Web2.0 Participant's Testamonial

This is an acknowledgement from a participant in one of the Web2.0 short courses, The participant, Ian Cosmas, who is an academic staff of the university put out this acknowledgement in the university's email. It is encouraging and i have taken the liberty to post verbatim the acknowledgement email here.

Dear Dora/Ismael/David,

I just returned from attending the Web 2.0 Social Media Technologies used in Education and Learning course which ended yesterday.

I'd like to thank you all for organising courses that benefit staff. 

Although I am aware of Web 2.0 in theory (and some of the others also are), the course was practical and enabled us to practically apply the Web 2.0 social media technologies.  The social media tools learnt can be immediately applied in an educational context to facilitate online and real time collaboration, research and learning in the University amongst staff and students.

It is pleasing to see what is happening now to upgrade the Web 2.0 computer skills of staff in the campus.  The world is fast evolving and technology is a key enabler for change in institutions and organisations globally, and PNG is no exception. The introduction of these technologies in various departments will foster a change in teaching and learning in terms of quality education as well as the improvement of current academic processes.  

I envisage that after staff and students are trained in the use of Web 2.0 social media technologies and Google Classroom, we should start to see the emergence of the modern, digitally driven University of Technology - we can start to live up to our name, i.e. "The University of Technology". 

I do understand that there is still fair bit of work to be done such as the departmental network upgrades which need to happen so the departmental networks sync with the 03b satellite broadband network.  Having said that, we have removed the biggest hurdle and have good progress so far in terms of the implementation of the O3b Satellite Broadband network. 

Thanks

Ian

IT Lecturer - MCSEM, MACS (CT)

Academic Leadership & Social Media

Leading in 140 Characters or Less (EDUCAUSE Review) | EDUCAUSE.edu This article captures the experience of an American university president, Santa J. Ono PhD, (or in our case Vice Chancellor) in the use of the social media as an academic leader. Santa J. Ono is the President of the University of Cincinnati.

Interestingly, Dr Santa makes reference to a study  (Cooper, "10 Surprising Social Media Statistics.")  that shows
"the fastest-growing cohort on both Facebook and Google+ is people ages 45 to 54; the fastest on Twitter is ages 55 to 64". Many of us here at the PNG University of Technology most likely fall within these age groups and some of us have Facebook and Twitter accounts. PNG University of Technology has been very kind enough to allow us to use Facebook after 4.06 pm.That is enough time for us to communicate items of study and learning interests for our students and colleagues.

Santa concludes by saying, "whether or not a president chooses to engage in digital communication, social media is helping to shape the environment of his or her institution. If that institution is to thrive (not just exist), leaders need to take a look that is long, slow, and careful at the media that are brief, quick, and provisional".

This reminds me of our Vice Chancellor at the Papua New Guinea University of Technology Dr Albert Schram. He communicates with us using his blog and he is also on Facebook. This is a good sign of taking the lead in using the social media for communication in an academic environment.