I’m really excited and fortunate to be involved in a whole lot of stuff at Algonquin College these days. In addition to teaching part time in the Interactive Multimedia Developer program, I’m also teaching online courses in Digital Communication and Social Media in Business, and Jester Creative is working with the college to produce a LipDub video which is going to be shot early next year.

All of these great projects have given me the opportunity to explore and experiment with the role social media is playing in post secondary education.

I just finished giving a short talk on Facebook in the Classroom at the first ever Innovation Case Jam, an event focused on bringing college faculty and administration together to share ideas and come up with new and innovative ways to enhance the college experience for students, teachers and administration. I had to duck out of the event early to get back to my class, but I wanted to summarize some of the thoughts from my talk here to continue the conversation.

The Secret to Success

By far the biggest issue with Facebook in the classroom is the whole privacy question. A lot of teachers are hesitant to engage with students on Facebook as it’s often seen as more of a “personal” space. We use it to interact with our friends and family, and don’t always want to cross the personal/professional boundary with students. Conversely, students are also hesitant to link up with teachers, for many of the same reasons – do teachers really need to see the photos from last weekend’s kegger?

I believe I’ve found a solution to some of these issues. I think there’s a lot of value in having a class Facebook Group. It’s a great, interactive space where students and teachers can share relevant links, videos, posts, events and so on. It’s a wonderful supplementary learning tool, and Facebook Groups can be made not only private, but secret, so the group can be locked down to outside participants and won’t show up in searches.

The problem is, in order to invite people to a group, the administrators must be Facebook friends with the people they are inviting. This brings us back to the whole issue of privacy.

Here’s how we solve it – make Facebook Group administration a student-driven effort. One way you could approach it is to assign class reps with the creation of the Group, and have them invite their classmates – your students are already connected with each other on Facebook anyway, right? Take yourself out of the mix.

Not only that, but by handing Facebook over to the people that know it best – your students – you’re giving them ownership of the community. Now, you’re not having to do all the posting and explaining – rather, your students are free to share and explore and connect on their own.

You should still be part of the group, for sure – but rather than run the conversation, just guide it.

One example of how this is working really well is with Algonquin’s LipDub project. Though this is a Facebook page – a more public community than a group – it’s similar, because it is totally administered by the students – they are responsible for updates and for managing everything that goes on the page. We monitor and address any issues (there haven’t been any to speak of). The community is starting to thrive and as the project continues it will be a source of motivation, buzz creation and information. Perfect!

How about you? What are your experiences with Facebook in the classroom? Do you have questions? Let’s discuss in the comments below.

Photo credit: anna-b on Flickr

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I’ve met Peter Childs a few times, but it was only today that I decided to really get friendly with his site, DailyDinner.tv.

At first glance, the site seems pretty straightforward….plain, even. There’s no funky graphical header or image rotator. There’s no long section of “follow me here”, or “tweet me there” calls to action. There’s not even a whole lot of text.

The genius in Peter’s idea is not in his ability to leverage social platforms to maximize the engagement of users and the authenticity of the experience and yadda yadda blah blah blah. (Thank goodness!)

Nope. What Peter does is way simpler, and WAY more effective. He solves a problem that each and every one of us have on a daily basis – what to make for dinner tonight.

DailyDinner.tv does one simple thing and does it well. Every day, at around 11am EST, the site posts a new, delicious recipe, that can be made with simple ingredients, simple kitchen tools, and in around 30 minutes. Peter tells me that his recipes are generally “an amalgam of several recipes to add flavour or reduce time, and some classics that everyone does the same.”

On the home page you’ll see the day’s recipe, with ingredients listed and either a high quality photo or a video. The photo and video thumbnail are the only images on the page, and that’s exactly how it should be. I want to see the yummy, not some fancy flashy graphics that mean nothing. I see the photo and I want to make it. It’s that simple.

I can sign up to receive the recipes by email, or I can subscribe to get them in my Reader. I can login and favourite recipes, or view an alphabetical list of previous recipes (which in this case is better than a searchable archive because it’s more practical and taste bud tantalizing to scroll though a delicious list!).

Here’s the point.

Every day I talk to people who are afraid to get started on the Web. They don’t have the time, or the technical/design chops. In fact, you don’t need any of those things. You just need to have an idea that solves a problem, and solves it well. Peter Childs is solving a fundamental problem, and doing it in a practical way – you don’t have to be a gourmet chef to follow his recipes. His recipes have only a few criteria – they have to be delicious, nutritious, quick and easy, and satisfying.

