Category Archives: groups

Retweets of the Week — May 20-26, 2013

With the release of Commons 1.4.28 and Commons In A Box version 1.0.4, it was an exciting week both on the Commons and our sister project, Commons In A Box. With the latest CUNY Academic Commons release, some new goodies for bloggers include Chartboot, a plugin that lets you create, edit and embed Google Charts, and Leaflet Maps Marker, a plugin that allows you to pin, organize and share your favorite spots using maps from OpenStreetMap, Google Maps, Google Earth, Bing Maps or custom maps. If you decide to enable them on your blog feel free to leave a comment with a link to your site so we can see what these plugins look like in action!

This past week one of our members created CUNY CRAFTS!, a public group for CUNY crafters to share ideas, discuss projects and seek advice from each other. With 7 members, there are already a bunch links to some great projects and resources. I also want to give a shout out to @rlsalois, who joined the Commons specifically because of this group — and found about about it through our @cunycommons Twitter account — w00t!

tweetjk

Before I post the retweets of the week I first wanted to share our top retweeted tweet this week, which happens to be for an awesomely awesome Data Visualization Assistant position on the PSC-CUNY Research Award-funded Undergraduate Study Habits Ethnography Project (hosted on a Commons blog). If you know anyone who is interested in working with some great CUNY folks over the summer please tell them to apply!

And now, the rewteets of the week…

(The NYCDH Community Site is powered by Commons In A Box and hosted at the Graduate Center by the GC Digital Scholarship Lab.)

That last retweet was a rewteet of a retweet of our top retweet. (Try to say that 5x fast.) ⊙.☉

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Follow the @cunycommons on Twitter and Facebook!

With more and more CUNY faculty and staff connecting every which way on the world-wide-web, the Commons is still committed “to grow in a flexible manner” by making sure that conversations aren’t happening in silos. Part of doing that is by posting upTwitter/Facebook Iconsdates and sharing resources across multiple social networking sites. And, being the total nerdbot that I am, I happily agreed to maintain our social media presence on both  Twitter and Facebook.

Every day the Commons brings me news of a new event, resource, or CFP, and I love being able to share that with as many people as possible. For example, since the CUNY Instructional Design group is public I was able view the group update from Chandra Hanke (@chanke) with details about the CUNY Instructional Design Council’s first meeting. I then posted that information on both Facebook and Twitter linking directly to the group update in an effort to help spread the word about their meeting. The CUNY Instructional Design group was only created about a month ago and it’s great to see so many members on the Commons, who might not necessarily be instructional designers on their campus, take an interest and join this group (there are currently 25 members).

#cunyevents tweet

I started to incorporate the #cunyevents hashtag (shown above) to help people find different events taking place across CUNY. If you’re posting about an event at CUNY on the Commons, I will try my best to help promote it by creating an event on Facebook and using the #cunyevents hashtag on Twitter. (A special note to my fellow CUNY twitterers: please feel free to use the #cunyevents hashtag if you are posting about an event at a CUNY campus to help us all stay connected!!)

As a shout out to our growing Math Matters group, I’d like to share some numbers with everyone. To date, we have nearly 100 Facebook fans and over 400 followers on Twitter. Clearly, Twitter is the big winner among CUNY grad students, faculty, and staff. I think this is because Facebook and Twitter are used in different ways. Facebook is a way to connect to friends and family and Twitter is a way to find people and connect to content. Also, I’d say that a decent amount of @cunycommons Twitter followers span the national academic community — a trend I haven’t found in Facebook.

Since many people use Twitter to stream live from conferences using themed hashtags, it’s easier for academics to connect with people and ideas from across the globe. And, with so many great ideas and resources bouncing around the Commons, it’s nice to be able to showcase what we are up to! Speaking of showcasing, Scott Voth created a new page on the Commons News blog called “Commons Buzz”, which highlights recent press coverage of the Commons. If you have a few minutes I would highly recommend checking it out!!

One of the advantages of posting roughly 140-character summaries on new happenings across the Commons is that I’m able to keep up on all-things-CUNY. That being said, if you’re having difficulty looking for something you saw on the Commons last week, last month –  hit me up!

I have to admit that before I began tweeting regularly for the Commons, I was a total Facebook fangirl and didn’t log-in to my Twitter account regularly. In fact, my second blog post on the Commons touched on my (then) use of Facebook and Twitter. Anyway, after reading different blog posts on the Commons about Twitter and coming across some great #ePortfolio resources by using #hashtags, I began to see the value among academics. Also, after reading the NYTimes article, “Twitter Puts Spotlight on Secret F.B.I. subpoenas,” Twitter scored some bonus points (and Facebook lost some). Needless to say I have been spending more time on Twitter and less on Facebook.

Recently, I’ve started to use Hootsuite to manage the various social networking accounts that I oversee. What I like about it (besides for the fact that it’s free!)  is that I can easily schedule updates without having to log-in to multiple websites or applications. Most definitely a time saver!

hootsuite screenshot

Hootsuite Screenshot

One of my long term Twitter goals is to build a robust “follow list” of CUNY twitterers (both inside and outside the Commons). I started by building off the initial @mkgold/cuny list (thanks @admin!) by going through members profiles on the Commons to see if they had a Twitter handle posted on the profile page. I was also able to follow a few new CUNYites through their networks; and as of today we have 202 members on the list!

