If you’ve ever seen Hootsuite’s interface, you know it’s well organized, yet busy. There’s a lot to look at and, if you’re like me, you’re scanning the content fast to see what tweets grab you while searching for your favorite tweeters at the same time.

Your avatar is the only thing that makes your independent school tweet look different from the zillion other ones. So, in a perfect world, your school’s avatar will stand out from the crowd even at a tiny 48 x 48 pixels.

Independent school avatars should resemble corporate avatars, not personal ones — so this means no faces. Most of you understand this. (Take a look at this list of best corporate avatars to see what “good” looks like.)

So, what makes a good avatar for independent schools?

Readability

The space allotted to you is bitsy. If the type on the avatar is too small, it’s frustrating to read and makes you look like you didn’t notice or care.

Shields

Independent school shields have a common trait. They’re common. Line up 20 shields in a row and you’ll quickly notice how similar they are to one another, and therefore, generally not distinguishing.

Photographs

I understand that the iconic building or space on campus is memorable for your audience. But at 48 x 48 pixels, it doesn’t look like much. Perhaps an architectural detail would work better like a gargoyle’s face or acorn carving from a banister.

Mascots

If you use a sports mascot for your Twitter feed, I hope the feed is dedicated to athletics and doesn’t include school tweets. While you might think that using a mascot on the school feed increases school spirit, it might do the school a disservice by making your audience think you’re not academically rigorous.

A Better Bet

Using single color squares or large single letters are perhaps one of your best bets for your Twitter avatar. Done well, they stand out from the crowd and are easy to read.  Here are some good squares — Hotchkiss, York, and University Liggett.

Here are some good letters — Proctor, Tilton, and Raney.

For those who want to be truly distinctive, spread your wings and go for it — SantaCatalina School and Eagle Rock.

(By the way, all of these examples apply to your favicon for your website as well.)

When it comes to your tiny avatar, make it work its hardest for you by keeping some of these suggestions in mind.

Show us your avatar!

1. Establish a conversational forum (basic one-dimension aspect). This can be in its most simplistic form on Twitter with a chat topic and specific hashtag, Google+ by forming a community or another chat resource. You develop a time, topic, questions and begin the conversation.  It’s one dimensional because once the conversation ends the learning ends.
2. Link the conversation for future reference (intermediate multi-dimensional aspect). This is done with an app or site that documents the information or allows participants to add information. One used in the weekly #satchat I co-moderate is Storify but there are many others out there for your use. This allows a second dimension to the learning because participants can now go back to review what was discussed, find resources and make contacts.
3. Incorporate books, data, studies, authors and experts into the conversation (expert multi-dimensional aspect). Once you have established the conversation and have a method of documentation it’s time to bring in resources. Those resources include books, data, studies, authors and experts with connections to their online material. The social media world is unique in the fact that authors and experts are readily available and willing to interact with us. By doing so we create deeper conversations, rich resources and material that extend beyond the conversation.  This third dimension is the extended learning through resource connection outside of the conversation and documentation. Once the learning gets to this level the conversation continues long beyond the date and time established, the documentation of the conversation also continues, and the connections forged open a new level of collegiality among those who participated.

Using social media for educational professional development has evolved beyond a simple conversation to incorporate running documentation of the conversation and information learned, engagement of learners with experts in forums for discussion that was not possible before and, once it gets to the expert level,  a continuation of the conversation beyond the date and time of the chat. This is a new approach to professional development for educations that connects us all and encourages learning. Don’t be a one-dimensional learner add to the conversation.

From everything you read about this subject, I believe there two essential takeaways: 

1. Be mindful of your online presence and activity.

2. Be aware of what information is out there on the internet about you.

These takeaways also apply far beyond college admissions to life in general.

If you can’t make it to commencement, or your just interested in checking it out… enjoy all the glorious moments through our 2013 UNH Commencement portal by visiting: http://bit.ly/UNH13

This is the first in a series of UNH social media dashboard projects we plan on rolling out for each major event during the academic year ahead.

We were brainstorming uses of Mozilla’s Popcorn Maker, and I was sharing that a colleague had a great idea of using the free online tool to make a PopUp video of a presidential debate. As candidates make their claims, viewers could fact-check or point out rhetorical techniques, completely changing the viewer’s experience. A quick search and fifteen seconds of the Ghostbusters’ Theme Popup had them back on track. (They actually knew what I was talking about after all.)

