To me, staged pictures are an issue. If we could make pictures of people under trees seem more real there wouldn't be as big of an issue for me. To a 17 year old new to the college search process, they all look new. Each seems unique.

I haven't been very involved in, well "not very involved" actually means I haven't had anything to do with, international recruiting, yet. So I wonder what would say "American College" more than people under trees. Here in Arizona would people under cacti be just as "American" as "people under trees?" Come to find out, the changing of colors of the trees is the part that makes it seem more American.

Wassan also noted that "multicultural pics" of kids sitting around is the biggest turnoff.

So to us, we see people under trees as a complete turn off while international students see multicultural pictures a complete turn off.

Before you go changing all the pictures on your website, take into consideration who you want to market to the most. Are you wanting to increase your international student base? Maybe you ought to keep the "people under trees." Or you could just take time to better develop your international pages.

Out of all of this, take into consideration your international market. Your "Girls under trees" might be the deciding factor for a student.

HighEdWeb09 Recap

After about 10 months of trying to attend a conference for higher education professionals, I was finally able to convince my boss to let me attend one. I am very excited it was the HighEdWeb09 Conference.

I work each day with people across the country. The willingness to share ideas and help each other is the backbone of our community. It was this that made the conference such a success.

Some of us came having only met a few others, who were attending, in real life prior to this week. Others came never having met one. But we knew we would finally meet the person behind the avatar.

As a n00b to the higher education arena, I was prepared to meet meet meet people. What I didn’t expect were the number of people who knew who I was and were wanting to meet the Lane of #lanesintown and the Lane of #pancaketweetup for the first time.

The sessions were great! The presenters studied and prepared for us to ask questions on how they did what they did.

We came together as a community to tweckel a presenter and to help a friend in need.

The keynote will go down in the history of HighEdWeb, as a turning point in how presenters need to be aware of who their audience is and the power of a multitude.

After a computer was stolen from a session room, we were able to raise enough money in less than 24 hours to replace the computer.

Of all the conferences I’ve missed, missing this one would have been a huge mistake.