Tag: higher education

#HEdigID

#HEdigID Chat No. 7: Managing Digital Overload & Stress

Laura Pasquini

It’s August, which means the start of Fall college/university semester is just around the corner. I’m not entirely sure if I am ready for summer to be over; however, I do know that one of my own goals before school begins was to make sure my digital life was in order and ready. Fortunately, the August Higher Ed Digital Identity (#HEdigID) Chat welcomes Paul Eaton (@profpeaton) as the guest moderator (MOD) for Friday’s (8/10) #HEdigID chat slow, all-day Twitter chat. Thanks to all who participated in the discussion last month. There was an active conversation over a few days for the #HEDigID no. 6 on Open Ed Practices in July, and a thoughtful and kind reflection from contributors/lurkers.

To reflect on our digital lives, Paul has prepared questions and prompts to encourage us to think about how to better manage our networked practices before it manages us. Here is more about the August #HEdigID chat topic, Managing Digital Overload & Stress:

Digital tools, platforms, applications, and hardware are often heralded for their ability to connect professionals, openly share resources and knowledge, and build communities of practice across geographic spaces.

Digital tools and social media spaces have ushered in new stressors for professionals in higher education.” ~ Paul Eaton

Some of these we know about anecdotally – the fear of missing out, the hidden expectation of constant connectivity, comparative stress such as imposter syndrome, or stress from online conflict. Other stresses of the digital age we may be less cognizant of – for example, bodily stress induced by consistent eye strain, sitting or typing on digital devices. There may even be good stress, as in the recent article from Meier (2018) on how the comparison can drive us to perform better.  The purpose of this month’s #HEdigID chat will be to examine the many ways digital tools, spaces, and places, contribute to stress in our lives (both good and bad), and how can we manage that stress effectively as professionals.

Reference:

Meier, A., & Schafer, S. (2018). The positive side of social comparison on social network sites: How envy can drive inspiration on Instagram. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 21(7). https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2017.0708

#HEdigID CHAT TOPIC: Managing Digital Overload & Stress

The next Higher Ed Digital Identity SLOW chat will be on Twitter with the hashtag: #HEdigID and within this OPEN Google doc: http://bit.ly/HEdigid7

Learn more about the #HEdigID Chat and review the QUESTIONS in that will be posted on Twitter and in the Google doc the next discussion on FRIDAY (August 10th):

  1. Today we are talking about Managing Digital Overload and Stress. Tell us who you are, what you do, and what brings you to the discussion?
  2. This is a big topic. What are some issues, questions, and concerns you would like to address around the topic of “Managing Digital Overload and Stress”?
  3. How do you define digital overload? In what ways does a digital overload manifest in your professional and/or personal life?
  4. How do you define digital stress? What are some ways or symptoms you feel that technologies and your online life impact your stress levels?
  5. Not all digital stress is bad – so how does being connected and online motivate the work you do in #highered?
  6. Let’s talk about managing your digital life and work. What are some strategies and practices have you implemented to deal with digital overload and stress?
  7. Let’s talk about tools for your digital life and work. What are some tools or resources you use to manage your digital life?

Join the discussion on managing your digital life by:

  • Tweeting your response with the hashtag: #HEdigID

  • Responding directly IN this Google Doc: http://bit.ly/HEdigid7 {the “HE” is capitalized}

  • Use these questions to draft your own personal reflection and response (e.g. blog post, video, audio, drawing or offline discussion)

Update: Transcripts from the #HEdigID chat from August 8th are HERE

#AcDigID, #EdDigID, #HEdigID

Being a Higher Ed Professional Online (#HEdigID) Is Complicated: Join the Conversation?

Laura Pasquini

A growing number of practitioners, professionals, and administrators in higher education engage and share their professional practice in digital spaces. There is no surprise that these educators are social, networked, and keen to learn from one another online. These non-traditional spaces offer ways to share resources, access professional development, and learn from other professionals beyond their institution or even functional area of work.  Other higher ed professionals also seek out spaces for personal support, issues on campus, and communities that connect to their social identities, values, and/or beliefs.

This week I’m facilitating the Online Learning Consortium online workshop: Developing Your Social Media and Digital Presence for Higher Ed Professionals (#HEdigID). This 7-day, workshop was originally created to help faculty and staff in higher education craft an online presence; however, there are more issues about “being” online in today’s digital network. The goal was to introduce digital and social ways to connect, learn, and present yourself and work in online spaces. With the shift and scale of a number of social networks and online platforms, I’m not so sure everyone needs to be everywhere online. Some might need an academic persona … whereas other college/university staff may not or might be struggling with their digital, professional lives. Being a higher ed professional online is quite complicated. Asking and learning about professionals digital selves unpacks the complexity of living our individual networked experiences. Being a digital professional might differ based on the culture of the institution, support (or lack there of) from peers and/or a supervisor, ability to participate (or not) based on geographic location, and the social identities that travel with professionals via online platforms. The decision to “be” a professional online is not a simple or straightforward “how to” guide. And, I think it’s something that often gets overlooked or not really talked about it among higher ed faculty and staff — so let’s change that. Let’s talk about it!