Recently, I have been exploring how to make online videos more interactive for the viewer. In Interactive Video (Part One), I reviewed TED-ed’s Flipped Video Interface. In this post I will examine Mozilla’s Popcorn Maker, an easy way to take most anything that exists on the Internet and “lay it” over a video or audio track.

For my first experiment, I took the same video I flipped at TED-ed and used it to explore Mozilla’s Popcorn Maker. I have about two hours invested in this current version, and after a colleague gave me some time saving tips, I found the interface to be simple and intuitive. I suggested the tool to some students, as well, and they picked it up without any instruction on my part. In addition, some of my colleagues and I brainstormed uses for Popcorn Maker during a recent in-house professional development session. Feel free to add your own ideas to this list! As I collect examples of the various ways we use the tool, I will share them.

Based on our initial test run, here are some pros and cons of Popcorn Maker:

Cons:

• Video must come from YouTube and audio must come from Soundcloud. Vimeo and other sources offer some wonderful content, and the added step of getting that content to YouTube is a deterrent to many students. Work-arounds certainly exist, but it creates a hassle that doesn’t really need to be there.

• Remixes are stand alones. Creating your own Popcorn video from an existing Popcorn video is very simple, but I would be even more excited about this product if an option existed for “hive editing,” allowing anyone to add content to one video while keeping the same address. For instance, I would prefer to embed a Popcorn in a class site and then watch that one video grow organically as other users added content. Right now, I can start a video and then others can remix it, but each of these remixes exists separately. We can asynchronously edit one video by sharing a username and login, but a truer constructivist video capability would make this great product even better.

• Video cannot be combined with video. Users can use just one video as a baseline track and then provide links to other videos. One cannot, however, have another video “popup” within the first. It would make for more dynamic viewing to be able to pause the main video and play clips of other videos (similar to what can be created using Dragontape, an easy way to combine clips from various YouTube videos).

• Popcorn needs embedded web pages other than Wikipedia. Being able to embed live, searchable web pages into video is amazing. I’m very impressed with this feature. I would be even more impressed, of course, if these searchable pages could come from somewhere other than Wikipedia. (I feel particularly crotchety for this last one. This critique is certainly a minor one.)

Pros:

• Popcorn Maker allows you to do something that was not possible before. It truly is a new, dynamic way of interacting with video content. Anyone can enhance a video in ways that simply weren’t possible before Popcorn Maker existed. I know nothing about coding, yet I can now easily make directorial decisions about videos I watch.

• Sleek, professional products can be produced very quickly. The interface is reliable, easy, and flexible. Much more important than any “techie” abilities is a sense of design and balance. Anyone can now create videos with high impact.

• Precision editing is a snap. It is quite easy to time the entrance and exit of content.

• The “forever” pause allows for tactical breaks within a video. I particularly like the ability to communicate very precisely with the viewer, adding pauses and links at key moments.

• The range of content options that can be added to video means that the output is limitless. Prezis can be engaging, but after you have seen a few, too many feel the same. It doesn’t feel like the same will be true of content made with Popcorn. There are so many variants that the output can seem new and unique each time.

Editor’s Note: This post originally appeared at www.robinbneal.com

Why you may ask, let’s compare what you get when you boost a post on Facebook verse a print ad.

When you put an advertisement in a local weekly or daily newspaper or magazine you can be spending anywhere from $500.00 to $1000.00.  The print outlets can have a circulation that ranges from 7200 for local weekly papers, 300,000 for our largest daily paper and around 91,000 for a state-wide monthly magazine.

These circulation numbers can seem impressive at first look and placing ads can seem like a good idea, particularly because your competition is more than likely doing the same thing, but do the ads paying off?

Are you really reaching the people who you want? Do people really “buy” what the ad is promoting and how do you convert them to take some type of action?

What you really want to do it to reach people who you know might be interested in what you have to offer.  You want to target these ads to people who have a high likelihood of taking that next step to find out more.

“Word of Mouth” advertising is great for getting people to take those next steps largely because people are hearing it from people they already trust. A Facebook boosted post is very close to this type of advertising because it focuses the promotion to “friends” and “friends of friends” to your page.

What does this mean?

If you “Like” your school’s Facebook page and the school boosts a post on that page that post it will reach not only your Home feed but also your friends feeds and even those  that have not already “Liked” the page. According to Facebook [NOTE: Facebook recently changed the name from Promote to Boost for posts]:

“When you promote a post from your Page, it will be shown in the news feeds of more of the people who like your Page than you would reach normally. Additionally, your post will be shown to friends of people who like your Page.” – Facebook FAQ

As your friends may know that you or your children have either attended or are attending the school you are targeting those that might have heard things “word of mouth” and taking it digital.

