AcAdv – Page 5 – techKNOWtools

Open Options: Choosing a Major With Road Trip Nation

June 28, 2012September 19, 2012 Laura Pasquini

With first year students, there are many new, exciting and scary things about starting college or university. Higher education offers a place to be intellectually challenged, develop socially, discover your interests, and engage with a variety of opportunities on campus and beyond. The road and journey are both wide open. The open road and the growing number of academic/career possibilities seems to be a bigger challenge to our student population. Besides the confusion of campus jargon and the navigation of a larger than high school institution, there seems to be more students and family members at orientation who are anxious about making the “right decisions now” for later. Many higher ed students have an idea or inkling of what they want to do, but most are not sure about their academic options, career path planning, and helpful resources to support their decision-making process.

For UNT students who enter into the undecided/undeclared program at UNT, the Office for Exploring Majors [where I work] utilizes the Roadtrip Nation (RTN) resources and has a RTN project as part of the UGST 1000 – First Year Seminar class.

The RTN project helps students explore their personal, academic, and career path. More importantly, it allows them to learn that there is more than one path to obtain their goals and dreams. In picking up Roadtrip Nation: A Guide to Discovering Your Path in Life and Finding the Open Road: A Guide to Self-Construction Rather Than Mass Production – I was reminded about my own academic/career journey and questions I had in undergrad and after. There are a number of different professional journeys and narratives that provide readers a “path” of how to get to where you want to go.

Overall, I will be using Finding the Open Road stories and interviews (posted online) to help expose the pre-Journalism (News, Advertising, Strategic Communication & PR) and pre-Business (Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Management) students in UGST 1000 figure out how to navigate their own experience. I do like the strategies and ideas in the “Do It Yourself” section of the Roadtrip Nation book to help guide our students learning. The plan is to take the follow chapters and make them into easy-to-use guides for both the UGST 1000 instructors and students that follows the Roadtrip Nation Manifesto:

First, Find Your Red Rubber Ball – What inspires you? What is your passion? Identifying interests, values, and likes.
Whom Should You Meet? – tips on how to find people, being resourceful, using your personal network, how to reach out to new people
Getting the Meeting – cold calls, the pitch, being persistent, communication strategies
Preparing for the Interview – researching the person, their company, their work experience
In the Meeting – what to talk about, suggested questions, informational interview samples, interview/meeting etiquette
Closing – ending a meeting, sending thanks, developing a mentoring relationship

References:

Marriner, M. & Gebhard, N. (2006). Roadtrip Nation: A guide to discovering your path in life. New York: Ballentine Books.

Marriner, M., McAllister, B. & Gebhard, N. (2005). Finding the open road: A guide to self-construction rather than mass production. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press.

AcAdv, Collaboration, Higher Education, Learning Community, SAchat, StudentAffairs, Virtual Communities

Creating Digital Communities of Practice to Enhance #StudentAffairs & #HigherEd

May 17, 2012January 7, 2013 Laura Pasquini

Last year, I wrote a piece for the NASPA Technology Knowledge Community (TKC) after responding to a post made by the TKC Chair @JedCummins via the TKC Facebook Group. I was just noticing that the Summer 2012 call for submissions is coming up and Osvaldo is looking for submissions (due June 8/12 – see the Facebook Page for further details). Although the TKC publication is geared towards a newsletter format, I think it provides Student Affairs professionals an opportunity to write and share about their technology trials, tribulations, and accomplishments on campus.

Little did I know that my submission would go into the #NASPA12 Knowledge Communities publication (my piece can be found on pages 50 & 51) that was distributed at the conference. Thanks for sharing it beyond and sending me copies via “snail mail,” Jed! I appreciate it.

The overall just of this piece describes how the social web and emerging media is coevolving with the changes and developments of higher education and the Student Affairs profession. New learning environments and networks allow higher education professionals and faculty to connect, curate, and collaborate beyond on our college campus. It is exciting to see how online networks afford new joiners in the field of student affairs, advising, and MORE to access information, contribute to the conversation, and develop a digital footprint. Whether you call it a PLN, PLE, hangout, community of practice, network, gathering space, or “water cooler” chat — there are great things happening in social, online spaces to enrich the work we do at our institutions with ourselves and our students. I like where this informal learning and development is going. This is probably also why @julieclarsen and I decided to share our “Developing Your Network” presentation one last time at today’s #UNTAdv12 Conference for the advising professionals as well:

There are amazing things that lie ahead for these informal networks in higher education. This is an exciting time. I look forward to participating and learning where these digital communities of practice, including as #SAchat, #SAtech (hoo-ray for the new chat!), #AcAdv Chat and others go. With this fine group of educators and practitioners, I am sure these networks have the potential to move mountains. I would challenge and encourage participants in these communities to use these spaces to think critically, solve problems, create innovative ideas, develop effective practices, share knowledge, and support one another.

AcAdv, BreakDrink, Collaboration, Learning Technologies, PhD, PLN, Professional Development

Why Networked Anything Matters…

October 30, 2011August 12, 2019 Laura Pasquini

Time sure flies when you are catching up from conferences and travel! October has been a very productive academic and professional month for me, which has left little time for blogging here. Let me re-cap the conference fun that has been happening & that I might have mentioned on Conference Review/Preview BreakDrink #CTCX show last week.

October kicked off with a bang as I discussed in previous blog post about the #NACADA11 Conference. The altitude and momentum was quite high in Denver for the advising group and it left me wheeling with some new ideas in my new gig with the Office for Exploring Majors. More to come on that end soon…

Mid-month I said aloha to a great group of advising/counseling professionals as I joined the University of Hawaii System Advising Workshop. This was my first keynote where I was wearing a lei, and I enjoyed discussing was the importance of holistic advising in order to support the needs of our students and the campus community.

