Careers, Internet, People•
on January 11th, 2010•
How can social networking technologies be used for career exploration networks? New communication technologies — especially the Internet — now allow huge numbers of people all over the planet to work together in new ways. Today, new social media applications are leveraging our human nature to “share” or combine our intellects.
While the human activity of “social networking” has existed since of the dawn of humankind. Today’s students are leveraging social media technologies like no generation before them. This acceptance of social networks, as an essential part of one’s life, offers new collaborative opportunities.
Separating the Signal from the Noise
Unlike today’s monolithic social networks and their incumbent chatter, Career Learning Networks have a body of knowledge — detailed career information — that acts as the centerpiece of conversation. They focus dialogue between students, peers, parents and industry professionals. These networks are purpose-built and go well beyond “social,” offering collective insight into very specific areas. The are designed to be person-centric.
This is Still Social Networking 1.0
As the phenomena of social networking continues to grow, traditional educational establishments are embracing their power. The National School Boards Association encourages educators to take advantage of online social networks because students view them so much and because the sites can benefit student-teacher relationships and increase interest in extracurricular activities.
At a music club in a Missouri school, meeting and event attendance increased by 50 to 60 percent after the club created a Facebook profile. Students preferred going there for notifications rather than checking their school e-mail address, which was seen as uncool.
One teacher who uses Facebook to bridge the communication gap between herself and her students said the relationships with some of her students have expanded in ways that never would have happened had their contact been limited to just the classroom. “The students can see from my interests on my profile that I like Eastern philosophy. One of them listed that as an interest too, so we shared thoughts on a topic that would otherwise never have entered our dialog,” wrote Alyssa Giese in a 2007 Teacher Magazine article.
Ethical Considerations of Social Networking
Students also appreciate the informal setting of online communication. One admitted he never would have contributed to class discussions, but the anonymity of online communication emboldened him to participate. That, in turn, changed his teacher’s perception of his discussion abilities.
While the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, private social networks, such as Career Networks, have a narrow focus, are invite only and offer students, parents and teachers behavioral boundaries. Career Networks are places where students can live and grow as professionals. Rather than imposing on everyone’s right to free speech, it’s better to mark boundaries for expression that everyone accepts. Educating parents and students together on the educational benefits of social networking sites can create a better understanding between them as they explore online communication in a more safe and responsible manner.
Written by Todd Borghesani
Related articles
Meteoric Growth in Social Networking – “It’s a Small World after All,” or Is It? (windmillnetworking.com)
Who Uses Social Networks and What Are They Like? (Part 1) (readwriteweb.com)
The importance of business social networking (socialpress.co.za)
Aerospace, Science•
on January 5th, 2010•
NASA internships are a perfect way to launch your future. Most people do not realize how many types of scientific and engineering specialties are employed by the Agency. The great people at NASA really care about your “real world” education. Do not hesitate to apply!
NASA Ames Summer 2010 Graduate Student Internship Programs
The Systems Teaching Institute is offering a 10- to 12-week summer research program for graduate students in fields relevant to the research done at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California. Selected students will gain hands-on experience working with cutting-edge research and development teams, an increased understanding of the NASA mission, and mentoring in research management skills. Besides working closely with Ames scientists and engineers, students will have the opportunity to attend seminars tailored to their level of expertise, career development workshops, and an end-of-summer symposium where they can share their results with other student interns. Awards (in the form of travel support to a national conference) will be given for the best symposium poster presentations.
For further information about this opportunity, visit http://uarc.ucsc.edu/sti/grad_10.shtml. Questions regarding this opportunity may be submitted by e-mail to Dr. Natalie Batalha at nbatalha@science.sjsu.edu or Amy Gilbert at amy.gilbert@adm.ucsc.edu.
2010 NASA Planetary Biology Internship
The NASA Planetary Biology Internship Program provides opportunities each year for 10 interns to undertake research at NASA research centers, NASA-sponsored laboratories, and academic institutions. The pursuit of such studies is expected to broaden the base of this new science by encouraging people in many different fields to take part. Applicants must be enrolled in graduate school.
Students accepted in the PBI program will be expected to carry out research with a NASA-sponsored investigator for eight weeks, usually during the summer months. Typical programs in which interns may become involved include: global ecology and remote sensing; microbial ecology and bio-mineralization; advanced life support; and origin and early evolution of life.
