Revolution in Career Services

Provocative article from Sheila Curran's Connecting College to Career blog. Please do read. Question is, will this revolution be televised?

Here's the article

cover story in the Time's current issue

I haven't read the article yet but the title "The New Work Order" sounds interesting.

This is my first time posting anything in our blog. Please, let me know if you were unable to access the article.

Anna


http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1898024_1898023,00.html

Using Adobe Captivate for Online Tutorials

Very cool but looks fairly labor intensive. Educational software license is $150. Here's the session in PDF.

So, imagine loading up your PPTs, but then they can become webpages with rollover photos that if they click on them, take students to a new part of the presentation. You can include question slides anytime (great pedagogical tool for review) and at the end (great for learning assessment.) They are interactive and can give students instant feedback and a score at the end. Questions can be T/F, multiple choice, fill in the black (with key text), or matching (drag and drop). So, have your PPT presentation, digitally record it when you deliver it live, then edit the audio to go with the slides. (Got that, Rob?) Then upload the project to your server and give the URL to your students. Hmm, use this for alumni crash course this summer? We get a 30 day free trial! If it isn't embedded in Blackboard, then students have to email after taking a test, but that's hinky. GT will add ConnectServer next year as an option to putting it in BB.

The branching idea is very cool, very self-directed. So, you have photos or buttons on dressing for interviews, networking, using AUCW, and a student clicks on one and is sent in a distinct direction. You can sort of do that with hyperlinks in PPT, but this way, the branches are all in one place in a contained way. (Does that make sense?)

There are tutorials on YouTube.

Students can use these for review after classes, not just as tutorials. Captivate is like PPT, but can be interactive and have assessments, too. You are creating a Flash movie when you're done with your Captivate project (so the audience needs Flash player). Video files have to be converted to .flv for uploading. There are free programs for Flash video encoders/converters, like Riva.

HEATHER IS PREGGERS!!! DON'T TELL OTHER CCers!

8 weeks and quite the surprise. Sue knows, and now this is an experiment to see who looks at the blog. When you see this, leave a comment. We'll collect them for Heather!

SHH! Don't tell anyone at work. Let's see who reads the blog!

Blackboard Collaboration and Assessment

The upshot of this session is that students can evaluate each other and grade themselves in Blackboard, and it goes right to the grades (not a need for us), and that though wikis and blogs are better, you CAN use BB for some interaction. The focus is on how-to, not pedagogy. Here are small notes to not take up space . . .

GT uses BB 8, looking at 9. Presenter is demonstrating how to post assignments which you can receive back. BB doesn't use DigitalDropBox anymore. Looks like you can embed video clips, link to articles, all from Blackboard using icons like in a blog. Students get a time/date receipt and could do a screen shot to prove they turned something in. A faculty member says that she has problems getting recordings to play. "It's good when it works." (What version of BB does AU have?) Students sometimes hit SAVE rather than SUBMIT. You can see that in the grade center that they saved but didn't submit.

Self and Peer assessment . . . BB randomly assigns who assess whom in peer assessment. You set very structured logistical parameters for when to submit and when to review. Submit, then modify . . . give clear evaluation parameters to students . . . Students will see on their site who they are supposed to review.

You can create groups within BB to encourage collaboration, though presenter mentions that blogs and wikis are better. In groups, you can have discussion boards, file exchanges (but it takes up space), and email each other.

Having lunch with Heather shortly!

Identifying employee skill gaps

I realize that some aren't fans of McKinsey (you know who you are!), but this is a topic we've been discussing lately:

Employees’ own assessments of their learning needs can lead to more effective training programs.

Full McKinsey Quarterly article here

Using Blogs and Wikis (Georgetown TLISI)

(They need to offer coffee, not healthy juice.)
Greetings, all. I will try to live blog from my session on blogging. How redundant is that. This session is on facilitating group interaction, an issue with have with interns, alumni out of work in need of community, each other (this blog isn't so widely used), and maybe even faculty.

They use open source WordPress, hosted at the university through Georgetown Digital Commons, providing privacy options public blogs can't. Get to that site and it has a host of options plus advice on best practices. Wiki software is the same as Wikipedia, plus they are adding Wikispaces because it's more user-friendly. RSS is the glue. (I'm the only one who knows what RSS is in the group.)

NETVIBES uses rss feeds to pull a bunch of blogs together.

What affects interaction? Presence of authority.

(Actually, the room of about 23 mostly faculty, some are overwhelmed and half haven't used blogs at all. But they're interested! They want to know the difference between Blackboard and blogs and I offer my experience with my class. Discussion boards are linear when you want that, and blogs are easier to get to with less clicking, and more free flowing.)

Wikis, you continually edit as a group. (Maybe we should have one of those rather than a blog? Maybe CTE should have one with a section on internships and a section on merit advising. Maybe that's what AUPedia is.) You need structure and roles to get it started with different pages for each task. To set one up at GT, it goes through Digitalcommons, though they are working on letting people set their own up. (Hmm, not talking much about wikis.)

Back to blogs, the second presenter has an RSS stream of the community's blogs into a side bar. Her blog has list of students, links to their blogs, RSS feed, and uses it as away to keep in touch in the research process.

