Connecting with 21st Century Alums: Exploration of Emerging Communications

Classrooms of the Future

This is an article written about the talk Chris Bigenho, Greenhill School (TX), gave at the 2008 NAIS Annual Conference. It was all part of a brand new feature of the conference called Classrooms of the Future.

Convergence is the name of the game in technology and in reaching young alumni. To illustrate this point, Chris Bigenho flashed a picture on the screen and asked, "what is that?" A cell phone, of course, most of us replied. But not to our current students and young alums. They are Digital Natives, members of Generation M (the "m" stands for media).

If you're reading this article, then more than likely you're a Digital Immigrant. You haven't had Internet access available your entire life – you learned to integrate it into your life after it was invented. You probably would have called the picture on the screen a cell phone, too. But to our young alums, it's way more than that. It's e-mail, Internet, music, camera – and, oh yeah, a phone, too.

This is convergence – our young alumni are bringing all of their technology into one place. Forget about carrying an iPod and a cell phone, that's way to much hardware. That's why Apple invented the iPhone. These people would rather have their Facebook downloaded to their PDA than have to waste time logging on to a computer.

Throughout his presentation, which included a lot of interaction with those of us in the audience, Bigenho adeptly demystified social networking tools. Let's start with the basics. Web 1.0 was static content, like refrigerator art: You posted information to be viewed, but there was no interaction. Now, Web 2.0 is interactive – people can comment on the information you post. And you can harness this interactivity to create new networks and communities of alumni.

Information is instantaneous – there is no longer the control of information. Bigenho recalls the execution of Saddam Hussein. There was an official in the room responsible for relaying the details to the media – to disseminate the official story. But what they didn't count on was a witness with a video cell phone who recorded it and posted the video online within two hours. No longer any control of details.

We keep hearing about Thomas Friedman and his book The World Is Flat. Well, technology is one of the forces that brought our world together – kids embrace that.

In our schools, too often the conversation turns to whether technology is bad or good?
But is it the technology or is it the application? W have a fear of Facebook and MySpace, a fear of what kids are doing behind closed doors. It's true, some of the things kids are doing online would raise your eyebrows, but it becomes a question of application. For instance, radiation cures cancer, but it can also destroy homes. Is it good or bad? Depends on the application.

Let’s use social networking to reach our young alums. Bigenho quoted the following trends, taken from the Pew Internet and American Life Project: Teens and Technology (7/27/05).

• 93 percent of U.S. teens are online
• 48 percent of people who are online utilize video resources (i.e., YouTube – Bigenho puts his class videos on YouTube because students will actually go online to access them, stopping and starting to take notes and replaying parts where they need clarification.)
• 64 percent of teens create content online
• 33 percent of adults consult Wikipedia (The more education you have, the more you consult.)
• 55 percent of teens are on Facebook
• 39 percent of teens share artwork
• 26 percent of teens remix content (They’re creative.)
• 28 percent of teens are blogging and it’s growing.

And what we consider multitasking is just regular life for Digital Natives. They'll watch TV while listening to their iPod and texting with two or three friends at once. And while many of us Digital Immigrants might stink at text messaging (it's hard to pick up a whole new language of "text shorthand"!), it’s just natural to this generation.

Which brings us to an important question: Why do we spend so much money on print if the young ones don’t even listen? To still reach the older alums, but we must change the medium to reach recent grads.

The alumni director's ultimate goal is to create a sense of community, while still at school, then to the extended community of alums. Part two is to connect these grads with people who were at the school when they were. How? Alumni receptions on the road, class reunions at the school, printed info, e-communications – but for recent alums, e-mails are so yesterday! They’re creating NETWORKS where you friend people, not use listserves/e-blasts. It's all about relationships, networking connections, common experience.

Which is why social software is your friend. Use it to establish collaboration, connections, and sharing. Examples are MySpace, Gmail, Wikipedia, AIM, Xanga, etc. And blogs. But what if someone writes something bad about our schools? What are we going to do? Bigenho's answer: Get over it.

A blog is a tool of reflection, cognition, collaboration – it records original thoughts. It can be used with RSS, as a website, or linked to the school website. It’s a way to post info and receive feedback – others can comment for you. So how can we use these? Try social blogging, alumni bloggers, faculty bloggers, or life of the school blogs. One audience member said the athletic director at her school has a blog linked to the school's website. For them, this was a terrific way to start out with a topic that's not too controversial (as say a head could be since discipline issues may arise) and in an area that could really create a community among many age groups.

Remember that you use a different style for blogs, which are informal not formal PR style. So it's probably better to get someone other than your communications officer to start a blog, otherwise it'll sound too similar to all the other printed material going out. The athletic director mentioned above was much more authentic than the person charged with disseminating the school's message.

Another important point: While it's tempting to turn off the comment feature, Bigenho strongly encourages us not to – otherwise it’s not a blog. The general hurdle that many of us face is that departments want to copyedit/filter messages before they go live, but then is it a true blog? Bigneho's answer is: “We need to get over it.” Simply turn the comments feature of the blogging software on with a moderator ON, not OFF. It’s a function of most software. You want to be judicious. Don’t edit for spelling or if it’s a comment you don’t necessarily agree with, but do filter for character attacks or blatant foul language. It's always good to check with counsel regarding the content that gets displayed on a blog that is hosted on your school’s website. Don’t be overly cautious, but get informed.

We mentioned RSS technology above. It's the way to move dynamic content around.

Then there's the wiki, short for wiki wiki, which means “quick” in Hawaiian. Anyone can come in and update the content on a web page; it's an easy-to-edit public HTML page, a collaborative document. Group think. Planning an alumni event is a great place to use this technology. As a matter of fact, the Classrooms of the Future team used a wiki to plan this entire two days of the conference and never met in person until this week in New York City. On the wiki, they shared photos of the physical space at the Hilton, social bookmarking adventure, blogs, schedule staffing, etc. You can set up a wiki as wide open to the public, password protected (member of a group) to edit the page, or pay a fee so you have to be a member of the group to even look at it.

Next hot topic, podcasting. It’s audio. Kids like audio, haven’t you noticed that? iPhones are very popular. Podcasts contain an mp3 audio file in an enclosure tag. But you don’t have to know this – your tech director doesn’t even have to know this – because the software will do it for you. Go ahead and podcast breaking news from sports games or special events; an alum in another city – or country – can podcast; a “legend” at your school and talk about what happened at school that day. Bigenho had all of us call into Gabcast.com to leave a new message that was then added to the podcast instantaneously.

Then there's a newer term that left some of us scratching our heads when we first heard it last fall and the spell check on Word didn't have a clue what it meant (nor did my trusty, weathered copy of Webster's New World Dictionary): ning. (That's not a typo, it should read "ning.") Basically a ning allows you to set up your own social network. Just visit www.ning.com and search on NAIS and you’ll find info on the conference. All sorts of universities are using it to reach alums. As are schools in the U.S. or abroad – forget about the days of inflated international postage costs that never guaranteed delivery. With a ning, you can add video, pictures, text, RSS feed from other sites (like podcast from gabfest). You can pull info to the space.

Technology changes everyday, which only means that our current students – our future alums – are changing, too. So get prepared to innovate. Good luck!