While this is not a new concept, what does it really look like? Where is the pay-off?

At my school we recently boosted two posts on our Alumni page and our school page. In each case we were trying to achieve similar goals.

On our Alumni page we were trying to get our alumni to do download our new EverTrue Alumni app.  We posted links to both the iOS and Android versions of the app and boosted the post. We spent $15.00 to boost the post, reached 3500 (paid) had 46 click-throughs which translated to 35 new downloads/users to our app.  We spent $.42 per user gained.

We also boosted a post on our schools page to let people know about an Admissions information session. The post reached 4552 people (4314 paid) and had 25 click-throughs on the link. But more importantly we had someone comment on how this post helped as they had missed the dates for registration the pervious year.  All of this was achieved for $20.00. If you convert this one person to an application and enrolled student was it worth $20.00?

In both cases we were able to see up to the minute statistics of how well our promotion was working and what type of response we had. When you cross-reference this with other analytics at your disposal you can get a much clearer idea of how your promotions are paying off. Having a specific landing page for the post – or print ad for that matter – can help you determine the value of the promotion. Brendan Schneider (@schneiderb) has written a great post to get you started if you have questions about landing pages.

This type of information is critical for anyone managing your communications or marketing efforts.  I would encourage schools to look at how they use boosted posts in their marketing strategy. When you look at the cost of print ads in either weekly, daily or monthly publications by simply taking the money from one of those ads and putting it to the promotion of post for an entire year can have huge payoffs.

How are you using boosted posts and what has your experience been like? Please comment below.

Flickr upload by Wasfi Akab

NOTE: originally posted at www.robinbneal.com

You, like me, have spent a fair amount of time watching on-line videos. Who can blame us? When we need a break from grading, routines, or vacuuming, lovely owls, talking dogs, or five people playing one guitar are irresistible draws. Of course, video can be a powerful teaching tool, too. You surely are amazed by my obvious commentary. No? Well, let me try another tactic.

Two free online tools—Mozilla’s Popcorn Maker and TED-ed’s Flipped Interface—can make online videos more interactive. I am still in the early stages of experimentation with both, and my students are using the tools, so my opinions are still very much developing. Yet, at this nascent stage, I am intrigued (and harbor some minor reservations). In this post I will focus on the TED-ed channel’s “flip” interface.

You have probably already been to TED-ed. If not, stop reading this. Go there now. I’ll see you in a few hours.

TED-ed is a valuable resource for classroom teachers, a nicely edited platform with many visually arresting videos on a variety of topics. The “flipped” videos already have comprehension questions and supplemental resources built in.

I like how easy it is to create your own professional looking flips. The interface is sleek and intuitive. It’s a snap to create multiple choice or open response questions that can gauge how well a viewer understands the content of a video.

Using a video I had already created, it took me about an hour to create my first flip. I now have a much better idea of my students’ understanding of this introductory video. Previously, I asked students to view the video and then used class time to informally assess their understanding.

Descriptive Writing in Simple Terms (flipped at TED-ed)

Of course, I will still use class time to develop their understanding of descriptive writing. No five-minute video can really impact a student’s writing style all that much. But, I can now get more information about their initial understanding before they walk through the door. Class time just got more efficient.

Overall, I see the following pros and cons of the TED-ed flipping platform:

Pros:

• Interface is easy to use.
• The finished product has a sleek, professional look.
• It is very easy to modify other people’s work.
• The ability to add a time marker after an incorrect answer allows for instant feedback.
• Flipped videos become an even more effective teaching tool when students create them.
• I love, love, love amplifying our work beyond our classroom walls. Publishing work to TED gives us an audience we could never have before.
• The TED-ed team if very responsive. I gave them one suggestion about changing the way creators viewed the answers that viewers provided, and within a week they took my suggestion and made it a reality. They have responded to any question I have within the hour.

Cons:

• In the end, the THINK section is a quiz. I can make these quizzes more challenging or open-ended by creating free response questions, but I would love even more flexibility in the format answers could take. Responses could be drawn in a pop-up window, or viewers could attach images, audio, or video as an answer. For a better sense of what I mean, check out this review of Infuse Learning and Socrative over at History Tech.
• I wish viewers could mark up the video (similar to what can be done on VoiceThread or the like).
• I want to be able to embed the flipped videos elsewhere.

