Derek E. Baird :: Barking Robot

Infographic: How College Students Use Technology

Via: OnlineEducation.net

Study: One in Four Young Adults Say the Education System Has Little to No Understanding of Their Values and Goals

As part of its commitment to education, Viacom partnered with The Associated Press to conduct "Young Adults' Perspectives on American Education 2011," a groundbreaking study based on a combination of peer-to-peer interviews and a large-scale poll of more than 1,100 American 18-24 year-olds.

Viacom and The Associated Press approached the study by looking at 18-24 year-olds as "core consumers of education" and evaluating how the education system is meeting their needs.  

According to the study, young adults are optimistic that high schools and colleges can prepare them for the working world, but also feel these institutions aren't adapting quickly enough to meet students' changing needs.

As a result, more and more 18-24 year-olds are taking a less traditional approach to higher education, via self-directed curricula, internships and self-teaching.

Recognizing the important role young people can and should play in reaching their goals, Viacom launched Get Schooled, which provides the tools and guidance young adults need to succeed in today's competitive environment.

The full "Young Adults' Perspectives on American Education 2011" study is available on the Get Schooled website at www.getschooled.com or on the Get Schooled Facebook Page.

According to the study, students are increasingly creating individual, self-tailored curricula by cherry picking schools and courses. They're also taking longer to graduate because they feel that, by combining school with work and internships, they stand a greater chance of finding a desirable job.

Young adults are relying more on themselves, their families and friends and less on community or religious organizations and high school counselors when it comes to education decisions.

Detailed findings from the study include:

• Overall, 27 percent of young adults say the education system has little to no understanding of their values and goals. More than a third (36 percent) report it is ambivalent to their values and goals.

• Only 37 percent say the education system mostly or completely understands them.

• Among those surveyed with a high school diploma, but no college experience, 33 percent say the education system has little to no understanding of their values and goals.  

How College Leads to a Better Life is Unclear

The most consistent theme among those interviewed – from those with no college experience to those with bachelor degrees – is that college should prepare one to join the workforce.

But today's pragmatic, goal-oriented young adults are unsure that the education product being offered to them will deliver the job or career that they want.

• More than half of young adults say it's more worth the money to get "an education that is focused on success in the world."

• In fact, 28 percent of those who have attended college say college doesn't adequately prepare you for the workforce, while almost twice as many young adults (55 percent) say high school doesn't prepare you for the workforce.

• Thirty-one percent say college doesn't provide enough practical skills to survive as an adult and 51 percent say the same about high school.

Young Adults' Perspectives on American Education 2011

Infographic: How Social Media Is Reshaping College Admissions

via www.penn-olson.com

When snow hit, one American U class moved to Facebook

"Setting up this Facebook page was one of the first things I did after I created my spring syllabus for this class, International Public Relations. It wasn't my idea; it was something I learned from students and junior colleagues when I returned from sabbatical.

After eight months of being in research la-la land, stepping back onto a high-speed, wi-fi campus was like moving from the cave wall paintings to, well, digital walls.

I attended a one-day university-sponsored teaching symposium and zeroed in on technology sessions to get myself up to speed. The line that really stuck with me was: "If you want to fish, go where the fish are." The fish, is seems, were all on Facebook, and I wanted to cast my net."

• Read more about how this professor used Facebook in a educational setting over on The Washington Post.

via voices.washingtonpost.com

Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University | Summer Internship Program 2011

Each summer The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University swings open the doors of our big yellow house to welcome a group of talented, curious, and energetic full-time interns - Berkterns! - who are passionate about the promise of the Internet and issues related to media and journalism, civic engagement, policy, identity and privacy, education, technology, the developing world, law, and more.

Summer interns jump head first into Berkman research - joining efforts such as our Broadband project, our freedom of expression projects, the Youth and Media Project, Herdict, Cooperation, the Cyberlaw Clinic, the Global Network Initiative, the Digital Media Law Project, Law Lab, and others - where they have an opportunity for deep and substantive involvement in project operation. 

