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Social Media & Education: Twitter for Teaching

Sascha Funk — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:31:20 +0000

After already talking about the biggest of all social networks, facebook, and its potential for teaching purposes and the article on how to use a self hosted website for educational matters, it is now time to focus on another big player in the social media hemisphere. Twitter. For those of you who don’t know Twitter Twitter is a short messaging service which actually plays a big role in social media marketing, branding and entertainment. The biggest user group is, right now, therefore not the typical 16-25 peer group but older users with more experience. However more and more students are getting into it and warming up with the short and quick way of sharing interests and news. Twitter allows you to send messages up to 140 characters through the web. You can either publish those messages publicly on your profile (e.g. twitter.com/nomadteacher1) twitter profile with publicly visible tweets (messages) or you can address those messages directly to a specific user while adding his username in front of a message (e.g. @sayfun check out this cool blog post about how to use twitter for teaching on nomadteacher.org). addressing a message on twitter directly – still publicly visible. you can also add [...]

Social Media & Education: Brief guide to jump-start your social media efforts

Sascha Funk — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 17:57:44 +0000

After my blog post about Facebook & Teaching I received quite a lot of mails asking for more examples and advice on how to use Social Media for teaching purposes. While I am currently writing on further in depth posts on how to use some of the well known social media platforms I thought it might also be a good idea to get a post out that doesn’t get to much into detail but shows some of the current highlights of social networks in terms of educational implementation possibilities. Having that said I hope everyone understands that this is just thought as an overview. The more specific posts to each of these social networks are coming soon. 1.) Facebook First place in our little journey across social media plattforms is, of course, Facebook. Kind of a no-brainer since Facebook is still THE fastest growing Social Network worldwide and the number one Social Network in most countries. If you are interested in an in-depth analysis on how to use facebook for teaching purposes, please follow this link to my currently published article about exactly this matter: Social Media & Education: Facebook for Teaching. In short: Facebook is great because most students [...]

Social Media & Education: Using Facebook for Teaching

Sascha Funk — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 17:51:52 +0000

Social Media is definitely a huge field with numerous possibilities to interact or getting started. However facebook somehow simply is the one network which is widely known as ‘the social network’ or even ‘the internet’. So it seemed quite reasonable for me to start my series ‘Using Social Media for Education‘ with facebook as first example. I simply assume that most of you know facebook and already are there (active or passive). If this isn’t the case please feel free to head over to my ‘Social Media Explained’ section and explore facebook’s possibilites in general. But enough with the preface, let us start with the conversation. However, before getting into examples and best practices, let us get rid of the thought that facebook is bad and the origin of all evil. I already discussed whether social media is good or bad in terms of teaching & studies, let’s not start this discussion again (if so, please in the comments section beneath the post mentioned above) and assume that facebook is not developed by the devil himself (even though I wouldn’t put my shirt on it – however it’s not the root of all evil). Here is a short informational graphic [...]

My Thai year – Thailand 2011 – a look back

Sascha Funk — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 11:22:43 +0000

My first complete year in Thailand comes to an end. Time to reflect, re-think, reconsider and review. Highlights, lowlights, learnings, earnings, disappointments. The good, the bad and the ugly of living a teaching life in Thailand. I divided this post (as well as the complete my-thai.org website) into different sections. Travel, Teaching & Living. I will write about the highlights and lowlights of 2011 in each of these categories. Let’s get the ball rolling with the travel part. Since I am living in a more rural part of the country I don’t see the beach or the sea every single day. That’s why I am quite happy when there are reasons to travel. One of those reasons during the past year was the visit of one of my good friends from Germany. We travelled for about two weeks and came across some pretty nice and fascinating places. To name a few of those highlights: Chiang Mai (during Songkran festival – crazy!), Sukhothai (during Songkran festival – crazy crazy!), Bangkok (of course!) and beautiful Krabi (Tonsai Beach!). While every stop during our journey was interesting and somehow impressive, Krabi blew the whole thing off. In an incredible way. Actually there are no words [...]

Tipp(‘s) Off – A story about Basketball, Business and Bullshit

Sascha Funk — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 07:19:43 +0000

This week the news spread all over the world (wide web) like a wildfire. The NBA Lockout is over! Players and officials have found an agreement and will settle their differences. We will see a short season (66 games) and it will start with an amazing triple-header on X-Mas day, December 25th. So hey, let’s celebrate. Basketballfans all over around the globe. The NBA’s back. Wooohoo wait a minute… Merry X-Mas everybody First I have to say that I am happy that we’ll be able to see some NBA action this season. For various reasons. One of them is that I’m happy to see my homie Dirk Nowitzki getting his Championship Ring in front of the eyes of ‘The King’ and his army the Miami Heat (Game number one this season: Mavs vs. Heat). Furthermore I am happy that Dirk (and some other older superstars) don’t have to play in shitty (sorry) leagues and ruin their game in order to fit in the European or Chinese style. And wouldn’t it be kinda sad to see the NBA Champion (again: and other superstars) playing for Bayreuth, Bamberg, Marbella or Chiangzu? So yeah, glad the NBA will be back. And man…on Christmas. [...]