Yahoo pipes bring things together. Not quite sure what this can do. Hmm, session went awry. Here's a tutorial for that.

Going On The Second Interview

It will be different from the first one. Be prepared.

Full Forbes article here

Face to Face Matters

Office workers who make time to chat face to face with colleagues may be far more productive than those who rely on e-mail, the phone, or Facebook, suggests a study carried out by researchers at MIT and New York University.

Full Technology Review article here

Networking for people who hate to network

You've got to do it, especially these days. So you might as well make it fun (kind of). Read on to find out how.

Full Money article here

Graduating With a Major in Go-Getting

This is a little old, from March 30, but I think it's a useful
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Darvika Sarin had been working toward finding her first post-college job since she arrived at school her freshman year.

Full WSJ article here

Hard Times for Charitable Organizations

These are the results of a GuideStar survey: http://www2.guidestar.org/rxa/news/articles/2009/guidestar-survey-hard-times-for-charitable-organizations.aspx?source=may09nwsltr

Negotiating the Freelance Economy

From the Wall Street Journal

Rebecca Haden, of Fayetteville, Ark., is among a growing number of professionals who are making ends meet by working on a project-by-project contract basis.

Full article here

Why Politico is successful

Excellent analysis here from Peter Osnos of The Century Foundation (he's very respected former Wash Post editor), about why Politico is a model for successful online journalism that's independent, objective and much more than blogs. Good reading for students interested in communication careers.
http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=NC&pubid=2285

Physical Networking vs Online Networking

This thoughtful essay from HigherEd Jobs discusses the limitations of the Linkedin approach to networking. I'm an advocate for Linkedin and often urge students to put their profile on it, but this writer points out that some people use it as a substitute for physical networking.

http://www.higheredjobs.com/Articles/ArticleDisplay.cfm?ID=95

Three U.S. States to Apply the Bologna Process to Higher Education

The success of the Bologna Process, an initiative begun 10 years ago to standardize degrees and university systems across Europe, is now being applied to higher education in three U.S. states as part of a pilot program of the Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation for Education. According to an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Lumina funded a report on an American perspective on the Bologna Process, which was released earlier this month, and is applying the findings to a project in Indiana, Minnesota and Utah. The pilot will use Bologna methods to analyze degree programs in biology, chemistry, education, history, physics, and graphic design in these states.

Currently, 46 European countries are entering the final phase of the Bologna Process, and some of the results include openness and the recognition of degrees across national borders, making it easier for students from all over the world to get comparable educational experiences in multiple countries.

To read the article: http://chronicle.com/daily/2009/04/15430n.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

In Grim Job Market, Student Loans Are a Costly Burden

In Grim Job Market, Student Loans Are a Costly Burden

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/18/your-money/student-loans/18student.html?em

Social-Media-Inspired PR Crises

Are the Social-Media-Inspired PR Crises Starting To Fall Like Domino's? by Catharine P. Taylor , Thursday, April 16, 2009 So, this week, the client in the unfortunate spotlight was Domino's. I probably don't even have to recap this, but, in case you've been spending your time instead watching Susan Boyle sing on "Britain's Got Talent," you must know that two Domino's employees (well, they used to be Domino's employees) uploaded a video of themselves doing disgusting things to the ingredients before putting them in people's food, and this created a crisis for Domino's. (The video is no longer available, incredibly, because one of the perpetrators has made a copyright claim to YouTube. In a world gone mad!) But, hey, clients, it could just as well have been your brand -- as the executives in charge of Motrin and Tropicana well know. (Granted, each of these instances is quite different from the others, but, on some level, a PR crisis is a PR crisis.) I actually don't think it's fair to take Domino's to task too much here for not already monitoring social media channels so it could get more out-in-front of this -- it's still early. When you're deeply involved in this business, it's too easy to remember that others are not. But, my patience on that will soon wear thin. If we're still in the first inning of social media, we're clearly at the bottom of the first, with two men out, runners on first and second, and a hitter who routinely hits into double plays at bat. By the top of the second, it's time to stop having sympathy for companies that have no clue as to what the blog-, Twitter- and YouTube-o-spheres are saying about them, and even less sympathy for companies that don't have any awareness of how to use these channels to their own advantage. Even if social media has unleashed the sometimes ugly, venal side of human nature, the beauty of it is that the tables can be turned, rapidly, by the companies themselves. As a former practitioner of PR, I would have died to have the avenues there are today to put my company's voice out there, unfiltered by the traditional, uncontrollable distribution channel: the media. I bet that when Domino's set up its Twitter account yesterday, someone at company headquarters marveled at how simple it was to do so. (In fact, some news accounts covered Domino's creation of a Twitter account as though it had done something far more involved, like go into the hamburger business.)

Stimulus spending will bring thousands of jobs to region

But economists warn that this massive effort to juice the economy could create a stimulus bubble for the region

Washington Business Journal article here

How to Hire—and Get Hired—in a Recession

The founder of Silicon Alley Reporter and Mahalo.com offers advice to employers trying to make the right hire and candidates struggling to land a job

BusinessWeek article here