Learning Objectives

  • Evaluate social media and digital platforms for professional development and connected learning.
  • Establish effective strategies for developing an online digital identity within the open, networked higher ed community online.
  • Outline the benefits and challenges of open and digital practice in higher education, specifically with regards to social media and other networked platforms.

Workshop Schedule

This is an asynchronous, week-long online workshop which will begin on a Monday (May 14th) and end on the following Sunday (May 20th). If you want a look at the #HEdigID workshop agenda, here is the outline for short-course:

  • Why Does Social & Digital Identity Matter in Higher Ed?
    • Getting started, digital identity development, and state of postsecondary practitioners and administrators online
  • The Tools of the Digital Professional Trade: Social Media
    • Twitter, hashtags, blogging, podcasting, LinkedIn, and more for creating and sharing online.
  • Being a Connected and Digital Practitioner
    • Digital research impact and influence: Slack, websites, YouTube Live, ORCID iD, ResearchGate, etc.
  • Openness in Academia: Benefits & Challenges
    • Working “in the open” and the tension between benefits & challenges of digitally engaging.
  • Building Your Social and Digital Presence Online
    • Creating your own space and place for your professional work and sharing among practitioners.
  • Developing Your Digital Academic Identity
    • Bonus: Ways to aggregate and showcase your digital, professional self and the work you’re doing on campus.

Dates Offered: May 14-20, 2018; Registration Page (to sign up)

Join the Conversation?

If you can join us in the actual course — great! If you are not able to commit to this short course — but you’re interested in this TOPIC and DISCUSSION, here are a few ways you can engage in the Higher Ed Digital Identity (#hedigid) Workshop this week:

  • ADD TO THE TWITTER LIST: Are you on the“Academics Who Tweet” Twitter list? I would like to get a variety of folks from academia from all disciplines and functional work areas in higher education. Let me know (comments or directly on Twitter) if YOU or someone else should be added.
  • USE the #HEdigID Workshop HASHTAG this week to introduce yourself, say hello, share resources, or offer advice. I am encouraging learners to follow, read, and use this same hashtag during the week of May 14-20, 2018.
  • PARTICIPATE & TWEET during the #HEdigID Twitter Chat: Join us for the Twitter chat on Friday, May 18th for the ALL DAY conversation. Using the workshop hashtag, #HEdigID, I will moderate a chat over the course of the day to dig into the questions, challenges, and ideas/suggestions for being a networked professionals. I will be posting the questions and reminding y’all about the chat in a couple of days BEFORE Friday. Learn more about the #HEdigID chat here and how YOU can sign up to moderate a future conversations online: https://techknowtools.com/twitter-chats/hedigid/
  • TELL YOUR #HEdigID STORY: Interested in joining an online, synchronous conversation to share about your own #HEdigID experience? Want to tell a story about how being a networked scholar/practitioner impacts your work in higher ed?  Want to tell the workshop participants about a connected community you are a part of in these networked spaces? Let me know – happy to have you join during our #HEdigID Online, Synchronous Meeting this FRIDAY, May 18, 2018 from 12-12:40 pm EST. [Drop me a DM on Twitter: @laurapasquini or a comment]

Being online and living in the network impacts our personal and professional lives. What it was to be connected or sharing in the network looks and feels much different in 2018. What does it mean to be a networked professional now to you? How has your participation changed, shifted, or grown in these social networks? What questions or considerations are you making about your online self to preserve your digital identity? Join the conversation to reflect and discuss what it means to be a higher ed professional in digitally connected spaces.

#HEdigID

#HEdigID Chat No. 1: Being A Higher Ed Professional Online

Laura Pasquini

Friday, February 9, 2018 — is the FIRST of a series of conversations on Twitter I hope to instigate, support, and contribute to this year: Higher Education Digital Identity (a.k.a. #HEdigID) Chat.  As I’ve previously blogged, I think it’s about time to properly discuss the impacts and ramifications of being a higher education professional (e.g. staff, faculty, graduate students, etc.) online. Over the last decade, I’ve seen my postsecondary peers  “grow up” digitally, e.g. on social networks, linked platforms, and media spaces. There are a number of connected communities and brilliant friends who I’ve met online first that I’ve had the opportunity to chat, collaborate, conspire, and create with over the years. That being said, being digitally engaged does not come without challenges, issues, or considerations for being on social/digital platforms (I’m looking directly at YOU, data, privacy, and surveillance monsters).

