Reflections on higher education and the media

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the use of matrices and strategies in mapping personal (professional) development in an individual’s career. In order to optimise opportunities, identify positive steps, and make impactful career moves, we must first employ strategies to understand and reflect on who we are, where we want to go, and why. Utilising matrices and lived experience, this paper argues that there are ways to maximise what we can give to a given situation, opportunity or challenge to equip us with the skills, mind-set and wherewithal to achieve a greater sense of fulfilment.     

The extension of higher education by mass media

This article reports the development of a new phenomenon in the United States described here as national media courses. Such courses use one of the mass media — television, newspapers, radio or magazines — as the essential means of instruction, but supplement the learning thus derived with additional readings and other studies. Usually there are several contact sessions with an instructor to enable students, who otherwise study independently, to meet and exchange ideas or have curricular or administrative questions answered authoritatively. This academic concept uses one of the media designed to reach mass audiences to enable independent learning at times and places of most convenience to the adult audience which they are designed to serve. National media courses are originated at the University Extension at the University of California, San Diego and several other institutions. They are designed to be offered as college courses by two- and four-year post secondary institutions throughout the nation. Nearly one-third have taken advantage of their availability and over fifty thousand students have taken part in a single national media course.

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Zusammenfassung Dieser Artikel berichtet von der Entwicklung eines neuen Phänomens in den Vereinigten Staaten, das dort unter dem Namen national media courses bekannt geworden ist. Solche Kurse benutzen eines der Massenmedien — Fernsehen, Zeitungen, Radio oder Zeitschriften — als wichtigstes Unterrichtsmittel, ergänzen aber das dabei stattfindende Lernen durch zusätzliche Lektüre und andere Studien. Gewöhnlich finden etliche Kontaktsitzungen mit einem Instruktor statt, die die Studenten, die sonst unabhängig selbst lernen, befähigen sollen, sich zu treffen, und Gedanken auszutauschen oder sich Fragen des Curriculums oder die Verwaltung betreffend kompetent beantworten zu lassen. Dieses akademische Konzept benutzt eine für die Massenzuhörerschaft konzipiertes Massenmedium, um dem angesprochenen Kreis von Erwachsenen, für die es erdacht wurde, ein in Zeit und Ort angenehmes Lernen zu ermöglichen. National media courses kommen von der Fernabteilung der Universität von Kalifornien, San Diego, und einigen anderen Institutionen. Sie sollen als College-Kurse von postsekundären Institutionen mit drei- oder vierjähriger Studiendauer im ganzen Land angeboten werden. Beinahe ein Drittel der angesprochenen Institutionen hat sich dieser Möglichkeit bedient, und über fünfzigtausend Studenten haben an einem einzigen national media course teilgenommen.

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Résumé Cet article rend compte du développement d'un nouveau phénomène aux Etats-Unis décrit ici comme cours nationaux à l'aide de moyens d'information de masse. De tels cours se servent de l'un des moyens d'information de masse — la télévision, les journaux, la radio ou les magazines — comme procédé essentiel d'instruction, mais complètent l'apprentissage qui en résulte à l'aide de lectures additionnelles et d'autres études. Il y a habituellement plusieurs séances de contact avec un maitre permettant aux étudiants, qui autrement étudient indépendamment, de faire connaissance et d'échanger des idées ou de recevoir une réponse péremptoire aux questions administratives et à celles concernant les curricula. Ce concept académique se sert de l'un des média conçus pour atteindre les audiences des masses, de sorte à permettre un apprentissage indépendant, à des heures et des endroits convenant le mieux à l'audience adulte qu'ils se proposent de servir. Les cours nationaux à l'aide de média tirent leur origine de l'Extension Universitaire à l'Université de la Californie, San Diego et de plusieurs autres institutions. Ils sont conçus pour être présentés comme cours de collège par des institutions post secondaires d'une durée de deux à quatre ans à travers toute la nation. Presque un tiers a déjà tiré profit de leur disponibilité et plus de cinq mille étudiants ont pris à un cours unique national à l'aide de média.

     

Mediatizing higher education policies: discourses about quality education in the media

This article presents a critical–political discourse analysis of the media debate over quality assurance in higher education, which occurred in Chile after the 2011 student movement. Students criticized the privatization of higher education and the multiple flaws of this sector, which included corruption scandals during the process of quality assurance certification. After the end of the movement, the government announced a new quality assurance system, triggering public discussion over this issue in the media. The most influential newspapers and educational authorities participated actively in this debate. Through editorials and columns, these education agents constructed quality assurance discursively as a domain for experts, who have to design and administer quality standards for all educational institutions and actions. These procedures regulate and discipline educational practices, but professors and students are excluded from this debate. Thus, this quality assurance discussion reproduces the traditional neoliberal power relations in education and does not problematize the role of education in society.     

