Tag: studentaffairs

#SAcdn, Reflections

#SAcdn Chat: What Does it Mean to “Be Productive” in #HigherEd?

Laura Pasquini

We always seem to push forward and do more in our daily working lives. Being productive seems to offer many bragging rights for more hours worked, more emails replied to or even more things on our plate. But does this “productive” work leave us time to ponder and reflect about what we are working on? How do we take pause and find quiet time during each academic term? How do you step back from your daily, weekly, or monthly grind on campus? Are there ways you can be productive and find time to ponder each semester? Let’s chat about it and share HOW we are working to be our best selves in post-secondary education. Join us TODAY, November 21, 2017, from 12-1 pm CDT as we discuss the following topic on Twitter: Productivity vs. Pondering in Higher ed

HOW TO: Participate in the #SAcdn Chat

The #SAcdn hashtag has been embraced by student affairs (SA), student services, and professionals who support students in Canadian higher education. The goal is to connect and communicate what is going on in universities and community colleges across the country.

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

  1. Set up your Twitter Account (HOW TO: Set Up The Twitters).
  2. Follow the in #SAcdn hashtag on Twitter for the latest tweets.
  3. Follow @cacusstweets who will moderate the Q & A for the Twitter Chat.
  4. Get ready and excited for TODAY’s (11/21) chat by checking out the #SAcdn hashtag NOW!
  5. JOIN US Tuesday, November 21st from 10-11 am PT/12-1 pm CT/2 pm AT for the LIVE, synchronous #SAcdn Twitter conversation. We will “talk” about TOPIC: Productivity vs. Pondering in Higher Ed

Be sure to contribute to the LIVE #SAcdn Twitter Chat by:

  • Logging into your Twitter account as the#SAcdn chat will happen ON THE TWITTER platform.
  • Follow along in real time during the #SAcdn Twitter chat by following along on the Twitter hashtag: #SAcdn or this Tweet Chat Room: http://tweetchat.com/room/SAcdn
  • The MOD (moderator) @cacusstweets will ask 4-6 questions during the 60-minute chat; please respond with the Q# in your update, e.g. “Q1: Your Answer” Plus you now have 280 characters to respond!
  • Invite your higher education faculty/staff peers to join the conversation – all our welcome to join!
  • Include the#SAcdn hashtag in your tweets and responses (“@”) to others.

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

  1. How do you define “productivity” with regards to the work you do in higher ed?
  2. On the flip side, how do you ponder or reflect more about your work and role in #highered?
  3. What are the challenges of productivity you face on a daily, weekly, or semester basis in #highered? Please describe.
  4. Think of your last great “success” at work. What role did productivity and/or pondering (reflection) play? Please share.
  5. Instead of #inboxzero (email), when was the last time you bragged lately about getting 8+ hours of sleep, eating a healthy meal, or leaving your desk/office on time? Share 1 thing you do for your well-being.
  6. We always are on the go & trying to be productive. What is ONE (1) thing you are going to do to PAUSE and PONDER (reflect) during the busy end of year/semester time?

UPDATE: #SAcdn Chat TRANSCRIPT: Pondering vs. Productivity in Higher Ed

BreakDrink, Higher Education, Podcast

Committed To Talking About Mental Illness in Higher Ed: @BreakDrink No. 6 #HEdCommits

Laura Pasquini

Are you hankering for more of the @BreakDrink podcast now that you’ve got a taste? No need to fear, Jeff & I are back! We recently caught up with our friends Sue Caulfield and Kristen Abell to discuss how mental illness impacts our colleagues who work in higher education and have them on the podcast to share about their work with The Committed Project  a.k.a.

Do you remember the @BreakDrink Daily Dose? It was a bi-weekly higher ed news podcast Sue produced/hosted with Sarah Maddox & Shawn Brackett. Other updates since BD days: Sue got married, started drawing #suedle(s), started The Committed Project, and she podcasts with her #poopfriends on The Imposters podcast. Besides working as a kick-ass web developer and manager at her institution, Kristen has pushed all of us to think more about the impact mental illness has for colleagues in higher ed. If you haven’t seen her 2015 ACPA Convention PechaKucha Talk – Depression: A Love Story, you should — NOW!

