According to the 2014 Horizon Report, one of the most significant challenges to innovation in higher education is the low digital fluency of faculty. Not having a professional online presence, digital media literacy, and social networking skills makes it difficult for faculty to use the web to disseminate research, teach socially, and find collaborators. For graduate students the stakes are even higher due to the fiercely competitive job markets in several industries and sectors.
Those academics who have an established online presence, social visibility, and platform reach may have an easier time sharing research, getting published, finding professional opportunities and project collaborators, discovering funding opportunities and grant reviewers, internships or mentors, and connecting with relevant publics.
This practical, hands-on workshop is designed to help you construct or update your professional e-presence using popular social media tools you’re likely already familiar with. The workshop is organized around a 3-step strategy to assess your existing online impact, design professional content to share online, and engage in purposeful social networking. We’ll consider examples of academic social publishing, content curation, and digital networking from across the disciplines.
With its focus on the growing necessity of establishing a professional public-facing e-presence, this workshop will make one of the conference themes very personal, namely, the existence of new digital and social learning paradigms and pressures on faculty and students in higher education. It will deliver strategies and actionable ideas to inspire and help develop the professional you, online. This is a BYOD workshop -- participants are invited, but not required, to bring a mobile device to the session.