I’ll be the moderator (MOD) for today’s (Feb. 9th) #HEdigID Chat to initiate this conversation and identify SPECIFIC TOPICS and ISSUES we might want to dig into further over the next few months. I’ll pose a few prompts and questions using the hashtag #HEdigID (with the images) to stir the chat pot, but I welcome any and all campus colleagues to add their own to the discussion.

If you can’t be on Twitter TODAY (2/9), no need to fear. We will connect on the SECOND FRIDAY of EACH month this year to have an open conversation about being a higher ed professional who is connected, networked and/or digitally engaged. Here’s the #HEdigID schedule, if you would like to #SaveTheDates:

March 9, 2018 August 10, 2018
April 13, 2018 September 14, 2018
May 11, 2018 October 9, 2018
June 8, 2018 November 9, 2018
July 13, 2018 December 14, 2018

Any and all post-secondary faculty, staff, professionals, scholars, practitioners, administrators, graduate students, and leaders (really anyone in higher ed) are encouraged to JOIN and CONTRIBUTE to the Twitter conversation. There will be a TOPIC, THEME, and PROMPTS to guide the Twitter Chat over the course of the day. This “SLOW” Twitter Chat (all day) is designed to encourage and allow our colleagues from across the pond, time zones, and busy work schedules to join in the dialogue.

I will moderate (MOD) the first one or two #HEdigID chats; however, I am also quite open to others who want to MOD and/or contribute an IDEA or TOPIC we should dig into online. I plan to tap a few shoulders of other colleagues who are involved in teaching, research, and service scholarship in the area of networked scholarship/practice and online digital identity and presence to lead a future #HEdigID Chat TOPIC.Are you interested in being a MOD? Let me know — DM me on the Twitters, comment below, or find my email on the “about” page. Chat with y’all soon via #HEdigID!

UPDATED — here is the TRANSCRIPT Archive of the conversation and sharing from the first discussion via the hashtag #HEdigID in an open Google spreadsheet:

#HEdigID Chat Transcript, No. 1: On Being Online in Higher Ed (February 9, 2018)

#LTEC6040, Online Learning, Research, SoTL

#LTEC6040 Asks, “Why Online?”

Laura Pasquini

This academic semester I am fully immersed in online/digital scholarship of teaching and learning. This should not be a surprise, as I teach online and I’m often trying to figure out how distance/technology impacts learning. This year I am exploring HOW TO research digital teaching/learning practices in the courses I instruct and for the scholarship I’m drafting. According to Storify (soon to R.I.P. in May 2018), we’ve been talking about how to best define/label distributed learning for a while => here’s a Twitter thread captured from 3 years ago:  “State of ______ [insert: digital, online, etc.] Learning.” Under the umbrella term, distance education, comes a variety of ways to teach and learn. Additionally, the technological landscape in education has offered a number of ways to discuss, research, and design distributed learning. It’s complicated and challenging as the titles/labels for this type of teaching/learning hold many monikers in the empirical research: educational/learning technologies, networked learning, online education, blended learning environments, hybrid models, flipped learning, e-Learning, virtual environments, and more! Some technologies have the ability to design a flow of distributed learning that is seamless; whereas other digital facets create barriers and challenges.

Our learning spaces have a number of ways to infuse technology into distance education. With this comes even more ways to research and study these pedagogical practices for digital learning.  Regardless of the app, platform, or tool, we seem to have some aspect of “digital” infused into how we both teach and learn. As the options and variety of this online teaching/learning scholarship is broad, I am looking forward to supporting doctoral researchers who will identify one aspect of digital learning in our LTEC 6040: Theory and Practice of Distributed Learning (#LTEC6040 ) course. If you read this blog or connect with me on Twitter, you might see a few posts/shares using this hashtag to signal ideas and offer resources for these early career scholars as they work on investigating one piece of this distance/distributed learning pie.

The central focus of the #LTEC6040 course is to encourage doctoral researchers to define their own theory of online learning/teaching in context to:

  • Outlining empirical literature that supports (or refutes) their personal online learning/teaching theory
  • Identifying appropriate research methods to collect and analyze data connected to this personal online learning/teaching theory (small scale study)
  • Describing the ethical considerations and practices for this research study (e.g. IRB, recruitment, sample population, etc.)
  • Drafting an academic article manuscript for an appropriate publication outlet related to their field of inquiry in online teaching/learning

If you are so inclined, I would encourage you to join in the conversation and offer advice, resources,ideas, and readings for these scholars — as a number of you hold some invaluable expertise in a variety of areas we’ll be exploring for distributed learning this term [To see potential topics, see page 6 of the LTEC 6040 Course Syllabus]:

