BetterGrads applies to speak at SXSW

Kevin and I, BetterGrads’ co-founders, have submitted a proposal to speak at the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Texas in March 2012! The presentation is titled +1 Matters: Social Networks and Education. We want to talk about what we have been trying to do with BetterGrads so far and what every educational initiative should know about social networks. Every year, high schools lose their most valuable resources when alumni leave for college. With online social networking, this doesn’t have to happen. Our presentation is about the importance of social capital for education. Most people know social capital from the book Bowling Alone: it’s the stuff that drives civic life. But it can drive many other things, like a student’s success in college or career. As you know, at BetterGrads we connect recent graduates back to their public high schools as mentors, regardless of distance, because unlike their private [...]

Facebook Faux Pas: Protecting ourselves online

Facebook is one of those amazing feats of technology that does great things—but also opens up the possibility for situations like the one in Florida. So what are we to do?