We’ve submitted our proposal for SXSW 2011 Interactive! Make sure to vote for our presentation now through August 27th and help us get to SXSW!  If selected, our presentation will cover:

1. How the academic social web is influencing student study habits and behavioral learning patterns
2. How academics can leverage emerging technology to enhance student performance on course evaluations
3. What the value is for institutions and students alike
4. What the future implications that openness and vast access to collaborative information have on the overall educational community
5. What can be done now to leverage web 2.0 in the student segment

Click here to vote now

GradeGuru will be participating at the Diversity Leadership Program this upcoming weekend. The Diversity Leadership Program,  by Monster.com, gives college students the opportunity to develop life and career skills, network with industry-leading employers and create relationships with other high-achieving peers.

In addition to The McGraw-Hill Companies, employers such as Macy’s,  Enterprise, AT&T, DCMA and Verizon will be present at the conference to meet with students.

Students who participate in the program “will connect with companies for one-on-one coaching on career pathing while collaborating on the importance of diversity and leadership in the workplace,” according to the program’s About Us.

Angela Santiago will join colleagues from The McGraw-Hill Companies to represent the GradeGuru team and will be highlighting the Guru Careers Program which helps Bronze,  Silver and Gold Gurus find internship and career opportunities. She will also be discussing the Campus Brand Ambassador program an on campus internship that develops students grassroots marketing skills as they work with the GradeGuru team  to build brand awareness and gain professional experience across the country.

GradeGuru will be presenting this week at the annual Campus Technology conference, the nation’s premier higher education technology conference where leaders in higher education discover and share the latest in applications, social software, and immersive platforms.  Held at the Seaport World Trade Center in Boston from July 19-22, GradeGuru will join organizations and universities including Oracle, Elluminate, University of Michigan, Harvard Business School, among others in focusing on technologies of strategic interest to the mission of higher education.

The speakers, presenters, and panel members at the Campus Technology conference are “technology visionaries and thought leaders in higher education,” according to the organization’s About Us.

Kevin Cafaro will represent the GradeGuru team at the conference and host a presentation titled “Digitizing Student Learning Through Collaborative Networking.” The session, held Wednesday, July 21 at 2pm, will delve into how social media and web 2.0 collaboration technologies have the potential to influence student behavioral patterns and transform the way instructors educate by empowering students to help themselves and each other.  If you are in the Boston area, feel free to stop by and check out GradeGuru’s Poster Session!

For a list of other Campus Technology 2010 presenters, visit CT 2010 Poster Sessions.

GradeGuru has just been recognized as an Effective Practice Award Recipient by the Sloan Consortium, an association of institutions and organizations of higher education engaged in online learning.  The award will be presented at the conference, held on July 21 in San Jose, California.

The  Sloan-C Effective Practice award recognizes educators, institutions and organizations for effectively innovating to realize the potential of online learning in higher education.   Candidates for the award are judged based on strict criteria including demonstrating researched evidence of a significant impact on learning outcomes, broad scope and application in multiple learning contexts, and an overarching test of agreement that “Every institution should be doing this!”

Emily Sawtell, GradeGuru founder and Senior Director of Student Innovations at McGraw-Hill will be accepting the award on behalf of the GradeGuru team and will present at the 3^rd Annual Sloan Conference on “Ushering in the academic social web to enhance student engagement and increase retention.”

“The GradeGuru Team is honored to be an Effective Practice Award recipient. We are thrilled that our work to help students help themselves and each other is being recognized by the academic fraternity,” said Sawtell.  Recognition  of the Sloan-C Effective practice award demonstrates GradeGuru’s ability to facilitate the practice of collaboration, knowledge sharing, peer review and support and online study groups among college students.

For more information, visit: McGraw-Hill’s Knowledge Sharing Network GradeGuru Wins Sloan Consortium’s Effective Practice Award

Our panel discussion titled - The Future of Social Media in Higher Education, was a huge success!