Human learning and audiovisual education

Conclusion We have presented some of the general principles of acquisition, transfer and retention which are supported by experimental research on human learning. As we suggested in the introduction to this paper, it is a reasonable working assumption that these principles apply to audiovisual instruction just as they do to the controlled procedures of the laboratory. On this assumption, the analysis of the process of audiovisual education does not call for the formulation of special principles; it calls for the application and elaboration of the general laws of human learning     

Stimulus-repsonse psychology and audiovisual education

Summary In summary, this paper has been concerned with the implications of stimulus-response psychology for audiovisual education. Initially, it was pointed out that stimulus-response psychology consists of three separate components: a language system, a methodological orientation, and a group of theories. The language is useful in reducing the complexity of behavior to a set of manageable variables. By representing behavior in an S-R manner, it is possible to cope experimentally with, and ultimately to control it. The problem for the audiovisual educator becomes one of arranging the optimum conditions for the formation of associations between stimuli and responses. Some problems associated with this task were discussed. Particular emphasis was placed upon the strategy of devising fruitful experimental techniques and arranging for the evocation of the appropriate response. It was concluded that audiovisual educational techniques may achieve their greatest productivity when combined with the techniques of teaching machines     

社交媒体在高等教育中的应用:挑战与机会

最有意义、对生活影响最大的技术可能是社交媒体,因为它们被融入商业、娱乐和教育活动中并扮演重要角色。一般认为这些工具应用于高等教育正式课程/专业中有诸多好处,本文对此进行概述,讨论其不足和挑战,重点分析这些工具使用上的便利和价值与(用户)失去对数据的控制之间的矛盾。我们很可能会继续看到自己出于公私目的使用社交媒体所产生的数据继续被使用的情况,包括经过授权和未经授权的使用。分析了人们为了应对这个挑战而提出和尝试的一些解决方法,并简要介绍其中两种。第一个方案强调由机构自身创建和管理自己的社交媒体,第二个则是一种新兴技术方案,允许用户控制自己的数据但同时又能在多种社交环境下享受分享和发展的好处。     

Social media in higher education: A literature review of Facebook

The rapid adoption of social media technologies has resulted in a fundamental shift in the way communication and collaboration take place. As staff and students use social media technologies in their personal lives, it is important to explore how social media technologies are being used as an educational tool. The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of social media, in particular, Facebook, as an educational tool in higher education. Through a review of the literature, this paper explores the myriad ways in which Facebook is being used as an educational instrument for learning and teaching. Multiple benefits of Facebook usage for learning and teaching have been identified such as increased teacher-student and student-student interaction, improved performance, the convenience of learning and higher engagement. The paper also highlights the potential problems and limitations of Facebook usage ranging from educators’ dominance to privacy concerns. Finally, Facebook usage guidelines that can be adopted by educators to encourage social media adoption are proposed. As social media usage continues to grow in higher education, future empirical research is warranted.     

新媒体时代媒介素养融入高职思政教育分析

"新媒体时代"的到来对当代大学生的思想政治教育带来了冲击,课堂教学、传媒教学、网络教学、学生活动已经成为当代大学生思想政治教育的主要载体与发展方向。本文将就当前我国大学生在新媒体时代下思想教育中存在的问题进行分析,并探讨解决这些问题的策略。     

论高职院校施行媒介素养教育的必要性

媒介素养是人们在信息时代生存的一项必要技能,在高职教育阶段培养学生认知媒体、参与媒体、使用媒体的能力,对学生本人与整个社会都具有重要意义。尽早且广泛地在高职院校施行媒介素养教育,有助于提升学生对媒介信息的解读能力,提高学生对科学知识的攫取能力,培养学生的现代公民意识,提升学生对不良信息的抵制能力。     

A study on the determinants of social media based learning in higher education

Educational technology research and development - Social-Media-Based Learning (SMBL) is the use of social-media-based platforms, such as Twitter, Google Plus, Facebook, and YouTube, for learning...     

Relationship quality in higher education marketing: the role of social media engagement

The landscape in consumer marketing is changing due to the rise in popularity of social media. This shift has also affected how higher education institutions build relationships with their stakeholders. This study explores how social media engagement impacts relationship quality between the university and one of its key stakeholder groups, students. Data were collected via an online survey and analyzed using the Mann–Whitney U test, regression and the Kruskal–Wallis test. Results indicated a positive association between students following a university via social media and the perception of having a high-quality relationship with their university, and that following a university on multiple social media sites leads to an even higher perception of relationship quality. The results provide important and timely implications for both universities and higher education marketers. Our findings suggest that higher education marketers should invest resources in social media communications to form high-quality relationships with their stakeholders.     

An examination of the use of audiovisual media in reducing prejudice

This study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of audiovisual media as an instructional technique for altering ethnic attitudes among young children. Subjects were 153 children between the ages of five and nine, randomly assigned to one of three groups: Group 1 (Control), Group 2 (subjects viewed one film) or Group 3 (subjects viewed two films). The findings indicated that Group 2 and Group 3 gave significantly fewer prejudiced responses than Group 1 (p < .01). Furthermore, demographic variables (i.e., age, sex, or ethnicity of subject and tester) did not affect the ability of the treatment to modify attitudes. Both the implications and the limitations of these findings are discussed.     

Social media in higher education: understanding how colleges and universities use Facebook

This study provides an understanding of the current social media landscape for higher education institutions. While it is recognized that consistency in school branding across all communications with stakeholders is important to attract and retain students, relatively little work has been done to determine specifically what type of content should be included in a school’s social media campaign, nor has there been an investigation as to the relative frequency of the content. The authors use content analysis to examine Facebook posts from 66 top US colleges and universities and engagement from their constituents on these posts. Results show that there are significant differences in engagement received on posts across institution type. Additionally, media type and posting frequency are factors that contribute to engagement. This study provides direction on how university social media managers can better manage their social media content to improve engagement and increase the reach of their posts.