Applications are due Feb. 15, 2010. For more information, visit http://www.mbl.edu/education/courses/other_programs/pbi.html . Please e-mail questions about this opportunity to Michael Dolan at pbi@geo.umass.edu.
2010 Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships
Caltech’s Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships, or SURF, project introduces undergraduate students to research under the guidance of seasoned mentors at Caltech or the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Students experience the process of research as a creative intellectual activity and gain a more realistic view of the opportunities and demands of a professional research career.
Please e-mail any questions about this opportunity to the Caltech Student-Faculty Programs office at sfp@caltech.edu.
Written by Todd Borghesani
Careers, Learning, People•
on December 30th, 2009•
Career Experts Say Positions in Growing Fields Will Require an In-Demand Degree Coupled With Skills in Emerging Trends.
If you’re gearing up for a job search now as an undergraduate or returning student, there are several bright spots where new jobs and promising career paths are expected to emerge in the next few years.
Technology, health care and education will continue to be hot job sectors, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ outlook for job growth between 2008 and 2018. But those and other fields will yield new opportunities, and even some tried-and-true fields will bring some new jobs that will combine a variety of skill sets.
The degrees employers say they’ll most look for include finance, engineering and computer science, says Andrea Koncz, employment-information manager at the National Association of Colleges and Employers. But to land the jobs that will see some of the most growth, job seekers will need to branch out and pick up secondary skills or combine hard science study with softer skills, career experts say, which many students already are doing. “Students are positioned well for future employment, particularly in specialized fields,” Ms. Koncz says.
Career experts say the key to securing jobs in growing fields will be coupling an in-demand degree with expertise in emerging trends. For example, communications pros will have to master social media and the analytics that come with it; nursing students will have to learn about risk management and electronic records; and techies will need to keep up with the latest in Web marketing, user-experience design and other Web-related skills.
Technology Twists
More than two million new technology-related jobs are expected to be created by 2018, according to the BLS. Jobs that are expected to grow faster than average include computer-network administrators, data-communications analysts and Web developers. Recruiters anticipate that data-loss prevention, information technology, online security and risk management will also show strong growth.
A computer-science degree and a working knowledge of data security are critical to landing these jobs. Common areas of undergraduate study for these fields include some of the usual suspects, such as computer science, information science and management-information systems.
Social Media
But those might not be enough. That’s because not all of those jobs will be purely techie in nature. David Foote, chief executive officer of IT research firm Foote Partners, advises current computer-science students to couple their degrees with studies in marketing, accounting or finance. “Before, people widely believed that all you needed to have were deep, nerdy skills,” Mr. Foote says. “But companies are looking for people with multiple skill sets who can move fluidly with marketing or operations.”
Social media has opened the door to the growth of new kinds of jobs. As companies turn to sites like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook to promote their brands, capture new customers and even post job openings, they will need to hire people skilled in harnessing these tools, Mr. Foote says. In most cases, these duties will be folded into a marketing position, although large companies such as Coca-Cola Co. are creating entire teams devoted exclusively to social media.
Energy Technologies
Not surprisingly, green technology, including solar and wind energy and green construction, are also booming areas. Engineers who can mastermind high-voltage electric grids, for example, will have a great advantage over other job applicants, says Greg Netland, who oversees recruiting for the U.S., Latin America and Canada for Sapphire Technologies, an IT staffing firm in Woburn, Mass. that is a division of Randstad.
“Global sustainability will become more important to employers,” Mr. Netland says. “It cuts costs, making experts in the field highly attractive to employers.”
Jobs in alternative-energy systems, including wind and solar energy, will require a variety of skills: engineers to design systems, consultants who will audit companies’ existing energy needs, and those who will install and maintain the systems.
Hospital Upgrades
Health care is expected to continue to see a surge in hiring, with more than four million new openings estimated by 2018, according to the BLS. Hiring for physical and occupational therapists will likely be strongest. But new specialties are popping up, particularly in case management, says Brad Ellis, a partner with Kaye Bassman International, an executive-search firm based in Plano, Texas.
Case managers do everything from managing the flow of information between practitioner and insurance company to mitigating risk to the hospital. “If you’re a licensed nurse, for example, getting a certificate in risk management from the state board of health would make you extremely competitive,” Mr. Ellis says.
