Blog U.: Student Affairs and Technology. Facebook for College Admissions, Universities, and Higher Education. The Gates Foundation Funds Facebook Apps for Students. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has contributed $2 million in funding to a Facebook application with the hope that it will help improve postsecondary education graduation rates in the U.S. This is the first time the Foundation has made a direct equity investment in a for-profit company as part of its charitable mission.
Inigral's Schools App creates a closed community of students within Facebook's platform. Retro Venture Partners and Founders Fund also contributed to what totaled to a $4 million round of Series B funding. About 11 schools use customized versions of the app, which Inigral's CEO and founder Michael Staton describes as "a cross between Yammer and Twitter. " Essentially, each student gets access to two real-time streams. One provides updates from everyone at the school. “The key is the way that we’re designed is to help people who don’t know each other get to know each other," Staton says. Virtual Campus Tours. By Seth Odell Virtual campus tours have been an active part of the higher ed web space for over a decade. Designed as the online sibling to the physical campus tour, they have the potential to reach prospective students and have a major impact on the recruitment process.
Yet despite this great potential, the vast majority of virtual campus tours in existence today are disappointing, at best. Frequent Higher Ed Live guest Mike Petroff, of Emerson College, joins the show to breakdown where virtual tours went wrong and what we can do to fix it. Weekly 1 In this week’s Weekly 5 we focus on just one story – the US News & World Report annual college rankings. Unsolicited Shout-out of the Week This week’s shout-out goes to the anonymous individual who gave Conan the Barbarian a Professorship at Trinitiy College. Image Credit From our sponsors: A University of Virginia student has a bright idea: 'Flash seminars' CHARLOTTESVILLE - Flash mobs assemble in public spaces to dance, protest or do battle with lightsabers. And at the University of Virginia, thanks to Laura Nelson, they gather to learn. Once or twice a week, students at the state's flagship public university collect in some idle classroom or lounge for a "flash seminar," an ad hoc performance of pedagogy.
The time and place, professor and students are always different. But the goal never varies: "to find learning outside the classroom," said Nelson, 22, a senior from Westwood, Mass., who is majoring in political and social thought. "To find other people who really value being a student. " With flash seminars, Nelson has found a solution to a hot-button issue in higher education: the dwindling time American students spend engaged in actual learning outside class. Nelson's idea - new to higher education, as far as university officials can tell - helped her win one of the nation's 32 Rhodes Scholarships last year.
6 Best Practices for Universities Embracing Social Media. The Digital Marketing Series is supported by HubSpot, an inbound marketing software company based in Cambridge, Mass., that makes a full platform of marketing software, including social media management tools. For universities, deciding to use social media is a no-brainer. The 18- to 24-year-old college student demographic is all over the social web, and its younger counterpart (the high school crowd) is equally immersed. Alumni, recent and far-removed, use social networks to engage and stay connected with the world. Community members, parents of students, potential donors, faculty and staff and other constituents are just a tweet or "like" away. With so many key populations embracing social media, universities almost have no choice but to integrate these platforms into their marketing and communications plans. Already, many schools have leveraged social media in a big way.
In fact, a recent study showed that an astounding 100% of universities have a social media presence. 1. 2. 3. 4.