On another note, February marked our 500th tweet and we just made our 1,000th tweet this past month. I’m really excited about this because it means that I’ve already achieved one of my goals of having our 1,000th tweet by the next scheduled CUNY Pie trip#winning! OK, I promise that will be my last Charlie Sheen reference ever. (Promise.)

Lastly, as a follow up to my original shout out to the Math Matters group, I would like to extend that shout out to all CUNYites (both inside and outside the Commons) and invite you to not only follow us on Twitter and Facebook, but also follow each other. You can start by browsing the @cunycommons/cuny follow list!

Have questions or suggestions? Please post in a comment below or reach out to me via email at smorgano01001 (at) gmail (dot) com.

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Favorites of the Week: The EdTech Edition

Hello CUNYs and happy MLK day!  While most of you are enjoying some well deserved time off to relax and prepare for the upcoming semester, some of you have been quite busy on the Commons (which, of course, I love because it gives me something to write about!) OK, on to my favorites of the week… While major media outlets have been focusing on the vitriol of politics and “the man with the golden voice”, this week I’d like to focus on educational technology related postings, updates, and threads on the Commons.  

My first favorite of 2011 is the latest post from Alevtina Verovetskaya’s  Reading Log.  

Aptly titled January 6, this post highlights a terrific article from latest issue of Clarion (the newspaper of the PSC) entitled, “Meet the new academic superstars: Faculty librarians ideal guides for info age”. After seeing this post, I searched through my recently delivered mail to find the Jan. ’11 Issue. This highly informative article discusses (among other things) how academic librarians, like Jill Cirasella @cirasella from Brooklyn College, routinely assist faculty with scholarly work, noting:    

“Their expect knowledge of specialized databases, public documents, historical archives, online search stategies, and library resources at CUNY… can make them ideal partners for other faculty members’ research projects.”  

The article also highlights the impact of applied research at CUNY. For instance, Maura Smale and Mariana Regaldo are in the middle of a three year study on the scholarly habits of students at six CUNY campuses and, as a result of their initial findings, have already reconfigured the study areas at City Tech’s library to support additional privacy for students. What I really liked about this article was the overall theme of sharing and collaboration which, according to Cirasella, “are what  librarians are all about”.  

After coming to terms with the fact that newspapers do not have a long shelve life in my home (due to my compulsory nature to over-recycle), I had to figure out another way to keep this article handy for future reading and reflection. Lightbulb! I decided that this would be a great addition to the iBooks on my iPad. To save this document to my iPad, I navigated to Jan. ’11 issue of Clarion (http://www.psc-cuny.org/Clarion/ClarionJanuary2011.pdf), which opened as a PDF document, then selected “open in iBooks” on the upper-right side of the screen. Now I can access this issue anytime without having to be online. (*This works on any iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch running the iBooks application.) 


While we’re on the topic of libarians, I wanted to share an update posted in the CUNY Games Network  by City Tech’s librarian Maura Smale @msmale.  

CUNY Games Network  

Hosted by Christopher Jason Smith and the CUNY Games Network Steering Committee, this full-day tabletop games event will be held at LaGuardia Community College on Friday, January 21st and is open to all CUNYs. While this very first tabletop game event will primarily feature mainstream games such as Battlestar Galactica, Magic the Gathering, and Diplomacy,  Maura notes that a few educational games are likely to be thrown into the mix. Those who attend will also be given a  short tour of the ”Games Library” created at LaGuardia to help CUNY faculty examine games for research purposes. If you’d like to stop by for a couple of hours or intend to particpate throughout the day, please try to email cunygamesadmin@googlegroups.com with your name to help the CUNY Games Steering Committee keep a headcount. 


Speaking of  committees, according to an update posted by Adam Wandt @awandt on the  Academic Technology Research and Development Group (a new subcommittee of the CUNY Committee on Academic Technology), Skunkworks will hold their first meeting on January 20th at 10am via Elluminate.  

skunkworks Established by CUNY faculty and staff, its mission is to research, test, and recommend new technologies from the perspective of classroom needs and pedagogical effectiveness. I signed up as a volunteer shortly after Chandra Hanke, Phil Pecorino, and Adam Wandt presented “CUNY CAT Academic Technology Research and Development Group: The ‘Skunkworks'” at the 9th annual CUNY IT Conference. I’m really excited about testing new technologies and sharing our results with the CUNY community and cannot wait to use Elluminate for the first time at our first meeting! 


 My next favorite this week stays with the theme of “collaboration”. Daniel Bachhuber @danielbachhuber posted an update that he is searching for other CUNYs to work on WordPress as a learning management system. 

 Most of you probably already know my thoughts on Blackboard, so I think it’s really important for CUNY to explore additional options for learning management systems. Since many CUNY students are already familiar with WordPress through course blogs or blogs that they’ve created on their own, it seems that WordPress would be a viable platform to consider as an LMS. If you’re interested in exploring the pros and cons of WordPress as an LMS, I’m sure Daniel would be happy to hear from you! 


 Speaking of WordPress, my last favorite this week is a forum thread from the WordPress HELP!!! group. 

After Giulia Guarnieri @giulia started the forum thread “Help with my new blog” asking general questions about how to configure the WP-Creativix 1.5.5 theme on her blog, Scott Voth @scottvoth gave some great instructions on how to use CSS to give Giulia the look and feel that she was going for. I thought it was really cool that Scott has a “sandbox” blog dedicated to testing out new themes and features on WordPress and have since done the same. (*This blog’s theme is Magatheme 1.0.4.)

Well that’s it for this week, but please keep those updates, posts, and forum threads coming!

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