#LTEC6040 Blogs
https://jennie6040.blog/
https://nitiesite.wordpress.com/
https://jackimberly.wordpress.com/
https://crossingboundariesmedia.wordpress.com
https://osbornemarks.wordpress.com/
https://notlostnotyet.wordpress.com/
https://rickwoods2018.wordpress.com/
https://ltiwithme.wordpress.com/

We are just beginning to define what it means to examine online instruction/learning and unpacking distributed educational environments. In the initial conversations and class blog posts, most are still working on how they DEFINE and OUTLINE what it means to learn/teach online from their own experiences and expectations from the theories they are learning about in our program. Distance education research in higher education is fairly “young” (in comparison to other disciplines) and I am grateful I am surrounded by some fantastic colleagues and their respective departments/units/centers/teams who continue to find value in sharing digital teaching/learning scholarship resources. Here are a just a few (of many) examples:

Beyond these databases, reports, and resources, I am curating other digital learning materials and discourse to prompt discussion, debate and inquiry. Please feel free to share articles, blog posts, media, and more that might be suitable for diving into online teaching/learning research. Please feel free to leave suggestions in the comments below, if you have any. If you tweet, share what you think is critical for investigations in the digital age of learning using the course hashtag: #LTEC6040

#AcDigID, #EdDigID, Learning and Performance, Networked Community, networkedscholar, OLC, Training & Development

Join the #EdDigID Twitter Chat on Friday (9/29) @ 2 pm CT!

Laura Pasquini

Being an open professional or academic might mean showcasing your own work, research, teaching, and practice online. Social networks and digital tools are increasingly offering higher ed professionals an online place for collaboration, learning, and sharing. In the information age, being able to display research and practical work in higher education is the norm and it is critical we are contributing to public knowledge.

There are a great number of benefits for being open and online; however, professional digital identity development does not come without questions or challenges. My last post not only introduced a few issues, challenges, and affordances (+ the #EdDigID workshop); however, we are going to share MORE in a LIVE Twitter Chat this Friday, September 29, 2017 from 2-3 pm CDT (time zone converter, I’m in Dallas, TX, USA). What does it mean to be a connected practitioner? How has being a networked scholar impacted your work? Come chat, in 140 characters or less (or more) with us! All #highered colleagues & peers are welcome for some FREE Twitter PD!

HOW TO: Participate in the #EdDigID Chat on Friday (9/29)

Here’s a quick overview of how to participate in #EdDigID Twitter Chat:

  1. Set up your Twitter Account (HOW TO: Set Up The Twitters).
  2. Follow the #EdDigID hashtag on Twitter for the latest tweets.
  3. Follow @LauraPasquini who will moderate the Q & A for the Twitter Chat, a.k.a. “MOD”
  4. Get ready and excited for Friday’s (9/29) chat by checking out what’s being shared and discussed on the#EdDigID hashtag NOW! BONUS: You might learn what’s happening & being in my workshop. 🙂
  5. JOIN US Friday, September 29th from 12-1 pm PT/1-2 pm MT/2-3 pm CT/3-4 pm ET for the following TOPIC: Being Online as a #HigherEd Professional in 2017

Contribute to the #EdDigID Twitter Chat by:

  • Logging into your Twitter account as the #EdDigID chat will happen ON TWITTER.
  • Follow along in real time during the #EdDigID Twitter chat by following along on the  Twitter hashtag: #EdDigID  or this Tweet Chat Room: http://tweetchat.com/room/EdDigID
  • The MOD (moderator) @LauraPasquini will ask 3-4 questions during the 60-minute chat; please respond with the Q# in your update, e.g. “Q1: Your Answer” or “A1: Your response”
  • Invite your higher education faculty/staff peers to join the conversation – all are welcome to join!
  • Include the #EdDigID hashtag in your tweets and responses (“@”) to others.

To help you prepare, here are a few of the #EdDigID chat questions to ponder IN ADVANCE of our conversation:

  1. What questions should we discuss, with regards to #highered professional presence/identity online + social media?
  2. What are you preferred spaces & places to learn online? This could be social media, digital platforms, etc. Please list!
  3. What are your spaces and places to “be” online as a #highered professional (besides Twitter)? Please share!
  4. What advice do you have for #highered peers who are just starting to develop their digital ID?
  5. What are some of the benefits for developing a digital identity?
  6. What are the possible challenges/issues for being online, on social media or having a professional a digital presence?

UPDATED POST 9/29/17: Here is our #EdDigID conversation archived in @Storify:

#EdDigID Twitter Chat: Being Online as a #HigherEd Pro in 2017 [Transcript]