The best videos for faculty professional development

These 5 videos for professional development are given by an education professional or technology expert with their own unique vision to improve learning

faculty-professional-development

Professional development, typically referred to as continued training for teachers and educators, seeks to improve learning and teaching.

But just how exactly does it accomplish that?…Read More

Here’s how to reach your most social, tech-savvy students

Higher-ed institutions using YouTube, Snapchat to announce student’s acceptance

student-social-snapchat
Copyright: Gil C/Shutterstock

In a trend that’s quickly catching on in many colleges and universities across the country, institutions are turning to trendy social media platforms to engage prospective students. The reason? The need to connect with a generation accustomed to smartphones and images.

One example is with a new University of Southern California Academy. Rather than traditional brochures or letters in the mail, students admitted to the new USC Academy received their acceptance announcements through innovative YouTube videos.

The USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy for Arts, Technology and the Business of Innovation sent personalized video messages to accepted students filmed by the donors, Jimmy Iovine and Andre “Dr. Dre” Young.…Read More

Columbia grad sues Google to unmask malicious poster

A growing number of people and businesses have tried to force blogs and web sites to disclose who's trashing them.
A growing number of people and businesses have tried to force blogs and web sites to disclose who's trashing them.

A business consultant wants a court to force YouTube and its owner, Google Inc., to reveal the identity of someone who posted what she says are unauthorized videos of her and online comments that hurt her reputation to a Columbia Business School web site while she was attending the school.

Carla Franklin, a former model and actress turned MBA, said in a legal petition filed Aug. 16 that she believes a Google user or users impugned her sexual mores in comments made under pseudonyms on a Columbia Business School web site.

Franklin says someone also posted unauthorized YouTube clips of her appearing in a small-budget independent movie.…Read More

On web video, captions are coming…slowly

For the deaf and hearing impaired, more captions are coming to the web versions of shows on television, where captions are mandated, reports the New York Times—and yet there is still great disparity among various content. Media companies say they are working hard to make online video more accessible. YouTube, the world’s biggest video web site by far, now supplies mostly accurate captions using voice-recognition software. ESPN is offering captions for its live streams of World Cup matches. And ABC now applies the TV captions for “Dancing With the Stars” to ABC.com. But big gaps remain, much to the dismay of deaf web users. Television episodes on CBS.com, news videos on CNN.com, and entertainment clips on MSN.com all lack captions, to name a few. Other web sites, like NBC.com, are inconsistent about captioning—so “America’s Got Talent” has captions, but “The Marriage Ref” does not. As online video becomes ever more popular, deaf viewers face the prospect of a partly inaccessible internet. The Hearing Loss Association of America says that 36 million Americans have some degree of hearing loss. Other groups, like English-language learners, also benefit from captions…

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Viacom-YouTube secrets to be exposed in lawsuit

A legal tussle pitting media conglomerate Viacom Inc. against online video leader YouTube is about to get dirtier as a federal judge prepares to release documents that will expose their secrets, which could prove pivotal in this 3-year-old copyright dispute that has important implications for the internet, reports the Associated Press. The information expected to be unsealed March 18 could provide insights into the early strategies of YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen and how they responded to copyright complaints that quickly accumulated a few months after the web site’s 2005 debut. Viacom contends that YouTube’s employees realized copyright-protected video was being illegally posted on the web site, but routinely looked the other way because they knew the professionally produced material would help attract a bigger audience. YouTube’s lawyers have argued there was no way to know whether copyright-protected video was coming from pirates or from movie and TV studios looking to use the web site as a promotional tool. If a studio issued a notice of a copyright violation, YouTube says it promptly removed the specified clip as required under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The 1998 federal law generally protects service providers such as YouTube from copyright claims as long as they promptly remove infringing material when notified about a violation. The outcome could hinge on whether Viacom can prove YouTube knew about the copyright abuses without formal notice from Viacom…

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To impress, Tufts prospects turn to YouTube

It is reading season at the Tufts University admissions office, time to plow through thousands of essays, transcripts, and recommendations—and this year, for the first time, short YouTube videos that students could post to supplement their application, reports the New York Times. About 1,000 of the 15,000 applicants submitted videos. There are videos showing off card tricks, horsemanship, jump rope, and stencils—and lots of rap songs. Some have gotten thousands of hits on YouTube. Tufts, which, like the University of Chicago, is known for its quirky applications, invited the YouTube videos. Lee Coffin, the dean of undergraduate admissions, said the idea came to him last spring as he watched a YouTube video someone had sent him. “I thought, ‘If this kid applied to Tufts, I’d admit him in a minute, without anything else,’” Coffin said. For their videos, some students sat in their bedrooms and talked earnestly into the camera, while others made day-in-the-life montages, featuring buddies, burgers, and lacrosse practice. A few were quite elaborate productions. Even without prompting, admissions officials say, a growing number of students submit videos. For Tufts, the videos have been a delightful way to get to know the applicants. “At heart, this is all about a conversation between a kid and an admissions officer,” Coffin said. “You see their floppy hair and their messy bedrooms, and you get a sense of who they are. We have a lot of information about applicants, but the videos let them share their voice.”

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YouTube to filter sex, violence, foul language

YouTube today introduced a new content filter that helps users screen out offensive content, such as news videos with graphic violence, or sexually suggestive clips that don’t exceed the service’s Community Guidelines, PC World reports. The optional filter, named Safety Mode, also hides all text comments by default. Google’s YouTube has long banned family-unfriendly content, including pornography and videos that show gratuitous violence, animal abuse, underage drinking, and the like. But Safety Mode adds another layer of protection to keep kids and sensitive adults away from more provocative material. “An example of this type of content might be a newsworthy video that contains graphic violence such as a political protest or war coverage,” writes Associate Product Manager Jamie Davidson on The Official YouTube Blog. The setting is being rolled out Tuesday. To opt in, you scroll to the bottom of any YouTube page and click “Safety Mode is off” on the bottom left. Click “On” and “Save” to activate the filter…

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Study: Facebook isn’t a grade killer

Student researchers have found a variety of ways Facebook affects student grades.
Different studies have found a variety of ways Facebook affects student grades.

Facebook could be a distraction that drags down grade point averages, or a popular online hangout spot that has no impact on college students’ academics — depending on which university study you read.

Students in a University of New Hampshire marketing research course surveyed more than 1,100 fellow students about their use of popular social media web sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and they found “no correlation between the amount of time students spend using social media and their grades.”

The student researchers classified light users of social media as respondents who spent less than 31 minutes every day on social networking sites. Heavy users, according to the study, spent more than an hour daily on social media sites.…Read More

Study: Facebook isn’t a grade killer

Student researchers have found a variety of ways Facebook affects student grades.
Different studies have found a variety of ways Facebook affects student grades.

Facebook could be a distraction that drags down grade point averages, or a popular online hangout spot that has no impact on college students’ academics — depending on which university study you read.

Students in a University of New Hampshire marketing research course surveyed more than 1,100 fellow students about their use of popular social media web sites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and they found “no correlation between the amount of time students spend using social media and their grades.”

The student researchers classified light users of social media as respondents who spent less than 31 minutes every day on social networking sites. Heavy users, according to the study, spent more than an hour daily on social media sites.…Read More

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