Multilitteratus Incognitus

  A while back a tweet caught my eye that really piqued my interest. I don't remember who posted it, but it was responded to by someone I follow with a confirmatory story of their own.  The tweet went something like this: I finished my [graduate] degree x-many years ago. In this time, I have not been contacted by my [alma matter] department to participate on panel discussions, webinars, submit updates on my professional activities, articles I've authored, write a guest blog- or newsletter-post, give a talk, facilitate a workshop, etc. Let me say that I can totally understand! If my experience is any indication it's probably not you but rather how the organization functions.  As most blog posts go, I have some anecdotes! These are both from my experiences as an alumnus of an organization and  as a staff member of that organization.  Student & Alumnus Perspective Let me start with my experiences as an alumnus. I graduated from my programs in 2004, 2007, 2...

I came across this Educause North Atlantic conference presentation file relatively recently. As someone who has created a Ning social Network for one program (and helped develop a Ning network for another), I thought this presentation was interesting. I really wish there were an associated podcast with this powerpoint file because the powerpoint alone does this presentation little justice One of the common reasons people (IT folk) don't like Ning, at least on my campus, is that it's not something they control, and they claim that they subscribe to similar functions in blackboard. As someone who's working on his third and fourth Master's degree, I have never seen this implemented for any of my studies, and it's something that is useful to the student and the alumni population! So what is wrong with portals (asks the slide?) Portals = enterprise technology; central control Web 2.0 = open source; distributed management A dirty secret – portals are supposed to offer mo...