The new youtube

Sascha Funk — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 20:23:07 +0000

Apparently youtube is testing a new layout of it’s website. And this time it’s not only a minor twist, it’s an actual change! I’ve noticed this on quite some profiles. However I still have some profiles where I still see the old layout. I have to say that I am quite happy with the change I see. While using youtube on an almost daily basis the layout and usability really [ Read More ] The new youtube is a post from: eKnowWaytions Related posts: Putting Design in SEO – Google Instant Preview Youtube verbindet Youtube Vorschaubild

Google rolls out Google+ Pages

Sascha Funk — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:27:14 +0000

Beginning today Google announced to roll out Google+ Pages for businesses. You can brand your site, upload pictures, videos, share, connect, etc….everything you’re used to from this other social network. So check out the intro video. I think there’s not much more to say. We all know how important brand pages can be. Nevertheless I am not quite sure that I like that Google+ becomes more and more a ‘normal’ social network. However it is the logical and ‘right’ step of course. Google+ Pages Second announcement of today: Google Direct Connect. Google+ Pages will be found in Search Results and instantly addable to your circles. Google Direct Connect

All time favorite TV series (from the 80s)

Sascha Funk — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:45:03 +0000

The good thing about getting older is it entitles you (actually I entitle myself to it) to say things like ‘that’s the best thing I’ve seen in MY WHOLE LIFE. The other day I was talking with some of my students about their current TV schedule and we compared series from the past with current ones (in order to see different communication and selling styles). This made me think about my favorite series of all time…(might be edited later on). Before starting one short remark: It was awesome to listen to all those old themes again. Should do this more often! But now, let’s start with number 11. 11.) CHiPS Sometimes it’s just enough to have big white teeth and nice dark hair…Nevertheless the ‘action’ was quite nice for kids those times and man…motorbikes! Still it took some time to figure out why they call a TV series like a potato snack… 10.) Highway Man Actually there are good chances that this is one of the worst tv series ever made. Bad acting, cheap special effects and a plot that sucks big time. Nevertheless I was addicted to this series for about 1 year or so (did it last that [...]

EMD | Emotionless Decision Making

Sascha Funk — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 16:36:45 +0000

The other day I came across a recent quote by the Dalai Lama (yes, again) and considered it, once more, straight to the point. Even though I do not only consider it as true in it’s original meaning, I also think its message is truth in almost every aspect of life. Lead by emotions we often tend to do things, that neither help others nor ourselves. Under certain circumstances, you may need to take steps to counteract someone else’s wrongdoing, but it’s better to do so without anger. That will be more effective, because when your mind is overwhelmed by a disturbing emotion like anger, the action you take may not be appropriate. As soon as you act out of anger you will face anger as well. I guess we all know that and we are aware of the outcome. That’s why we learn to negotiate in our jobs and have seminars on how to handle people and whatever… Nevertheless emotions are not only an obstacle when it comes to anger. Passion, love, excitement….actually good adjectives can, from time to time, do harm to our aimed achievements. Further examples might be the passion for a sport or a job that [...]

Ctrl+C & Ctrl+V | Social Network competition

Sascha Funk — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 18:18:40 +0000

During the last few days facebook rolled out some new features, adjustments and improvements or whatever they want to call it. For te ease of use lets just call it googleplusthings. Wait! Before you leave because you think this is just another facebook bashing, google plus is better, fanboy post. It is not! Most of my social media contacts praise facebook’s latest adjustments and see great possibilities in it’s new features (subscribing, listing, googleplussing). Nevertheless there also are ‘experts’ who doom facebook for totally copying google+. I have two points to add to this conversation. First I have to say that facebook does have some nice new features and ideas. In my opinion those are not the prominent featuring of lists or the stalkin subscribing though. Instead of those copy cat features I like the stuff that is, right now, facebook’s own. Example? Sure. This little box appears once in a while and shows you what you posted on a very date exactly one year ago. Nice idea, nice implementation, fun for users. Well done! Besides that facebook also added the ‘see how shared content’ feature. This is the first kind of google+ copy. Nevertheless facebook added some own ideas [...]