Here the slides and the open Google doc http://bit.ly/UHAdvising2011 of resources I shared:

The goal of this workshop was to introduce technological and systematic changes happening across the UH system and discuss how they can continue to connect across the many islands as counselors/advisors to support their student needs. I want to send a very big mahalo to the amazing group of advising professionals who invited me to speak, and who I have learned a great deal from during the conference and beyond. The friendly and welcoming attitudes there just might have me visiting the gorgeous state of Hawaii again.

My first visit to the state of Hawaii could not be complete with a few sight-seeing trips. I joined a moped tour to see some of the best waves, beaches and of course some adventure:

I could not leave the island without another professional development opportunity – the AACE E-Learn 2011 #elearnconf. I spent the next week connecting and learning about research, models and instructional design ideas from a wide variety of colleagues from around the globe. A big shout out to my adopted Australian/Kiwi/Dutch #elearnconf family from Deakin University. I think that Bosely knows how to effectively with his angels, and I hope to meet up with you all someday in Melbourne. Did someone say the PLE Conference might be there in 2012?!?!

I presented two best practices sessions that discussed the alternative professional development opportunities from BreakDrink.com and the connected and informal blended learning environments of FYE courses. Both are current chapters I’m working on for the upcoming IGI Publication “Cases on Formal, Non-Formal, and Informational Online Learning: Opportunities and Practices” book that will hit the presses in the near future. Kudos for all the hard work put in by a few of my co-authors and researchers that I have been collaborating with as of late – Kevin Guidry, Melissa Johnson, Michelle Rodems, & Jeff Jackson. Thanks for your efforts and insights.

Finally, there was no better way to end the month than with the #NASPAtech conference last week. Unfortunately, my academic and professional obligations kept me grounded from being there IRL. I am grateful for the amazing backchannel of conversation and my excellent co-facilitators @jeffjacksonTX and @lesliedareNCSU to have me hangout in a couple of Unsessions via Google Plus Hangouts with extras.

I hope that both Unsession conversations about #AltProDev and #SAmobile [both open & shared Google docs] will continue long past this conference. I look forward to joining the next #NASPAtech, since I think this one sounded like it was such a success. High five @NASPAtweets & everyone who brought their #SAtech ideas/thoughts to the conference and backchannel.

AcAdv, nacada, NACADA Tech, PLN, Social Media, web 2.0

Getting Connected With More #AcAdv at #NACADA11

October 10, 2011October 10, 2011 Laura Pasquini

“NACADA. It’s like a family reunion you want to go to.” ~George Steele

I agree. The Global Community for Academic Advising has been a great group of advising professionals who I am happy to say are in my personal learning network. Many of its members have been in my own learning network for quite some time. I often engage with the #AcAdv community online and during our regular weekly chats. Many of these professionals in advising and connected to NACADA have been there to support me as a sounding board for a project or just to ask advice during a career transition. Last week’s #NACADA11 conference in Denver was a great way to connect and re-connect with advising pros from around the world to share some new ideas and of course have a bit of a chat.

A BIG Thanks goes out to the #NACADA11 Social Media dream team. This great group of advising pros kept the blogging and tweeting alive in the backchannel — while snapping photos and capturing videos. The Twitter backchannel was fantastic, and thanks to Paul Cox we have an excellent archive of the #NACADA11 Tweet HERE: http://bit.ly/NACADA11

I am happy to say that the #NACADA11 Tweet up was a smash! Around 65 advising friends showed up on Monday night sporting their Twitter buttons (created by Starfish) to the Yard House. It was so great to meet so many tweeting advisors IRL and get to know them beyond 140 characters.

Hoo-ray for the rocking #AdvTech Commission meeting! We tried to do some “speed-dating” intros to get to know the cast of characters around the room.

Since Clay is passing the NACADA Technology in Advising Commission Chair throne to me this year, I look forward to getting more of this bright group involved and supporting @NACADA’s move forward with technology. We are a connected & networked group, so one of the first points of collaboration at #NACADA11 was with the NACADA #LGTBA Commission get their NACADA: It Gets Better video channel fired up [Thanks Brian, Julie & Paul]. Are you a NACADA member interested in joining the #AdvTech Commission, but were not able to be there in person in Denver? Here’s the NACADA #AdvTech Sign Up Sheet.

The best part of the #NACADA11 conference, like any conference for me, is always the people. I look forward to staying in touch and continuing the conversation beyond the annual conference. Advisors are social. NACADA has a few ways for advising professionals to stay connected & social online:

Read the NACADA Blog: http://nacada.wordpress.com/

Central hub for social media with access to Twitter, Flickr, and Facebook
Comment on quick recaps of major events, videos, pictures, links, and more

Follow NACADA on Twitter: http://twitter.com/nacada

Tweeting about conference cancellations, schedule changes, and reminders
Use the Twitter Search http://search.twitter.com/ for tweets with #nacada, #AdvCon, #AcAdv #NACADAR{insert your region number here} , #AdvTech

View NACADA Flickr Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nacada/

Features photos and albums during and after the conference
Start an account and add your photos to the NACADA Flickr Group:http://www.flickr.com/groups/nacada10/

Like NACADA on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NACADA

Post your comments, photos, and engage with other members
Periodic updates will be posted during and after the conference

But best of all — we will be able to stay connected on Twitter and engage once a week for the regular #AcAdv Chat! Thanks awesome co-presenters & MOD-ers – @howardsj & @peacox – here is our presentation and handout:

For some of my advising friends who are just getting social with your media, check out the introductory presentation and handouts from @julieclarsen & me: