Google, Skype Present at McGraw-Hill’s Social Media Week Showcase
By Dominique Carson
“You can bridge the gap between college eligible and college ready,” is McGraw-Hill’s powerful words that embrace positive feedback in education due to technology.
McGraw-Hill invited Google, Skype, Grade Guru, Unigo, Symbaloo Edu, Campus Live, Knewton, and Jatched to share their knowledge in New York recently.
“Last year different people at the panel discussion talked about the future of media but this year we wanted to focus on recent education communication change due to social media and how technology has changed,” said Emily Sawtell, the host of the event, founder of Grade Guru and senior director of standard innovations of McGraw-Hill.
The education media networks hope to improve graduation rates by increasing student engagement via social media. Students will able to connect with their peers, review notes from class and learn effective study habits with the goal of helping students learn from each other.
“From Grade Guru students work together and share study material, time management, contribute to ratings and peer review, receive feedback on study methods — so it’s sort of like a school community class,” Sawtell said.
Unigo is a student-oriented Web site that allows students to submit videos, documents and photos of their school so prospective candidates can decide if a particular university is right for them without traveling there. “It’s a guideline for students when they are applying to colleges especially for seniors when they are graduating from high school instead of always listening to school’s administrators perception about the school,” said founder and CEO of Unigo, Jordan Goldman. “The applicant will see it from the student point of view by watching videos, and asking a tour guide questions about the school and then make the decision themselves.”
Skype and Google Apps for education were discussed. Skype, a free program, allows everyone to make voice calls over the internet. It’s known for its popular features such as instant messaging and video conferencing. The software is excellent for classrooms, study groups, tutoring sessions, interviews for college admissions and connecting with people who you haven’t seen for a period of time.
Google Apps for Education is also free software that allows schools to have email, calendars, online documents and site sharing for students and other users. Other networks affiliated with Google such as Gmail.com, Google Docs, and Google Video helps the campus to communicate more effectively.
“We bring new potential and productivity to your campus while improving your students, technological skills, reducing ID cost, and ensuring the security of school and student data,” said Ronald Ho, a Google representative. “Everyone is connected to each other, no matter what platform or device you can use and the security is 99.9 percent effective. We have phone, email, and customer support when you need it.” #
