A couple interesting ed-tech notes from Campus Technology this week:
A College Choice to Twitter Over
So remember back to your teens (This is harder for some than others), and think of mail colleges sent you. Which were you more likely to read? The colorful brochure sporting less than 140 characters of text, or a double-bound course catalog?
To shape its online communications, one university has been using the assumption that you’d open the colorful brochure, employing Twitter as a mechanism to drive recruitment, according to one Campus Technology story. American University in Washington has been using the medium’s short and to the point messages to advertise textbook rentals, announce faculty retirements, and even advertise itself to prospective transfer students, according to the story.
“It’s mainly just answering questions,” Jon Hussey, AU’s manager of Web communications, told Campus Technology of the school’s Twittering practice. “Many times we just let them know that we’re a resource for when they need it.”
American isn’t doing away with other online communications, of course. And it isn’t the only institution recruiting via social media. Fellow Beltway Region institution George Mason has a website with video clips and online profiles geared toward educating prospective students on the benefits of being a GMU Patriot. I learned about it as part of my piece last April on college entrance video essays.
iResearch, you research
Another Campus Technology story notes that Duke University will offer Apple’s new iPad computing tablet to a class of global health graduate students. The hope is that the device will allow more efficient data collection for students in technologically underserved areas. The class, which introduces students to research techniques in the field, could be working across 37 countries of varying wealth and infrastructure that are being researched by the Duke Global Health Institute.
The iPad, released in April, is still a bit new for most K-12 one-to-one programs. But there were several iPad workshops at the ISTE 2010 ed-tech conference in Denver last month devoted to exploring its educational capabilities. They all sold out.