subscribe

Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category

Home → Blog

Using QR Codes On Campus

By Matt on January 17th, 2012   /   Blog, Higher Education   /   Leave a comment

Universities are striving to keep pace with the rapid change of pace in technology. New tools and platforms are becoming available every month. Some grab traction…and some don’t. Universities should not be afraid to experiment with new communication technologies. After all, they are suppose to be institutions of research and innovation. One of these new technologies is Quick Response codes, otherwise known as QR codes.

QR codes have been all the rage in Japan for years. These odd looking square bar codes have been apart of Japanese advertising for many years and their growth is exploding the quickest in Hong Kong and Canada. How can universities here in the United States use these to engage students?

The uses are endless. Many universities place them on printed posters and brochures to allow students to access digital content relating the printed material in front of them. My alma mater used them on posters advertising school trips allowing students to sign up for the trip or get on a mailing list about it  by scanning the code and filling out a simple form. Having QR codes on printed materials is great as long as their is convenience and value to the user. Don’t just have the code redirect to your website. Make sure the content it directs to is related to the material they scanned it off of and preferably mobile-formatted.

That’s the simple use of QR codes, I want to get a bit more creative though! The University of Wisconsin-Stout is a wireless campus from top-to-bottom. If you’re standing on-campus you can get a wireless signal. Placing QR codes on campus buildings and then linking to a YouTube video or audio podcast that tells that buildings history and what departments reside there. This could be a “do-it-yourself” tour for new students or prospective students who are tech savvy. It informs and engages them in a way their used to, smartphones, while drawing a sense of closeness with the campus.

Another aspect is Admissions. Your admissions office should consider using QR codes on their booklets they send to high schools whether by mail or on career days. If you’re trying to attract bright, young tech savvy students into programs like computer science, multimedia design and other science related fields, this is a way to reach them. Students outside the tech majors know QR codes, but those who are techies will give your institution huge props for keeping on the cutting edge. Link the QR code to a video about that program including student testimonials in your admissions program booklet.

Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you Athletics. There are huge opportunities for athletics to use QR technology. The first is producing short one minute videos of players and featuring them on your game day programs. Have fans scan the code and up pops a video of their favorite player in a candid, funny interview. Also consider placing a static QR code on your game day program so fans with smartphones can get linked directly to the live statistics for the game. Die hard fans in the stands would love an easy way to get live stats without have to surf and click tiny little links on your website.

These are just a few ideas I have implemented personally and advise other universities to do as well. What has your university done with QR codes, if anything? Are they keeping pace or being left in the dust of technology? Tell me below in the comments!

Generate Your Own QR Code Easily

Kaywa QR Generator

QR Stuff

Back to Top

How Tablets Are Changing Everything

By Matt on January 11th, 2012   /   Blog, Social Networking   /   Leave a comment

When your surfing the web, your engaged in a particular experience and you know how it feels when you read text or view an image. The Internet as we know it has been around a little over decade. This is why these feelings are some normal for us. We’ve been conditioned to the experience. However, mobile and tablets are changing the game yet again.

When you engage with content on an iPad, iPhone or other smaller devices, the experience is vastly different. It’s more intimate and personal than using a laptop or desktop. Within 10 years desktops might be all but gone in normal households with the majority of surfing taking place on tablets, smartphones and the occasional laptop. Desktops wont disappear, some people still need the processing power, memory and big screen. However, this means that you need to be prepared for this shift. Does your company have an immense amount of content that you’ll need to prepare for things like the iPad, e-magazines, smartphones and other devices that are in the pipeline? You should probably be working on this very thing already if you want to be on top of the shifting trend.

One of the biggest and frankly, neatest shifts has been the use of e-magazines and apps like Flipboard. This app isn’t revolutionary in what it actually does, but rather how it does it. The experience of using Flipboard on an iPad if elegant and effortless. A more personal and intimate experience between the content and the end-user. Check it out here:

This kind of content viewing experience is changing the Internet and how users consume their data. Has your company begun preparing for this shift? Tell me your thoughts on e-books, e-magazines and tablets in the comments. Will they change how people browse their digital content?

 

Back to Top

How To Write Effective E-Mail

By mkaskavitch on August 18th, 2009   /   Blog   /   Leave a comment

So many of us do it daily, but hardly anyone does it efficiently.  E-mail has rapidly become as important as checking your physical snail mail box outside your home.  Nothing annoys me more than having to wait more than 24-48 hours for an e-mail response unless they have auto-reply turned on notifying you otherwise.  My gripe to people I know who do that is, “would you check your physical mailbox every three or four days?”  They always reply with the common answer, no.

