The Tuesday Letter
Agricultural Experiment Station & Cooperative Extension Service
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
(Vol. 17 No. 16)
IN THIS ISSUE...
WORD FROM THE ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR - EXTENSION AND APPLIED RESEARCH
You will note a couple articles in this week's Tuesday Letter to provide assistance and training in effective use of social media as a delivery tool for Extension educational programming. I marvel at the advent of these technologies, and how quickly they consume society. At the recent Partnership Meetings I made reference to technological distractions. Cell phones sounding off in meetings; people sending text messages while driving; smart phone access to e-mail, text messages, and social media all the time, everywhere.
Technology is hugely complicated, powerful and potentially very distracting. The human mind has to sort, manage, prioritize, and act among all on all these potential distractions. Our challenge is to seek and utilize technology as a tool for relevant, responsive, and respected Extension programming. And, to not allow the tool to consume you or me, driving us to become irrelevant, unresponsive, and mostly distracted.
All that said, that is why we'll have training, sharing, and learning around use of these technologies in the workplace. I hope you will take the time to learn how best to utilize these complicated, powerful tools in helping you to improve the impact of your Extension work and to evaluate effectiveness of such tools.
Have a great week! --Daryl Buchholz dbuchhol@ksu.edu
K-STATE TEACHING, LEARNING, AND TECHNOLOGY SHOWCASE - MARCH 1
K-State faculty will share their teaching experiences and vendors
will demonstrate their products at the Teaching, Learning, and
Technology Showcase, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m., Tuesday, March 1, in the K-State Student Union Ballroom.
Come and join the event, discuss over coffee, and stay for a light
lunch. Prize drawings will be held throughout the showcase.
Registration for the event is required for planning purposes. Mini-presentations will be held on the hour at the showcase. To learn more, go to the showcase blog. --Gerry Snyder gsnyder@ksu.edu
DIVERSITY PROGRAMS OFFICE UPDATE: DPO HONORS EFFORTS, SPONSORS EVENT
Wednesday, February 16, was Cargill’s College for a Day for minority high school students from Dodge City and Garden City. College for a Day gives high school students a taste of college life from walking campus to K-State’s very own Call Hall ice cream. They attended three sessions of their choice, either a business session, an agriculture session or a presentation by Jocelyn Clemons about the minority pioneers in agriculture.
In the presentation session, the students learned how minorities affected agriculture and its significance. They were shocked to discover significant changes were made by minorities and those changes were the foundation of agriculture. Dr. Zelia Wiley also showed them agriculture is not just about cows, plows, crops and animals but there are many aspects of it from business to technology. Later, students learned about the many programs for minorities such as, MAPS, Developing Scholars program, McNair scholars and MANNRS. The students were encouraged to look into these scholarship opportunities.
At the conclusion of the sessions, the students were allowed to ask questions to a panel, which consisted of Cargill Scholars, MANNRS participants and previous MAPS students. Some of the questions asked were about college life, and the future plans of the students on the panel. Beyond College for a Day these students were encouraged to go to college, establish a career and do whatever they wanted, no matter the cost or obstacles.
Also, Wednesday evening MANNRS honored the 2011 Wallace Kidd Memorial Diversity Award Recipient, Steven Graham, with a reception. The evening was kicked off by Yasmine Mitchell, MANRRS member, who spoke about the wonderful and motivating life of Wallace Kidd. The past recipients and this year’s recipient were announced. Wallace Kidd’s grandson Mitchell also attended representing the Kidd family. On behalf of the Diversity Programs office we would like to thank everybody who participated in this event filled day! --Zelia Wiley zwiley@ksu.edu
BASIC 4-H OPERATIONS TRAINING
Basic 4-H Operations Training will be held April 18 and 19 in Manhattan. Basic 4-H Operations training begins at 1 p.m. on Monday, and goes through 5 p.m. on Tuesday. All sessions will be held at Pottorf Hall on the Riley County Fairgrounds, Manhattan.
This training is part of the New Agent Training Cycle, but any agent or program assistant in the system is welcome to attend this training where we share critical information for handling 4-H managerial issues that may arise.
