Social Networking and Schools

So here I am, so clever (!) getting ready to develop a Web 2.0 class for my doctoral students, only to discover that blogs, social networking sites and some wikis are blocked by their schools and school districts! Who knew?

I actually wondered, since when I gave a presentation on social networking at Good Counsel Academy in November there was much tittering when I suggested that the causes section on Facebook would be a good way to identify folks who might share some of the same interests that the students have.

Oh well-that's what happens when you fall in love with the technology and don't always see the dark side. Just another challenge!

Social bookmarking

Okay so now I'm thinking about setting up a del.icio.us account-maybe this is another great "user" of time but at least I'll learn what others are doing.

I was attending the POD Conference - Professional and Organizational Development Newtwork for Higher Education - and one of the sessions was on wikis, podcasts and blogs. The presenter also talked about social bookmarking and of course I was intrigued.

Now if I could just figure out how to get work done while keeping my LinkedIn profile current, my Facebook page up to date, my Twitter status accurate, and my blogs full of interesting posts!

Fakebook?

Okay, so like many other "adults" I've discovered Facebook (and LinkedIn, too, but that's another story for a different day). I think it's fun, and maybe it does make me feel like a young person again. But I was really surprised by the Op-Ed piece in this Saturday's New York Times The Fakebook Generation. I didn't realize that my idea of fun would be someone else's idea of, well, comedy, entertainment, distraction.
Live and learn!

iMacs

Last spring I spilled a glass of water on my iMac keyboard at the office. I know, I know-I shouldn't have been drinking water near my keyboard, but in 20+ years I've never spilled anything on it.

So that was that-the keyboard was shot. I went to Tekserve, the wonderful Mac guys on 23rd Street in New York City, and got a new keyboard for $31 and change. I'll order Mac OS 10.4, Tiger, and my five year old iMac at the office will be "just like new." I'll bet that sucker will last another year.

All that power for around $2000. Hard to believe, isn't it?

Obsolete equipment

I'm updating this blog on my 5 year old iMac, which works like a charm even after being loved to death. This is my fourth Macintosh computer in 23 years. I average between 5 and 6 years per Mac, starting with the first Mac that I bought in December of 1984. I replaced that with a Mac Plus in around 1990, then a Performa (who even remembers them?) in 1996, and then my iMac in 2002.

Sure wish I could say the same for the Dell laptops that my university provides me with for my classes and research. They are outdated in just 3 years.

Ahh, love the new technology. Now if I could just get my 5 year old Palm Pilot to work.....

Phishing, e-mail scams and human stupidity

Yesterday in my Introduction to Computers class I introduced the topic of computer security. We talked about "phishing" which occurs when you get an email message purporting to come from, say PayPal, asking you to confirm your account details by "clicking here." My students are very computer savvy, many have Facebook pages (as do I, now), can crank out Excel spread sheets and Word docs, but were innocents when it came to phishing.

Pretty scary, since those who "phish" are getting more and more sophisticated. I almost fell for a Citibank phishing scheme-the message looked so real. Is it just human to want to believe that the message comes from Citibank? The Anti-Phishing Working Group describes phishing attacks as combining social engineering with technical subterfuge. I like that description.

Which leads to the next idea-human stupidity. Mother (and father!) always told me, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. Which is why I'm still surprised when folks fall for the e-mail scams like the one that is now being called the "Nigerian Fraud E-mail." The New Yorker article from last summer, "The Perfect Mark," describes how perfectly reasonable folks, folks like you and me, lost nearly everything (or in a few cases, everything) because they succumbed to the lure of "easy money."
Now if we could only figure out some way to protect ourselves from ourselves! Any ideas out there?

Excel 2007

I spent six hours today in a class to learn Excel 2007-a class that assumed I already knew Excel 2003 (which I do). Six hours! And we didn't get through all of the material.

Is this what people all over the United States will be doing, spending hours learning how to do something in a new tool that they could do (some of them expertly) in an old tool? This just reinforces my belief that technology just creates more "stuff" for us to do (backup disks, refrag drives, rewrite papers until they are perfect because we couldn't possibly have an error in them) or not (when was the last time I backed up my own drive I wonder?)

Well we may be the most productive people in the world but I'm sure it comes at a cost. We spend much too much time dealing with our "tools" and not enough time getting real work done. But then, that's just my opinion.

Getting Started-Getting Things Done

It's tough being an information systems professor in the 21st century. It's hard to keep up with the technology; it's hard to get things done. I spent 16 years in industry before I became an "academic" (my PhD is in business and I have an MBA) so I keep one eye on what's going on in the "real world" and what's going on in the "ivory tower."

To keep up with the latest research and teaching I visit the ISWorld web site and I'm on the ISWorld list. It's not the answer but it is an answer.

To really get things done is much harder. I read Getting Things Done by David Allen about two years ago, and I've attended his seminar-twice! I was catching up on podcasts yesterday and I heard David say in a interview with Merlin Mann of 43 Folders that it takes TWO YEARS to really get it right, so that was somewhat encouraging.

What's the problem? Or as a woman I used to work with at Equitable Life used to say, "What's the real problem?" We like to blame information overload but really it's analysis paralysis. And believe me I know this first hand-I think of all the psychic energy I waste reading e-mail and trying to figure out "what to do " with the 9 million notes I get each day.

So I'll try to share here how I get anything done-if I do. Here's what I'm trying to get done: prepare for my classes (I teach a freshman introduction to computers and a doctoral introduction to systems analysis and design), co-direct our faculty development center, write a section of a university self-study report with a colleague, work with colleagues to direct our faculty council, edit a paper with a student on doing business in virtual worlds, prepare a presentation for a conference next month-and that's just this week!

Stay tuned, and please, share your survival tips!