Performing topic-based research; drafting and editing blog posts, papers and other written outputs; conducting outreach, developing partnerships, and maintaining relationships; exploring project and research design; and undertaking academic responsibilities of all kinds both independently and collaboratively is part of the Berkman summer intern experience. Specific tasks and experiences vary depending on interns' skills and project needs.

In addition to contributing to project based work, summer interns participate in special events and lectures with Berkman faculty and fellows, engage each other through community experiences like the weekly interns discussion hours and group video productions (check out the crew of summer 2010's amazing chapter-by-chapter Born Digital videos).

In addition, each year Berkterns innovate new opportunities for fun and learning, such as organizing debates, producing podcasts and other media outputs, and hosting book clubs and cookoffs. 

Learn more about this internship and get all the application details here. But hurry! The deadline is March 13, 2011. Good luck!

Infographic: Books vs. E-Books

View Large | via www.newsweek.com

eBook Resources

• Google eBookstore
• OpenCulture > Free eBooks
• Project Gutenberg > Free eBooks

Weekly Wrap: China, Social Media & Chinese Youth Trends

I've been doing some research on Chinese youth culture and their use of technology, mobile phones & social networking for a book chapter I'm working on and thought I'd share some of my research.

The following sites and articles have provided me with a pretty good insight into what it means to be a Chinese Millennial.

China's Top 4 Social Networks: There is no single dominant network, no Facebook for all of China. The actual Facebook.com is blocked by government censors (Chinese sites all obediently and quickly remove “objectionable” content). No single social network will conquer the China market in the immediate future, least of all a foreign one. [China Social Games]

Digital Confucius Introduces Chinese Students to Liberal Arts at Yale and Beyond: Hundreds of thousands of young Chinese are joining a new craze: auditing American university courses available online. Of most interest: topics like happiness and justice. [CS Monitor]

China's New Culture of Cool: China’s 1.3 billion citizens—particularly the 640 million who are under age 30—are becoming a world force. However, China is not a monolithic culture.

Though deeply rooted in native traditions, its contemporary marketplace is eclectic, combining regional styles with elements borrowed from foreign cultures.

And, it is evolving at a remarkable pace. To succeed in this dynamic emerging market, smart businesses need to understand its driving influences—especially its urban youth. [Cheskin Added Value]

Mobile Youth Trends | China 2010: The Mobile Youth Trends China 2010 Report provides marketing and product managers an overview of both the quantitative and qualitative state of play with young mobile customers (aged 5-29). [MobileYouth]

China Internet Status Report 2010: The latest report on China Internet is ready, which is based on CNNIC data. [China Internet Watch]

China Internet Network Information Center: China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), the state network information center of China, was founded as a non-profit organization on Jun. 3rd 1997.

Enovate: In short, we’re a Shanghai-based insights and design agency. We combine on-the-ground research and an experienced strategy team, to arrive at innovative solutions to China’s youth market. We work with a wide range of client to build meaningful relationships with Chinese youth.

A Look at China's 240 million mobile youth: China’s legion of 240 million mobile owners under 30 yrs old has a significant bearing on the shape of the mobile phone industry and we’re fortunate to have Jesse Hu in the region to do our on-the-street research for us down in Shenzhen city. [Mobile Youth]

Infographic: Social Media Equivalents in China

Image Credit: Enovate

Infographic: Ken Robinson on Changing Education Paradigms

Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson challenges the way we're educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence.

 A visionary cultural leader, Sir Ken led the British government's 1998 advisory committee on creative and cultural education, a massive inquiry into the significance of creativity in the educational system and the economy, and was knighted in 2003 for his achievements.

His latest book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, a deep look at human creativity and education, was published in January 2009.

 

This animate was adapted from a talk given at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA's Benjamin Franklin award.

Mentor 2.0: LinkedIn Career Explorer Helps College Students Map A Professional Path

LinkedIn, the world's largest professional network with more than 80 million members globally, today launched Career Explorer.

The Career Explorer tool provides current college students with unique, data-driven insights to help them build their careers. Career Explorer enables college students to chart potential career paths, build a professional network and gather valuable insights into the careers they are interested in pursuing.