The pros easily outweigh the cons, so I will certainly continue to use this tool. I hope you will, too. Share links to your work, and I will certainly send my students your way.

In Interactive Video (Part Two) I will review Mozilla’s Popcorn Maker, another free online interface that works quite differently than TED-ed, allowing for a full “remix” of online video.

We hear it over and over: how to improve the quality of the video you produce for your school without breaking your budget? In this post I break down five ridiculously easy ways to take your videos from amateur to awesome.

What? You still want more? Here are links to products and sites I describe in the video:

• iPhone tripod adapter
• Audio Technica wired lavalier mic
• Pond5.com
• Mid-range video production kit

Do you have a favorite and easy video production tip? Have a question about something I talked about in the video? Let us know in the comments!

Do you manage multiple social media accounts at your school? Do you schedule posts for future times and dates? They’re a great way to strategize and save time, especially if you’re an army of one…. but pay attention to current events that might prevent scheduled tweets, Facebook updates, and Google+ posts from being published. Know when to reschedule, or simply cancel any future scheduled activity. Consider the reaction by your audience should something get published during an inappropriate or dreadful moment in the news.

As a social media manager, its common sense to always know what is scheduled and when – so edits can be made to cripple any chance of making your school look out of touch and detached from the real world.

The edSocialMedia Bootcamp offers a practical application of social media tools in a school environment and provides a hands-on introduction to a variety of social media channels. As a member of a team, participants learn how to use tools to create shareable content through edSocialMedia’s practice WordPress Blog and other social media channels, such as Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Facebook, and more.

A presentation in the morning will set the stage for a day full of social media creation and exploration.

Each participant will join a small team to tackle a group mission of creating and sharing content through social media channels. The day’s challenge will emulate a realistic school environment to better prepare the bootcamp participants for success back at their home schools.

Details

When: April 16, 2013
Registration: 8:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m.
Bootcamp: 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. (Lunch is provided)
Cost: $199 for individual early registration. Early registration ends April 9.
$249 for full registration
$159 for groups of 2 or more from the same organization. Email info@edsocialmedia.com for more information.

Where:

St. Joseph’s Preparatory School
1733 West Girard Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19130
p: 215-978-1950

Who’s invited? K-12 or higher-ed administrators and staff in Admissions, Marketing, Communications, External-affairs, Advancement, Alumni/Development, or teachers. Any and all education-based professionals are welcome.

By the end of the workshop, each team will:

• Strategically tweet links and images in Twitter: Create at least 10 tweets throughout the day, including links, @ mentions & photos in separate tweets, and all with hashtags (including #edsocialmedia).
• Write a well-crafted blog entry: Produce a role-driven blog post that uses proper tagging and categorization, following best practices for schools. All posts will include visual representation and links.
• Explore movie editing on YouTube: Post a brief, slightly edited (under 2 minutes) interview to YouTube. Learn to include relevant tags, categories and descriptions that showcase life at the school for fundraising opportunities.
• Craft a Pinterest strategy: Understand the demographics and behavior of Pinterest users to help drive interaction, motivation and resources for parents and prospective families. Participants will pin five images/stories to a custom board on Pinterest.
• Create a Facebook group: Learn how to leverage Facebook to organize a group with one, cohesive location for events and messaging.
• Develop ideas for engaging social media content: Examine and analyze best practices for community engagement in schools.

Requirements

Every workshop participant must have a computer or tablet with wireless network connectivity. Participants should also bring a useable smartphone, camera or camcorder to supplement their efforts. Charger cords are also highly recommended.

edSocialMedia Trainers

Keynote Speaker & Trainer:
Madeline Riley is the edSocialMedia Community Manager, where she facilitates and organizes edSocialMedia’s events and presence, including the social media channels. Prior to working for ESM, she worked as the Director of Publications at Stratton Mountain School, a ski and snowboard academy in southern Vermont. At SMS, she guided and managed the school’s communication outreach, including social media integration and web management. Additionally, she designed and instructed a Digital Media curriculum that taught students new media skills, such as creation of a personalized online portfolio. Madeline graduated from the University of Missouri Journalism School.

This event is also made possible by the generous support of the following founding partners:

Cancellation policy: edSocialMedia will be unable to issue refunds to registered participants who do not attend. However, attendees who must cancel due to weather-related problems may receive credit towards future edSocialMedia events. Please direct all cancellation-related inquires to info@edsocialmedia.com.