Also, props to her work with Committed’s campaign for #StompingOutStigma and getting more of us talking about mental illness (I gave a shout out to this in my #SAspeaks talk last month in San Antonio, TX – hola!):

#StompingOutStigma

If you have not heard about the book, Committed: The Stories of Mental Illness in Student Affairs, it is created to share narratives from higher ed practitioners dealing with mental illness accompanied by #suedle visuals. From this book project, Sue and Kristen’s work with mental health awareness led to developing the blog series into The Committed Project, an organization that advocates for and supports higher ed professionals experiencing mental illness. For the past few years, they have been sharing stories – mostly firsthand accounts – from other professionals in higher ed who experience mental illness. YOU ARE NOT ALONE.  Please read and share the stories of your peers who struggle with mental health in higher ed on The Committed Project Blog.

As usual, I learn so much from these @BreakDrink discussions and there is a wealth of information/resources shared by The Committed Project on their website (thanks, y’all!):

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. While The Committed Project will be sharing one person’s story of mental illness through many voices on the blog this month, the group would also like to hear from YOU about how it feels to experience mental illness – your own or a loved one’s. If you are so inclined, please share a short video clip of you or someone you know talking about one aspect of your experience with mental illness – whether at work, at home, at school, or wherever to The Committed Project. You can submit videos at admin@thecommittedproject.org

Take a listen here to episode no. 6 #HEdCommits:

@BreakDrink Podcast Shout Outs:

@BreakDrink Recommended Reading:

If you are in need of support or need help, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Hotline by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255) where you will be connected to a skilled, trained counselor at a crisis center in your area, anytime 24/7.

If you have comments, questions, or feedback about this podcast episode, please feel free to post a comment below, or follow us on the following the “BreakDrink” podcast channels:

We welcome banter & comments there. If y’all listen to the podcast via iTunes, please consider leaving us a rating and review.

ACPA, ACPAdigital, Conference

#ACPA16 CFP: Genius Labs and Pecha Kucha Powered By @ACPA

Laura Pasquini

August brings us to a time of back-to-school fun, but it also means the deadline for the 2016 ACPA Convention (#ACPA16) program proposals is coming fast! There are plenty of program categories to choose from for your #ACPA16 proposal; however, on behalf of the Technology Programs Team, let me highlight two NEW additions to the CFP this year and how you can successfully submit your proposal(s) for Genius Labs and Pecha Kucha Powered By ACPA.

Genius Labs

The convention’s Genius Labs are 20-minute skill-building workshops highlighting a number of practical activities (primarily focused on technology, but not limited to) for participants to learn about, experiment with, and implement immediately.

InfoCourt

Genius Labs topics are up to you! We hope to provide a variety of engaging content areas with the intent of having meaningful instruction for all skill levels, offering attendees effective (and often free) new resources, and building confidence and competence in technical tools to help you work at your institution. Want to learn how to develop your proposal or ask about a potential Genius Labs topic, be sure to connect with Erica Thompson (by email or @EricaKThompson).

listofacpa16genlabs

Pecha Kucha Powered By ACPA

Pecha Kucha is an innovative presentation format during which the speaker’s 20 slides auto-advance every 20 seconds. It is the art of concise presentations. This event is guaranteed to challenge conventional presentation styles, while inspiring colleagues in 6 minutes and 40 seconds!

pecha-kucha-02Your Pecha Kucha Powered By ACPA talk can highlight issues from the field of higher education, student development, our professional competencies, and/or your own personal experiences. Want to see a few examples from past ACPA Conventions? Browse the Pecha Kucha Talks from previous years:

For more information about the origins of Pecha Kucha visit the official website, and for questions about your Pecha Kucha Powered By ACPA proposal please reach out to Laura Pasquini (by email or @laurapasquini).