Perhaps we need to take a page from DailyDinner.tv’s book. Forget the fancy gizmos. Forget the latest trends. Build a site that is based on passion (I know Peter is passionate about food!) and the willingness to help peoples’ lives be better, and you’ll have a winner every time.

[photo credit: Peter Childs, DailyDinner.tv]

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Yesterday I said I liked the iPad.

I didn’t qualify it, I didn’t say what specifically I liked about it, but I got some comments questioning my decision, wondering why I’d want such a silly thing, what possible use it could have, and why I’d just lemming along with whatever Apple is pimping without actually looking into it first. Defensive? I don’t know. But for all those who are questioning my sanity, let me explain now.

I’m not planning to run out and buy one as soon as they hit the shelves (though I’d like to try one out, just for fun). I didn’t rush out and get the iPhone either (in fact I waited a whole YEAR!). But the story of the iPad is far more important than the gadget that is going to be in people’s hands come April.

It’s not about the tool. It’s about what it represents. Oh, wait, Suze, are you saying AGAIN that it’s not about the tools? (Snore).

But Suze, the iPad is a TOOL!

Yep, yer darn tootin’ it is. But the iPad is not so much about what it is and what it does (because there are going to be lots of copycats now). It’s about mixing it up a bit – trying out new ways of human/computer interaction. We’ve been strapped to our keyboards and mouses (mice?) for a long time. The iPad gives us something new to think about and experiment with.

But wait, Suze – tablet computers are nothing new. They’ve been around for years! Apple’s not exactly innovating here.

That is true! But 1) there are no original ideas and 2) the iPad is a first iteration of a new kind of concept for a tool. It behaves somewhat differently than tablet PCs. It is a mobile device, not a laptop computer. It’s like the iPhone was to smart phones – it shakes things up a bit. The funny thing is, when a company tries a different spin on a concept, it’s often people who turn around and innovate with it. Twitter is a good example of this – the @ reply feature was originally a syntax that the users came up with, not @ev and his team. The Twitter developers just made it into a feature because it was so darned popular and useful. And ultimately, it made Twitter what it is today (a many to many conversation).

You see, the way it works is, companies like Apple create the new technology, and people decide how to make it useful. It’s a tool, yes. But mostly it’s a behaviour changer.

But Suze, change is scary!

Ugh. Tell me about it. Why would I want to change the way I’m doing things now? I’m quite content with the status quo. The way I use computers hasn’t changed much in the past 10-15 years. Keyboard, mouse, point and click, maximize, minimize, CTRL-ALT-DELETE (when I’m on my PC ;)). It’s been pretty productive, in spite of my repetitive stress shoulder injury and early-stage carpal tunnel syndrome. It’s been great to have to clunk out my big ol’ laptop at client meetings, wait for it to wake up from endless sleep, plug it in after the battery dies in 20 minutes, and try to noodle around on the touch pad fast enough that I don’t bore people to death (because my wireless mouse died).

The point is, why wouldn’t we want to see if there’s a better way? Seth Godin said that “If you’re not upsetting people, you’re not changing things.” New stuff is scary to most people. They don’t want to try because they are afraid it won’t work. But not trying at all means you’ll never know if there’s a better way.

I say it’s time we had something out there to mix it up a bit. Let’s give it a fair shake. See if it works. If it doesn’t, we’ll see how Apple works to improve it (or how someone else makes a better one).

Ok, but Apple is still the Evil Empire. I’d never buy anything of theirs.

So don’t! Lots of other people still will. And eventually, someone else will come along with a new thing that you do like. As for Apple’s proprietary nature, I think it’s not so bad. I’ve been an iPhone user for a little over a year, and have had an iMac for 3 years. We also are the ones who have the Apple TV (in case you were looking for it). I buy music and movies from iTunes, I download apps from the App Store, I use Final Cut and iPhoto. The truth is, I’m already invested in Apple. My stuff resides there anyhow. So a tool like the iPad isn’t a far stretch for me. I can load it up with all the same stuff I’m used to having (with the exception of Final Cut, but that’s not what the device is designed for). So for folks like me, something like the iPad might be instantly useful. For others, it might be a way for them to get in to the scene.

Ultimately, you have the right to buy or not to buy. To use the technology or toss it aside. But what I’m asking is, give it a chance to see if and how it’s going to change things before discounting it as more shill from the Evil Corporation.

Mark my words (or I’ll be eating my words)…I think there’s a lot to pay attention to with the iPad. Don’t think about the tool itself. Think about what it means to innovation, moving forward, and how we’re going to interact with machines in the future.

The thing about trailblazers is, there’s nobody ahead of them to fight the tigers.

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