Topics to be addressed include: Accountability to the Youth Development Mission, Youth Livestock Update, Accountability in Working with Volunteers, Accountability in Fiscal Affairs, State 4-H Office Connection, Accountability in Program Planning and Program Expansion.
If you have questions, please contact Diane Mack or Beth Hinshaw. Cost to attend is $25 payable to the Kansas 4-H Foundation. To register please fill out a form at https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&authkey=CNHqg-cH&formkey=dE1VVURmajJxTEN3bFFPUjJmaXpJQ0E6MQ#gid=0. Fill out all information and hit submit by April 8, 2011.
The next session will be held September 26 and 27, 2011. --Diane Mack dmack@ksu.edu
USING SOCIAL MEDIA AS AN EXTENSION PROFESSIONAL WORKING WITH YOUTH
The Youth Development PFT is sponsoring a half-day social media training on Friday, April 1, from 8:15 to 11:30 a.m. at Rock Springs 4-H Center. This interactive session will be a time to discuss opportunities, concerns, and questions around being online as an Extension professional, particularly as an adult working with youth. Examples and questions are welcome.
Worldwide per second, there are approximately 28 million text messages sent, 700 status updates to Facebook, 600 tweets on Twitter, 1 million videos watched on YouTube and 285 million e-mails delivered. (Statistics from RevealYourCharacter.org.)
The instructor will be Anne Adrian, eXtension Social Media Strategist for the Military Families Partnership. She will define social media and online networks and communities, share some statistics about youth online and lead a discussion around current guidelines and policy considerations. The basics of maintaining a Facebook page and Twitter account, MySpace, my4-H and other online tools like blogging and YouTube will also be discussed.
Adrian holds a doctorate in Management and has worked for Auburn University and Cooperative Extension for 23 years. Most of her online work can be found on her blog—Anne’s Spot, in Twitter--@aafromaa, and in Slideshare. Adrian believes that online networks give Cooperative Extension and universities ways to include citizens into collaborative education, opening new opportunities to learn from others and build knowledge with others.
Non Youth Development PFT members please register online at Doodle, http://doodle.com/yn3z2ff8if5xqca4, by Monday, March 21. Registration fee for non-YD-PFT members is $25. Make checks payable to 4-H Youth Development and mail to NE Area Extension Office, Attention Diane Mack. Space is limited to the first 35 registrants. --Beth Drescher drescher@ksu.edu, and Diane Mack dmack@ksu.edu, Youth Development PFT co-chairs
COMMUNICATION MINUTE: AN EASY WAY TO LINK FACEBOOK PAGES
We all know that the number of users on Facebook is growing quickly each day. So, too, are the number of Facebook pages, and specifically pages created by K-State Research and Extension programs and groups.
We all benefit by linking to each other's Facebook pages. When you post information, you can easily create a link to another KSRE group's Facebook page by using the "@" symbol. Here's how:
1) When logged into your page, create a new post. 2) Rather than write the name of the page you want to link to, insert the "@" symbol at the spot you want to insert the link, followed by the name of the page you want to link to.
A Hint: Facebook will find the page you want to link to if you give it a hint. Type the first few letters of the page you want to link to, and Facebook provides a drop-down menu with a list of options. Select the page you want.
So, for example, if you want to link to the College of Agriculture's Facebook page, simply start a post on your Facebook page: "See the fun stuff happening in the"
...and add the "@" symbol followed by at least a portion of the page name: "@ag"
Facebook provides "K-State College of Agriculture" as a link option. Select it, and you'll see that Facebook inserts a direct link from your post to the College of Agriculture.
What you've actually typed in your post is "See the fun stuff happening in the @ag," but what is actually posted is "See the fun stuff happening in the Kansas State University College of Agriculture."
There are a lot of neat options here. You can link to a local office, to the main KSRE Facebook page, to Walk Kansas, to an upcoming event, etc....
Facebook is a powerful tool, and like a lot of online tools, the more you can cross-link and associate with other quality programs, the more that people "Like" you. --Pat Melgares, 785-532-1160, melgares@ksu.edu
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