For both the Genius Labs and Pecha Kucha Powered by ACPA talk proposals, we recommend sharing and showing your work. For Pecha Kucha Powered by ACPA program proposals, we want you to “audition” so we can “see” you in action to understand more about your potential talk. This proposal can include either a presentation lecture capture or screencast to showcase your talk or ideas. Here are a few free screencasting options to consider:

To help us select your Genius Labs demonstration, our team would love to see your examples, ideas, experiences, applicable resources, and concepts you will be share for either presentation. This might include the following item(s) for your Genius Labs program proposal submission: creating a screencast, posting a YouTube video, including a Google Doc tip sheet, linking to slide deck from SlideShare, or sharing a Dropbox file.

If you have a demonstration, handout, or “how to” presentation you want to share for the Genius Labs we would love to see examples of these in your proposal as well. For the Pecha Kucha program proposal sessions, we encourage you to submit a “rough draft” of your talk via a video or screencast shared on YouTube. This will video clip will give us a better idea of your content, presentation style, and we can offer suggestions/ideas if your proposal is selected for Montreal! All #ACPA16 program proposal submissions are due September 4, 2015. Have fun and good luck!

Submit your 2016 ACPA Convention program proposal today!

Online Learning, StudentAffairs

#SAchat Podcast: Online Student Services

Laura Pasquini

Last month I joined Dustin from The Student Affairs Spectacular Podcast, to talk about the impact online learning will have on student support for our learners. Much of what is happening in distance education, which includes online learning, blended learning, hybrid courses, and more, will impact how to student affairs educators work.  As we discussed how online learning will be relevant to student affairs, I shared a few resources to get listeners stated and shared these resources in the show notes (below). Thanks for the invite Dustin, and happy listening:

SAC-Podcast

Link on Stitcher: http://app.stitcher.com/splayer/f/65465/38022983

Show notes:

This blog post is cross-posted at The Student Affairs Collaborative website. Read more about all things Student Affairs and Higher Education at https://studentaffairscollective.org/

Higher Education, Learning Technologies, Professional Development

Using Google Apps in Higher Ed #ACPA15

Laura Pasquini

Join me today (3/7) at 9 AM for my  #ACPA15 Genius Labs session on Google Apps for Education (1st Floor West Side of Tampa CC) where I’ll share how I use a few applications to make my workflow more productive and how I’ve used a few of these applications for my educational curriculum and developmental programs on campus. Blog-Post-Image-Google-Apps-Admin-Best-Practices-1024x372 About: Many universities/colleges are turning to Google Apps for Education as a solution, and it isn’t just for email. This 20-minute session will introduce applications provided by Google Apps, and will illustrate easy-to-implement practices for everyday problems. Google Apps to Explore & Use

Examples for Google Docs & Forms

Google Video – YouTube & Hangouts On Air

3 Google Apps to Check Out More Often

  • Google Scholar What it is: Academic search engine for publications of scholarly research Why It’s useful: Search of scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources, including theses, books, abstracts and articles. Pro tip: Identify articles available from your institutional library on campus. Also able to search & preview millions of books from libraries and publishers worldwide in Google Books.
  • YouTube Trends Dashboard What it is: A handy tool to figure out what’s trending on YouTube. Why it’s useful: What are your students watching on campus? What is being shared most often near you? With the Trends Dashboard, you can tap into the zeitgeist quickly and easily. Pro tip: Compare the “Most Shared” (across Facebook and Twitter) with “Most Viewed” to get a sense of what content gets viewed often but shared infrequently. To see what was trending in the past, check out
  • Google Trends. Use the optional forecast checkbox to anticipate whether interest in a particular topic is expected to rise over time. Google Keep What it is: Lets you easily jot down whatever’s on your mind via a beautiful, simple interface. Why it’s useful: Share any one individual note with a collaborator, create to-do lists, drop an image into notes as needed, and organize notes using eight color options. Pro tip: Don’t want to forget to do something? No problem: You can easily turn any note into a date or location-activated reminder.

Resources

How do you use Google Apps for education? Please feel free to share links and resources here: http://bit.ly/acpa15google