Career paths are easily mapped out for students, based on aggregate paths that LinkedIn's 80 million members have taken before them.

Additional resources for college students, such as relevant job opportunities, the type of education and experience required, and relevant salary information are also available via Career Explorer.

Career Explorer Features:

• Career Mapping: Explore the paths taken by professionals in various careers. Students can also save and create multiple career paths with Career Explorer.

• Connections: See who in your network can help advance your career within a certain field or company, and meet potential mentors.

• Statistics: Learn interesting facts and statistics about potential professions.

• Jobs: Career Explorer has a module that shows you not only relevant job openings, but also how you can use your network to secure or find more information about those positions.

• Follow Potential Employers: Career Explorer highlights the LinkedIn Company Profiles of potential employers. You can then "follow" those companies and receive updates about them in your news feed. The updates include job postings at the company as well as notifications when people get hired or leave the company.

Related: Did LinkedIn Just Become the New King of Social Search?

Infographic: The Life Of A College Student Is Pretty Awesome

View the Bureau of Labor Statistics "Back to College" report | image via www.huffingtonpost.com

Trend Watch: Ultrinsic.com Allows College Students to Gamble on Their Grades

Later this month, some college students will meet a new load of professors, study a pile of syllabuses and optimistically think, "I bet I can get a 4.0 GPA this semester."

 

Well, now they can actually bet on it.

The Web site Ultrinsic.com allows college students to place wagers on their grades. Bets start at $25 -- the student puts up some of the money, the company puts up the rest (more for super high grades, less for easy-to-get grades).

If the student makes the grade, he or she can keep all of the money. Falling a few percentage points short means the company keeps the cash the student put in.

The site was launched by some recent college grads at the University of Pennsylvania and New York University last year, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

This school year it will expand to 36 more campuses, including Howard, American, George Washington and Georgetown universities.

via voices.washingtonpost.com

In Google We Trust: Young Adults’ Evaluation of Web Content [Research]

ReadWriteWeb has an interesting piece about a research study, Trust Online: Young Adults’ Evaluation of Web Content, out of Northwestern University which found that the much lauded "digital natives" aren't so savvy and that they may trust Google a little too much.

Sure those digital kids can surf the web and text, but when it comes to web credibility and media literacy, they are lacking the skills necessary to properly vet digital resources.

As readers of this Barking Robot are aware, this is a topic that I've been talking about for some time.

Here's the RWW with a breakdown of the study:

"In Google we trust." That may very well be the motto of today's young online users, a demographic group often dubbed the "digital natives" due their apparent tech-savvy.

Having been born into a world where personal computers were not a revolution, but merely existed alongside air conditioning, microwaves and other appliances, there has been (a perhaps misguided) perception that the young are more digitally in-tune with the ways of the Web than others.

That may not be true, as it turns out. A new study coming out of Northwestern University, discovered that college students have a decided lack of Web savvy, especially when it comes to search engines and the ability to determine the credibility of search results.

Apparently, the students favor search engine rankings above all other factors. The only thing that matters is that something is the top search result, not that it's legit.

During the study, one of the researchers asked a study participant, "What is this website?" Oh, I don't know. The first thing that came up."

That exchange sums up the overall results from this study: many students trusted in rankings above all else. In fact, a quarter of the students, when assign information-seeking tasks, said they chose a website because - and only because - it was the first search result.

Trust Online: Young Adults' Evaluation of Web Content

Infographic: Professors’ Use of Technology in Teaching

The Faculty Survey of Student Engagement surveyed approximately 4,600 faculty members at 50 U.S. colleges and universities in the spring of 2009 to see how they are using new media and social technology in their classroom.

Based on these findings, it doesn't seem like too many professors' are integrating technology into their classroom. What do you think? Do these results surprise you?

Thanks to Dale for the heads up!

Related: In Google We Trust: Young Adults' Evaluation of Web Content

Weekly Wrap: Foursquare Nabs MTV & VH1, Linguist Urges Kids to Embrace Twitter, Saving the Google Students, COPPA & Youth Marketing, Free iPad eBooks & More!