The event helped add to the ongoing discussion regarding Social Media and Academia. The panelist offered invaluable insight on where they currently see the Higher Education landscape and where they see academia going with the increased usage of Social Media.

The event kicked off with a special introduction by Social Media Week founder Toby Daniels.

Emphasized throughout the event was the need for student engagement in academia. The panelist stressed the importance of engaging with students and creating a social interaction that goes beyond the  current forms of communication established by universities today.

Live coverage was available via UStream and Twitter- where the audience actively followed and commented on the discussion.

Guest also gained insight into some of the tools being developed by the McGraw-Hill Student Innovations Lab.

Those who were not able to attend the event can access the video coverage here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-future-of-social-media-in-higher-education-mcgraw-hill-digital-innovation-showcase

Thanks to all those who attended and a special thanks to our panelist:

• Adam Ostrow, editor in chief of Mashable.com
• Dr. Kathleen P. King, professor at Fordham University and president of Transformation Education LLC
• Greg Verdino, VP strategy & solutions at Powered and author of microMARKETING
• Mary Casey, New York University student and founder of Jatched.com
• Vineet Madan, VP strategy & business development at McGraw-Hill Higher Education

The Second Annual Social Media Week Conferences are taking place this week and we’re excited to announce that we will be joining this week’s list of New York events. Our panel discussion titled - The Future of Social Media in Higher Education, will host education technology, social media and popular technology bloggers for an hour discussion on the trends of technology and social media in education.

WHEN: Friday February 5th at 12:00pm EST

WHERE: McGraw-Hill Companies, 1221 Avenue of The Americas, Auditorium

• REGISTER TO ATTEND
• Can’t attend? Check out our LIVESTREAM
• Participate via Twitter: #smwmcgraw

The Future of Social Media in Higher Education event will help to answer:

How is social media changing the way college students learn? How are digital applications changing how professors teach? What are the most significant education technology trends of 2010 and beyond?

The event will feature education technology and emerging media experts to explore how the social web is transforming higher education. The event will also feature a preview of highly anticipated products from the McGraw-Hill Student Innovation Lab.

The panel will feature:

Adam Ostrow Editor in Chief, Mashable.com

Dr. Kathleen P. King Professor, Fordham University; President, Transformation Education LLC

Greg Verdino VP Strategy & Solutions, Powered; author of microMARKETING

Mary Casey NYU Student and Founder of Jatched.com

Vineet Madan VP Strategy & Business Development, McGraw-Hill Higher Education

Yianni Garcia (Moderator) Marketing Specialist, GradeGuru.com

I will be presenting at the Alt-C 2009 Conference in Manchester, UK on Thursday, September 10th.

Title: Social Media and the Need for Peer-Support: student attitudes towards study and the impact of web 2.0 on student study habits

Time: 10:50 – 11:50

Location: Room 2.219

This paper will present our segmentation model for the collective “student voice” on course work and students’ beliefs about technology in their studies. I will be discussing how web 2.0 is impacting student behaviors and methods. I will conclude with the need for peer-assisted, collaborative learning tools to help students intuitively translate their social-technology skills to their education.

Our ethnographic student research included:

• Video ethnography: students “thinking aloud” about decision making and motivations
• Study journals: activities (social, work and study) and use of technology over three days
• Study environments: photographs of physical study tools and contexts
• On-campus observation: interactions in study and recreation areas
• Individual and group interviews: mapping study methods and tools
• Social media: cataloging all study-related conversations on blogs and social media

We will also share salient cross-group behaviors, e.g.:

• Anxiety/ lack of confidence due to unclear “rules for success”
• Peer support through social media for building confidence
• Anomalies in sophistication levels with technology in different contexts. E.g. basic skills with search and tagging for research, despite expert use for social purposes
• Sources/ research: “build the skeleton” using online sources (Wikipedia), “put meat on the bones” with academic sources (published)

Feel free to email me if you’re attending the conference and would like to connect emily_sawtell@mcgraw-hill.com

Already seeing some interesting tweets from today’s sessions!

