Student Affairs and Technology

If you create video content and use YouTube as your communications platform, then you have to check out the YouTube Creator Playbook. Billed as a compilation of important tips, best practices, and strategies, the Creator Playbook is a must-read for all levels of YouTube users. It literally is 70 pages of awesome. Seriously, if you want to get better at using YouTube, read the Creator Playbook.

Brene Brown's talk on vulnerability resonates with me for a variety of reasons. My blog posts at my personal site generally have a bit of vulnerability in them. Being vulnerable in professional spaces is something that I have explored in-person and in online conversations. However, vulnerability is difficult to maintain when you are on a deadline or you just don't feel like sharing a bit of yourself in a blog post. In the spirit of being more vulnerable, here is me sharing a little more...

Sometimes I wonder how we even have telephones or email accounts. These tools when misused can lead to severe FERPA violations. However, at some point, our professional common sense prevailed and we realized that banning communication tools isn't a FERPA requirement.

Graduate assistantships often dictate the pathways for a student affairs professional. Our experience during our masters program can have long-lasting impacts on our functional area choice post-grad school. Oftentimes, our assistantship department is able to send us to at least one professional association conference. Usually, we choose the association and its conference based on the job that we’re doing in exchange for a tuition remission / stipend. However, how many people in their student affairs graduate program learn about what I like to call “the student affairs association acronym soup”?

PowerPoint (or Apple’s Keynote) is the most-popular presentation application in the universe. It’s also the only piece of software that is detrimental to the survival of unicorns.

Hashtags are everywhere. Higher Education Twitter aficionados use a variety of them to engage, ask questions, and for networking. Perhaps the most notable of student affairs hashtags is #SAchat. The #SAchat hashtag has a massive level of engagement.

"If you’re a web developer, designer, social media strategist, PR person, or marketer working in higher education, you know that there’s a lot of valuable content that can provide insights, examples, and inspiration for your own initiatives."

While driving to Newport, Rhode Island for the first ever #NASPATech: Student Affairs Technology Conference, one thought kept running through my mind: no matter what, this was going to be a big deal.