Six Reasons to be Skeptical of the 'Digital Natives' Discourse: Almost all of the claims of the net gen discourse are in popular media and if they are based on research, it is proprietary and full methodological details are not provided. All of the sound research that refutes the claims is published in scholarly journals and has been subject to peer review. [Net Gen Skeptic]

Saving the Google Students: For the Google generation, closing school libraries could be disastrous. Not teaching kids how to sift through sources is like sending them into the world without knowing how to read. [LA Times]

Weekly Wrap, Foursquare Edition: Meet Gatsby, Fresh off the heels of hooking up with Bravo TV and Harvard Foursquare signs a similar deal with MTV & VH1, Microsoft adds Foursquare data to Bing Maps & a really cool visualization of Foursquare check-ins at SXSW. [Iconoculture] [Mobile Entertainment News] [Mashable] [TechCrunch] [SimpleGeo]

10 Reasons Students Are Tuning Teachers Out: You’re teaching to a generation of students that can access more information more quickly than any other generation. Don’t tell students that you don’t want to figure out how to use the internet or that you don’t answer email. You’re putting yourself into a category you don’t want to be in. [GYJoe]

US Census Bureau Adds Mapping App to Facebook: In an effort to reach out to young people, the U.S. Census Bureau is launching a huge nationwide campaign incorporating social media, broadcast media and print to encourage people to fill out their census forms this year. [Inside Facebook]

Ypulse Interview| Jamie Tworkowski: Jamie is the founder of To Write Love on Her Arms, a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with addiction, depression, self-injury and suicide. Related: MTV Poll: Generation Stress [Ypulse]

Preparing Your Content for iPad: Platform-specific considerations and UX Guidelines for web content in Safari on iPhone OS devices, with specific information for iPad. Also, iPad to Offer 30,000 free eBooks at launch. [Safari Technical Notes] [Apple Blog] [UX Magazine]

Marketing to Kids | A Time for Playing by the Rules:Whether it’s Quiksilver, Monster Energy Drinks or ESPN X Games, the look and feel of the typical action sports-related website is young, edgy, authentic. Action sports marketers need to be aware, however, of the panoply of laws that regulate marketing to kids, including the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). [GroupY]

Quote O' The Week: “I hate being thought of as a product. I am not a doll, and people want to treat me that way. I’m older now. I have an opinion. I have my own taste.” - Miley Cyrus on why being a Disney pop princess is so difficult. [Gossip Girl] [Barking Robot]

Blogging, academia, and the new public intellectual: John Holbo admits he and his fellow pioneers have lost the “revolutionary fervor” of blogging’s early days. “I’m fortunate to be at the top of the food chain, to have these bully pulpits where I can stand up and know thousands of people will hear me,” he says. “But we all thought blogging was going to transform academic life, and that didn’t really happen.” [Cal Alumni Association]

Linguist Urges Kids to Embrace Twitter: Language is forever changing -- and forms such as tweets and text messages are no less valid than any textbook version, says the linguist David Crystal, whose latest book encourages children to engage with the possibilities of their lingua franca. [The Independent]

More People Are Watching TV While Surfing the Web: This is some decent news for the TV industry, since the fear is that Internet time is eating into boob tube viewing. Overall, TV viewing is up 1%, year over year, according to the report.  [Business Insider]

Why Apple’s iPad Can’t Succeed in Schools (Yet): You see, tablets-as-books is a great idea until the battery dies, and then the student has no textbook and no computer. She will have to plug-in to a power outlet if she wants either of those things back. Related: A Kindle in Every Backpack [The Apple Blog] [Barking Robot]

DML 2010: Four Things Youth Marketers Can Learn About Youth & Digital Media

Today I've published a guest post over on Ypulse and shared some of my thoughts on the 2010 Digital Media & Learning Conference (DML) which was held last week at the University of California at San Diego.

The post, Four Insights for Youth Marketers from DML 2010, highlights some of the key things I think marketers can learn from the academic community when working with youth and digital media. The post also highlights some of the most current youth media research going on around the world.

Thanks to Meredith and the rest of Team Ypulse for the opportunity to share my insights from DML with the rest of the Ypulse youth marketing community.