Panel Title: McGraw-Hill and The Born Digital Student – Going Beyond Publishing

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The South by Southwest (SXSW) Conferences & Festivals

SXSW Interactive features five days of compelling presentations from the brightest minds in emerging technology, scores of exciting networking events hosted by industry leaders and an unbeatable line up of special programs showcasing the best new websites, video games and startup ideas the community has to offer.
Link: http://sxsw.com/about

This week I had the pleasure of participating in the ad:tech san francisco Conference. I joined Janet Eden-Harris, VP of Web Intelligence, J.D. Power; Cindy Roche, VP, Site Experience, TripAdvisor and Steve Kerho, VP of Analytics, Media and Marketing Optimization, Organic in a panel discussion titled, “Media Boot Camp: Know Thy Customer: Hard Data + Fresh Insights”.

We have never had access to more real-time, in-depth data about what customers think and how they behave in an increasingly multi-platform, integrated world. Despite access to a greater amount of data, the consumer has never seemed so elusive and translating this consumer data into insight and applying that insight to in-market results has never been more challenging. For this session, we discussed how we handle key challenges including:

• What social media and user-generated content should you listen to and how can you use this information
• How do offline and online media influence consumers and what are the latest trends in maximizing engagement and activation through the interplay of offline and online media
• What new quantitative and qualitative data-mining techniques are dynamically uncovering breakthrough insights
• What are the emerging best-practice techniques for tightening the connection between insight and decision-making
• What insights do marketers want and need but can’t yet get?

Key take-aways:

In terms of product development and customer outreach my advice would be to iterate with the ongoing input of your site users and measure the impact of your programs quantitatively and qualitatively. Social media allows us to get a deep understanding of our customers by allowing us to connect with them in a deeper level. What education technology enthusiast blog about us, what academics Twitter about us and the feedback we get directly from our student users are the core of our development strategy. Social media provides a feedback loop that goes beyond the feedback email, but in order to effectively leverage social media we must have a cross-platform listening and participating strategy.

Here is the link to the video and slides of the SIIA Panel Discussion we attended yesterday. You can also get the slides at Barry Graubart’s Content Matters blog. The Panel moderators included:

@graubart Barry Graubart VP, Product Strategy, Alacra
@ppealman Phill Pearlman, Director, StockTwits
@harrisj Jacob Harris, Senior Architect, New York Times Digital
@pop17 Sarah Austin, Founder, Pop17

Some key take-aways:

• Twitter is not about “what are you doing?” anymore. It’s about “What would you like to share?”
• Twitter community growth seems to be parallel to on and off line growth
• Twitter is starting to get more professional and brands are finding unique ways to extend their offerings through the micro-blogging platform
• Although the demographic of Twitter is more professionals, 30-50, there seems to be a significant increase in younger, college age people joining Twitter
• The power of Twitter as an information dissemination tool lies in the Re-Tweet (RT)
• If you keep your tweets to 120 characters, you make it easier for people to RT your content
• Twitter is the social RSS
• Instead of using tinyurl.com, use bit.ly for as your URL shortener, which allows you to track number of clicks
• Twitter is great for SEO

GradeGuru on Twitter

@GradeGuru serves as a resource for students to connect with us and request notes specific to their courses, tests or assignments. If you’re a student and you have a biology exam tomorrow that you could use some additional support on, you can send us a message on Twitter via @reply or direct message telling us about your needs and we will reply with links to relevant notes and resources.

If you’re a education technology fan or a web 2.0 enthusiast, we’d love to connect with you too! We regularly discuss developments and news about the web 2.0 and education technology space.

Thank you for all that participated. A special thanks to Barry Graubart for leading the discussion and Jenny Hansen from SIIA for a wonderful event.