I’ve been reflecting lately on my role as faculty adviser to undergraduates here at Carroll and about those faculty who played such a crucial role in that capacity for me. Without doubt their influence shaped how and why I relate to students and former students as I do.
At Oberlin College my most influential adviser was Ralph H. Turner. Ralph, the first faculty member to invite me to address him by his first name, somehow was able to provide me the right balance of challenge and support I needed both inside and outside the classroom. I fondly and respectfully remember him as intellectually curious, patient, playful, kind, and unusually generous in his time with me. Indeed he was willing to stay in touch with me even across the years that I was continuing my education at The Ohio State University. Thank you, Ralph.
I was blessed with a similar and even deeper rich and enduring relationship at Ohio State with Tom Ostrom, who was my adviser, research collaborator, mentor, friend, and role model until the day of his untimely death. Tom provided emotional support for me while I struggled with the likelihood of being pulled out of graduate school to be sent to Vietnam, listened to me as I sorted out my thoughts about getting married, wrote me a teasing letter about a study I should do if I ended up in jail, guided me in the transition from the intense research world of Ohio State to my current home at Carroll and inspired me to share with others my love of learning. His wisdom, lust for life, optimism, sense of humor, firmness, and candor still guide and humble me.
Both individuals so impacted my life in so many ways. I draw upon their wisdom each time I am interacting with a student in an advising capacity or with my student research assistants. Advising is much more than helping students make the transition from high school, providing advice in course selection, or giving guidance in deciding whether there is an afterlife after graduating from Carroll. The lessons taught me by Ralph and Tom aren’t and can’t be learned from adviser training workshops.
Day: October 29, 2015
Alison and Lizzy's Adventures with iMovie
Over the past couple of weeks, we have explored different short videos on how to create an iMovie. After watching these videos, we decided to give iMovie a try of our own. Our first video was a short and sweet film of us talking about one of Jane Hart’s Top 100 Learning Tools, iMovie. We were able to film on the computer using Photo Booth, than export the clip into iMovie. Some of the special effects we used were adding transitions between the movie clips, inserting a title slide and even adding some soft background music. One of the additional effects we found interesting was adding a photo into the video and still being able to hear the video sound playing while the photo was showing. Check out our first iMovie video here.
Since we had a basic understanding of iMovie, we decided to construct a quick tutorial on using the basic functions of iMovie to help our fellow research assistants or anyone looking for quick helpful tips. During our clip, we explained step by step how to import the video, edit the video, and finally publish one’s finished masterpiece.
One of our fellow research assistants, Arianna, created a blog post on the basics of Twitter. She did a recording on ScreenFlow showing step by step how to set up an account and the features that come along with a Twitter account. We then uploaded the ScreenFlow recording into iMovie and further edited the clip there so we could publish a short edited how to video about Twitter. Check out the edited Arianna’s Student Guide to Twitter here.
Another one of our fellow classmates, Luis, is a fluent speaker of the Spanish language. Alison filmed a short clip on Dr. Simpson and Luis talking about some of Luis’s goals after college and also his work he does at the Milwaukee healthcare clinic. We uploaded the file off of Dr. Simpson’s Nikon camera and edited the video using iMovie. iMovie allowed us to edit out any mistakes that were made while filming the video and create an appealing short video. Check out the piece with Dr. Simpson and Luis here.
Arianna's Student Guide to Twitter
I’ve invited (required) my student research assistants to choose a technology learning tool and to write for me a “guide-book” explaining how the tool is useful to them as students. The guide-book must include hypertext links, a video, cross-reference some of my blog posts about these topics, and be germane to undergraduate students. Here is the first of this series. I am pleased and amazed by what they can do when given the opportunity. As always, feedback from the Internet community is welcomed.
—DS (AKA DumbleDave)
Social media is everywhere. Young, old, it does not matter, each of us seems to be involved in social media in one way or another.
So what about those of us who are not too familiar with certain social media tools such as Twitter? Well, I am here to help.