Here are some guidelines for effective e-mail

  • Don’t Ramble! -  When people sit down to check their e-mail they often have lots of messages and little time.  Don’t tell your life story only to get to the point in the very last sentence.  KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) often works well for e-mail.  No more than five sentences, that’s it!
  • Be Careful With E-Mail Directories and pre-defined mailing lists - I’ve seen people I know make this terrible mistake.  When loading up multiple recipients or using a pre-defined mailing list make sure you know who it’s going to!  Double check and re-check the recipients you’ve selected or know who the mailing list contains.  You could send information and have it seen by users who you definitely don’t want seeing it.
  • Don’t E-Mail Angry - Sometimes you will receive a message that angers you or maybe your upset for outside reasons.  Never, ever send an e-mail while angry.  Just leave it sit till the next day and approach your e-mail with a calm and collected mood.
  • Respect Privacy – I’m not terribly strong on this point, but some people are really hypersensitive about their e-mail address.  I am personally not one of these people.  When sending an e-mail to a group of people consider using the BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) option.  This will mask everyone who receives the message so none of your recipients know who else received the message.
  • Have A Good Signature - Signature are important and everyone should have one.  Often times they are over done and sometimes down right distracting.  Don’t use photos in your signature as it will increase the likelihood of being caught by a spam filter.  Don’t put any kind of quotes in your e-mail, they could end being offensive or confusing to your recipient.  Use eight lines to compose your signature, anything more is just too much.  Only include what you want recipients to know!  I know it is kind of obvious but if you don’t want business calls at home, don’t include your home phone number.  Lastly don’t get flashy and fancy, keep it simple.  Your not designing a poster, use easy to read fonts.
  • Check It Often - As I described above, nothing gets under my skin more when someone does not check their e-mail daily or respond in a timely matter.  Check your e-mail at the bare minimum once a day, I recommend checking it twice a day.  Don’t just read, respond!   Techno geeks like myself have e-mail on constantly with push notifications to our mobile devices.  When you send me an e-mail I get it within a minute or two.  If it is critical i’ll respond within minutes, not days.  You wouldn’t let your physical mailbox outside your home go unchecked for days, would you?
  • Don’t Use HTML - Don’t use HTML to link to your website or blog or anywhere else on the web.  (i.e. “My Website”)  Actually spell out the address. (i.e. http://www.techization.com)  You never know what kind of e-mail client the recipient is using and how it could display or not display your address.  This leads to a distraction within the message and could result in a lost opportunity if your link doesn’t work.

And for goodness sakes spell check before you send!

Back to Top

Twitter In The Classroom

By mkaskavitch on December 18th, 2008   /   Blog   /   4 Comments

The University of Wisconsin – Stout, Wisconsin’s Polytechnic University is always looking for ways to practically implement technology to benefit their students. Earlier this month I suggested a new way to use the micro-blogging service Twitter in the classroom to university administrators. As of this summer, our communications office used Twitter as a broadcast platform to announce news and at least one professor in the English department used Twitter in the classroom to communicate with her students. The idea I proposed to administrators was a bit more engaging than any current use of Twitter on campus.

Why use Twitter as a passive form of micro-emailing like leaving DM’s for professors when it can be a real-time virtual platform. I suggested that professors who have appropriate courses should display Twitter on the projector screens in the front of the classroom. With third-party software like Tweetdeck the professor can follow a custom hashtag for her class and have it auto-refresh at pre-determined intervals. This allows for a virtual conversation to take place between students as the professor lectures on a topic.

The professor can skim over the ongoing Twitter conversation during his or her lecture and comment on what students have been saying, this will deepen the lecture and make it more personable to the ‘pulse of the students’ who are taking it in. Giving every student a digital voice will cater to shy students who have things they’d like to say, but don’t out of fear of embarrassment.

Once out of the classroom, the student will be able to go back and re-read comments from any lecture. Re-reading his own tweets and those of his peers will help during weekly assignments and provide a platform for out of class discussion.

Even if a professor is ill or out of town, they can login to Twitter and watch their students comment and discuss that day’s lecture and even jump in the conversation while not present.

Twitter is a valuable communication tool but evolution of ‘real-time’ communication will continue well beyond the walls of Twitter, most notably with Google Wave in the next year or so. This idea is certainly an experimental one with many variables that can lead towards success or failure of its use. Some are obvious yet some are unforeseen. It is my hope that professors at UW-Stout will begin to utilize this means of communicating to aid learning and engagement.

Back to Top

Where I’m Located


View Larger Map

Flickr

FireStats icon Powered by FireStats