Mindful Social Media Practice

I found this article on the Buddhist website Tricycle.com titled:

10 Mindful Ways to Use Social Media

http://www.tricycle.com/community/discuss-10-mindful-ways-use-social-media

The article really spoke to me in terms of how many people could use social media but often don’t. In fact, it seems to me that many of the complaints about social media stem from their interactions with or understanding of social media by those who don’t practice mindfully. (And I’m sooo guilty of this too!)

Ever hear someone complaint that Twitter is a broadcast medium where everyone is shouting and no one is listening? Or that they’re afraid spending their whole lives on Facebook? If you use social media mindfully, authentically, aware of your intentions, truthfully and in a helpful way, while still being here, now, in the present moment with the people you’re with I believe many of those complaints would begin to dissipate.

It’s when we begin to use social media as a coping mechanism to escape the reality we’re in that often times leads to this all-or-nothing outsider mentality. What mindful social media practice means to me is that when I’m online, I can be totally online. When I’m offline, I can do that with my full attention too. It’s when I get distracted in between… usually on my phone, answering an email or responding to a post while walking down the hallway that I realize I’m not mindful of reality. I’ve found it much more helpful to eat while I eat, surf while I surf, and walk when I walk. And that doesn’t mean that since I have the internet in my pocket I can’t look something up when I need too, even if it’s in the middle of a meeting.

So the question is, are you using social media to escape reality?

Twitter for Students

I was thinking about compiling a list of possible use case scenarios for Twitter in education and found some great links that already do that:

• Twitter: 25 Twitter Tips for College Students
• Ways to use Twitter in Academia

There’s one top tip I couldn’t agree with more:

Track a professional: If you’re interested in pursuing a particular career and want to learn more about a certain leader in that field, you can “follow” a professional’s tweets.

For lists of the Tweeters I follow in specific fields, visit:

http://twitter.com/#!/anthonyfontana/lists

I am always willing to find new folks to follow in each of those fields as well. So send any suggestions to @anthonyfontana or comment below.

BG News: Campus calendar of events now on Facebook

Click here to read the full story.

http://bgnews.com/campus/campus-calendar-of-events-now-on-facebook/

BGSU: Zoom News, Virtual Wolfe Center Nears Completion

http://www.bgsu.edu/offices/mc/zoomnews/page86294.html

Guest post on official Facebook in Education blog

I was invited several months ago to create a guest post on the official “Facebook in Education” blog. My post went up today and can be found here (full link below). I’m happy to see that Facebook has vision and dedicated staff towards seeing this massive platform put to use in education.

As a Learning Management System the Facebook group enabled important educational exchanges, but there are a few additional features that could make this platform even more useful. The ability to see all contributions made to the group by a single person would enable a teacher to view all comments, links, pictures, videos and even “Like” buttons used by a student within the group page.  This would enable an instructor to easily track and measure student engagement. Adding the ability to make separate photo albums would enable an instructor to differentiate contributions posted from different classes. If Facebook groups also had the ability to add applications, a teacher could feed information from other sources, via RSS or SMS, directly into the group page. Finally, if Facebook had the ability to host document and slideshows, there would be no reason to use Google Documents or another document hosting service – students could read documents or view lecture slides without leaving the group page.

http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-in-education/using-a-facebook-group-as-a-learning-management-system/10150244221815570

Bugs in WordPress

I’ve been battling a few of the bugs in WordPress including the RSS feed for this new blog. One of the solutions? Make a new post and publish. Let’s see if it works…

Nope, not working.

It might be this blank line bug:

http://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/error/WPBlankLine.html

This will be the one true…

Anthony Fontana blog.

I have kept blogs at:

http://themultichronicclassroom.blogspot.com/

https://blogs.bgsu.edu/anthonyfontana/

and

http://anthonyfontana.vox.com/

From this moment on… this will be the one place I blog. If I do keep another blog (like the one for The Net Jockey at http://thenetjockey.com/) I will repost those things here. Soon, this page will look like the rest of AnthonyFontana.com and be equipped with my Tweeters, 12secs, and more. Stay tuned.

Add the new facebook app

Click here to get the new BGSU Facebook Application:

http://bgsu.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=41501853292&ref=ts

This application allows Facebook users to quickly read thru the top 10 Headlines of many BGSU RSS feeds, including blogs from blogs.bgsu.edu and Campus Update.

Blogging with ScribeFire

Testing a blog post with ScribeFire suggested by Terence over at TerenceOnline.

If
you are a blogger and want increase your production, give ScribeFire a
try. This is my first post using the tool so hopefully it works well.

RSS Feeds and myBGSUonline

I spent a few hours messing around with RSS feeds on myBGSUonline.com today. While I’ve had (way too) many blogs in the past… I have to admit that I’m a WordPress n00b. So when I finally settled on this theme (“Light”) I was baffled by the fact that it didn’t already have an easy to find RSS logo and feed on it. It wasn’t until I watched this tutorial video (thanks Terence!) and took his suggestion to add the ‘meta’ widget that I now have a link on my page called “Entries RSS”.

So, if your students are going to use myBGSUonline be aware:

• Some themes come with RSS logos and feeds built in and others must add the ‘meta’ widget.

OR

• They can add the ‘RSS’ widget and use their URL feed (click on the menu part of the widget)
  
  • Example: For the RSS address use http://www.example.com/feed/
  • This will provide a little RSS logo that when clicked, adds the feed
    
    • There is a down side to this option: Next to the RSS logo is the title you choose. Clicking on that word and not the tiny tiny RSS Logo will only reload the page and not add the feed. This option may seem a bit overwhelming for first time bloggers.

    

* Take a look at the sidebar on this blog as I have enabled BOTH features.

Private Blogs – No RSS

There is no way to get an RSS feed on a private blog (or one that you can only view by invitation). However, this isn’t just true on this site, I’m pretty sure it is true on Blogger and elsewhere. The drawback? Your students cannot keep private blogs while you keep the nice RSS Reader (a savior when it comes to grading 40 blogs a week!)

The solution?

I will probably have my students choose the radio button option (Options > Privacy) “I would like my blog to be visible only to registered users from blog community.” This will keep the blog from being posted on the myBGSUonline frontpage and therefore secret, but not restricted. At the same time, I can still use my RSS Reader and view all my students’ blogs from one place.

The up side?

Students may create a blog on myBGSUonline that has anonymity. There are no ‘author profile’ pages that automatically link from a new blog. When assigning the creation of a blog I have always made it clear that they are writing in a public space and therefore are free to choose an anonymous blogger identity and blog name.
* Keep in mind that in the past, my blog assignments have been private, i.e. they do not have to share their address with anyone but me. This takes advantage of blogs as an accessible web-log, but not its web 2.0-comment capabilities.