No, I am most certainly not a Twitter expert, as I only joined per the request of a friend, but I do know enough to get around. To start, you need to go to Twitter and sign up to create your own account. In creating your account you will have to decide on a Twitter handle (the name that comes after the @) and a display name (typically just your name). You can also add things such as your bio, where you are from, and your birthday. I, personally, try to avoid that sort of thing. Once you have those things completed, you can add an avi (your profile picture) and a header photo, but neither is required. Then, if you choose, you can make your profile private. A private profile simply means people must request your permission to follow you, cannot retweet you, and that people whom you do not approve to follow you cannot see any of your tweets, favorites, or pictures. Now that you have your profile up and running with as much, or as little, information about yourself as you would like, you can begin to follow people. Following people allows you to see what they are tweeting, whom they are following/who is following them, and what they are favoriting. Generally the people you follow are your friends, celebs you admire, newspapers or news stations you like, and so on. However following is not limited to just that, you can follow anyone in the world, really allowing people to expand their knowledge of current events and get connected with people they otherwise might never get connected with. Once you have followed a person, if they know you, they will typically follow you in return, giving them access to your tweets, favorites, pictures, and information.
Now that you are all set up with a profile, following a few individuals, and hopefully have a few followers of your own you can begin tweeting. Tweeting allows people to express what is on their mind, to tell their followers what they are doing, and further their knowledge. You also have the ability to respond to other people’s tweets. You are not limited to just words: tweets can also consist of pictures or videos. Once you have tweeted, people have a few different options with that tweet. Assuming your profile is not private, they can favorite your tweet (communicating that they like it), they can retweet tweet, or they can respond to it. You have all of these same options with other people’s tweets as well.
One really nice feature of Twitter is hashtags. When you tweet you can use a hashtag (or several hashtags) anywhere in that tweet and it will automatically generate a link that allows you to see every other recent tweet that was made using that same hashtag. This allows you to see what topics are trending—thus keeping you caught up on news and current events around the world. Hashtags might be used in a classroom setting. Professors might give their students a hashtag to use, allowing students from different sections of the course, and even students who are not in the course, to see what each other is saying. This usage in a classroom setting might lead students to generate ideas off of one another and help assist each other’s learning and success. In a recent update Twitter added a new feature called moments. Moments are like hashtags in that they let you see news, sports and entertainment and fun things that are being tweeted about as well.
One downside to Twitter, however, is the character limitation constraint. Tweets can contain no more than 140 characters, making rather thoughtful, grammatically correct tweets next to impossible. Dr. Simpson, who also disliked the 140 character limit and was initially slightly hesitant to the embrace the idea of Twitter shared his thoughts about Twitter here. Despite this limitation, I still find Twitter a fun and easy way to stay connected with people both near and far, to get your daily dose of news, and maybe even get a laugh at some of the memes circling the internet like this!.
Now that you have a Twitter account and some basic knowledge of the tool itself, I suggest just playing around and familiarizing yourself with it and seeing what you like and do not like and how it can be of beneficial to you. That is the way in which I learned all of my tips and tricks to Twitter.
Rediscovering my Spanish: Retiring or Retreading
I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about trying to recover my Spanish.
I’ve invited one of my talented advisees to share his career goals. Specifically, I invited him to write me a short autobiography (in English and Spanish) which you’ll find below. Carroll has two relatively new programs which draw students who speak Spanish or which might be of interest to Hispanic populations: SALUD and PASOS programs. Luis recently created the Bienestar Milwaukee web page and is being mentored by me in using WordPress.
Hello, my name is Luis Esquivel, and I am a student at Carroll University. I am currently a junior majoring in psychology and minoring in public health. As graduation quickly approaches there are three options that I am strongly considering after graduation. First, is going straight to graduate school, the second is joining the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, and finally staying in my current job at a healthcare clinic in Milwaukee where I have the opportunity to explore different possibilities. For example, further developing the role of a mental health assistant which includes mentoring and building a relationship with the youth who visit the clinic. Another example includes implementing a men’s health program that aims to screen, and help male patients suffering from chronic condition through education, and changes in lifestyle.
Hola, Yo me llamo Luis Esquivel. Soy estudiante en Carroll University estudiando psicología, y salud pública. Solamente me faltan dos semestres antes de graduarme. Soy nacido en México pero he pasado la mayor parte de mi vida en los Estados Unidos. Todavía no estoy seguro sobre la dirección que voy a tomar después de graduarme pero esta entre estas tres opciones. Continuar mi educación en escuela de postgrado, también estoy considerando ser voluntario Jesuita por año. Finalmente tengo la opción de continuar trabajando en una clínica de salud en Milwaukee donde hay espacio para crecer profesionalmente y personalmente. Un saludo para todos.