Harris Miller, president of the Career College Association in Washington, D.C., says IT will be increasingly important in the quest to drive down health-care costs, too. Students specializing in nursing informatics, which combines general nursing with computer and information sciences, at the master’s degree level will swap a clipboard for a smart phone to manage patient data. Schools like Vanderbilt University are offering nursing informatics degrees via distance learning, and certification is offered through American Nurses Credentialing Center, based in Silver Springs, Md.
The strong push toward making medical records and information more accessible through computerized record-keeping means opportunity, Mr. Miller says. “This is going to require people who are skilled in the hardware and software of nursing informatics.”
Education•
on December 5th, 2009•
For me, the greatest national security crisis in the United States is the crisis in education. We are turning out new generations of Americans who are whizzes at video games and may be capable of tweeting 24 hours a day but are nowhere near ready to cope with the great challenges of the 21st century.
An American kid drops out of high school at an average rate of one every 26 seconds. In some large urban districts, only half of the students ever graduate. Of the kids who manage to get through high school, only about a third are ready to move on to a four-year college.
It’s no secret that American youngsters are doing poorly in school at a time when intellectual achievement in an increasingly globalized world is more important than ever. International tests have shown American kids to be falling well behind their peers in many other industrialized countries, and that will only get worse if radical education reforms on a large scale are not put in place soon.
Consider the demographics. The ethnic groups with the worst outcomes in school are African-Americans and Hispanics. The achievement gaps between these groups and their white and Asian-American peers are already large in kindergarten and only grow as the school years pass. These are the youngsters least ready right now to travel the 21st-century road to a successful life.
But between now and the middle of the century (which is closer than you might think) such youngsters will likely hold an ever more important place in the American work force. By 2050, the percentage of whites in the work force is projected to fall from today’s 67 percent to 51.4 percent. The presence of blacks and Hispanics in the work force by midcentury is expected to be huge, with the growth especially sharp among Hispanics. If America is to maintain its leadership position in the world and provide a first-rate quality of life for its citizens here at home, the educational achievement of American youngsters across the board needs to be ratcheted way up.
It’s in that atmosphere that the Harvard Graduate School of Education is creating a new doctoral degree to be focused on leadership in education. It’s the first new degree offered by the school in 74 years. The three-year course will be tuition-free and conducted in collaboration with faculty members from the Harvard Business School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. The idea is to develop dynamic new leaders who will offer the creativity, intellectual rigor and professionalism that is needed to help transform public education in the U.S.
This transformation is a job the U.S. absolutely has to get done, and it won’t get done right without the proper leadership. Kathleen McCartney, the graduate school’s dean, explained one of the dilemmas that has hampered reform. “If you look at people who are running districts,” she said, “some come from traditional schools of education, and they understand the core business of education but perhaps are a little weak on the management side. And then you’ve got the M.B.A.-types who understand operations, let’s say, but not so much teaching and learning.”
The degree to be offered (initially to just 25 candidates) is a doctorate in education leadership (Ed.L.D.). The fact that the program is tuition-free, thanks in large part to an extraordinary grant by the Wallace Foundation, is important. Harvard is trying to reach out to the broadest possible field of potential candidates. “We can’t do that unless we remove all the barriers to studying here,” said Dean McCartney.
The chance that one of the next great leaders in education will be missed because he or she could not afford the high cost of a Harvard doctorate is not one the school wants to take.
When I mentioned how American students are being outpaced academically by their peers in many other countries, Ms. McCartney said, “I think it’s scary. We don’t have national standards, which is something Arne Duncan is working on.” Mr. Duncan is the U.S. secretary of education. Ms. McCartney added, “We’re competing with countries that have a ministry of education where they’re trying to bring good ideas to scale. This is a real challenge for us.”
Students will spend the third year of the doctoral leadership program in a “field placement” at some organization or agency — say, a large urban school district or educational advocacy group — to gain practical experience. School officials likened this aspect of the program to a medical residency. Instead of doing a dissertation, the students will lead an education reform project in that third year.
The overall goal, said Ms. McCartney, is to produce a cadre of highly skilled educational leaders who are committed to reform of the profession, knowledgeable about the way children learn and well-grounded in the real world of practical management and politics.
by BOB HERBERT