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Debunking Myths and Fallacies Around Water Governance (come hear me speak!)

Travelling by False Creek Ferries across the water

Earlier this year, the University of British Columbia Political Science Students Association (UBC PSSA) invited me to speak around the topic of water politics and policy. As you may know, the World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP) is about to release its 4th Edition of the United Nations World Water Development Report (March 12th) and World Water Day is also coming up (March 22nd). Supporting students’ activities is one of my highest priorities (even more so, as in the case of the UBC PSSA, when the student organization members are also my current or former students). So, below is the invite (please RSVP on Facebook so we can have an idea of how many people are coming).

The PSSA is proud to host a talk titled “Debunking Myths and Fallacies around Water Governance” by Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega February 29th at 3pm in Henry Angus Room 435. Dr. Raul Pacheco-Vega’s presentation will offer evidence to debunk the myth of water abundance in North America and discuss the difficulties in developing a cohesive water governance policy at an urban, national, and trans-boundary level in North America. Through this presentation, Dr. Pacheco-Vega will offer some answers to the question “what is the role of co-operation in water governance?”

Lynn Canyon Park (North Vancouver)

This talk is intended more or less to the general lay people, although I will definitely be using concepts drawn from the political science literature. I have been working hard enough in the field of knowledge translation to know that it is really easy to get people lost when you speak academic-ese. So, my goals with this talk are twofold: First, to outline what makes it challenging to create one, coherent, cohesive water policy at the country- and continental-level, and second, to showcase some of the research projects I am currently engaged in with students (current and former), demonstrating the kind of research questions I am interested in exploring.

I recognize it takes place during a weekday and at a time that may be not so early in the day to skip work, but I am hoping you will find it interesting enough to come by and listen to what I have to say. This is a topic I’m extremely passionate about and that has occupied my research mind for at least the last 8 years of my life.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – February 27, 2012

Knowledge translation, mobilization and the #MyResearch hashtag

While many scholars (particularly now-tenured, though some non-tenured too) have taken to blogging and social media lately (the movement seems to have exploded in 2011 and 2012, with many academic conferences having their own Twitter hashtag – check the American Anthropology Association, the MLA and the upcoming American Association of Geographers 2012 hashtags), I have experimented with social media since 2006 (though, at the time, it was purely for personal use). I have been using social media in my teaching and my own research extensively since 2009, and I’m glad that my fellow academics are now embracing it as a tool to build new collaborative research networks. That’s the purpose of the #MyResearch hashtag.

As a way to provide context, let me summarize a bit of my academic history. When I was a PhD student, I built my scholarly networks the old-fashioned way. I emailed senior professors all over the world, I kept constant contact via email, I joined list-servs and participated in scholarly conversations in these forums. I then would attend conferences and meet the folks I had emailed and/or had discussions with over the list-serv and talk “in real life”. This meant that it took YEARS to build the kind of robust, strong collaboration networks I have built. With social media, the ability to create collaborative networks, and advance knowledge translation and knowledge mobilization strategies is much enhanced. The recent (early) success of the #MyResearch hashtag in spreading throughout the world appears to confirm my suspicions: that social media can (and SHOULD) be used to advance scholarly research and improve the way in which we academics liaise with the world that will eventually use our findings.

A few months ago, I attempted to showcase to my students and colleagues how Twitter could be used to spread the word about my (and other scholars’) research findings. At that time, it didn’t really take off. This time (and for reasons that probably warrant research itself), it did, and as you can tell from this visualization created by Marc Smith (thanks to Ines Mergel for connecting me with Marc, via Twitter no less), there have already been emerging some interesting conversational patterns.

20120114-NodeXL-Twitter-myresearch network graph

These are the connections among the Twitter users who recently tweeted the word MyResearch when queried on January 14, 2012, scaled by numbers of followers (with outliers thresholded). Connections created when users reply, mention or follow one another. The data set starts on 1/9/2012 8:10 and ends on 1/15/2012 0:32 UTC. Green lines are “follows” relationships, blue lines are “reply” or “mentions” relationships. Visualization by Marc Smith, and credit to Marc Smith on Flickr

Thanks to everyone who has retweeted my plea to summarize your research findings. A number of scholars (yes, I’ve read your tweets) seem to be skeptical about people wanting to broadcast their plans for a research grant (the closed view of the world in academia where you need to be FIRST to publish something probably needs some expansion). I don’t think that any scholar needs to post exactly what they are planning to do, but for those of you who are interested, there’s a whole stream of thought called Open Research (and Open Science).

I would like to encourage folks to continue to share your research findings via the #MyResearch hashtag. I have seen early signs of beginnings of collaboration among Twitter users and I’m excited by what may come from this.

Posted in bridging academia and practice.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – January 16, 2012

Recommended background courses for Public Policy undergraduates in pursuit of graduate school

I take my role as a mentor very seriously. Much of the time I spend contributing to the scholarly community is focused on helping scholars whose careers are more junior than mine (and given that I’m an early-ish career scholar, that usually means my undergraduate students, or PhD students in the same department I teach or in the department where I graduated from). Or, in some cases, PhD students from other universities worldwide who reach out to me because of my specific expertise. I also contribute frequently to the online forum #PhDChat.

Recently, a very bright student of mine (current) asked me which courses I would suggest that she takes BEFORE heading into graduate school. While my department (Political Science at The University of British Columbia) has an extremely well-rounded BA degree, I’m sure my students would benefit from taking other courses that would allow them to arrive to graduate school more prepared.

Given the recent emphasis in political science and public policy in quantitative methods, I suggested to my student to take a couple of courses in basic economics: microeconomics and macroeconomics. I also suggested an additional course in statistics (although our course in statistics in political science, taught by my colleague Dr. Fred Cutler, is a very robust course). Several of my fellow colleagues in the department have very strong quantitative and formal modeling backgrounds.

On a personal level (read: my own methodological preferences) I work with mixed research methods. I have about the same degree of fluency in discourse analysis and institutional ethnography as I do in multivariate analysis. I am (obviously) a fan of geographical information systems (GIS) and thus I enjoy and encourage my students to undertake spatial analysis.

I also suggested a course in econometrics, as it will definitely be valuable (honestly, it never hurts to know econometrics). Josh Greenberg and Wendy Waters both suggested additional courses, in discourse coalitions analysis, dramaturgy, public-private partnerships and some housing policy (although in my Public Policy course I do talk about housing). Janet De Luna (a graduate student at the University of Chicago, in Public Policy) also suggested political institutions and political economy. Reema Faris suggested courses in humanities (but I’m sure they DO already take those!).

If you were to suggest courses that undergraduate students could take to arrive to graduate school in public policy better prepared, which courses would you recommend? Feel free to add in the comments section.

Posted in policy analysis, public policy theories, teaching.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – November 26, 2011

Students at UBC: Call for papers UBC Journal of Political Studies & UBC Journal of International Affairs

This year, students of mine are the Editors in Chief of both the UBC Journal of Political Studies AND the UBC Journal of International Affairs. In view of this, I’m hereby writing to promote both calls for papers. Note that deadlines are fast approaching.

UBC Journal of Political Studies

The UBC Journal of Political Studies is one of the premier undergraduate student research journals in the country and is now accepting submissions for its 2012 edition. This is an excellent opportunity for students to showcase their work and to be published.

The Journal attempts to publish papers from a wide variety of political science-related fields, and students are encouraged to submit papers from all the sub-fields of political science. Papers not written for course credit will also be accepted, provided they are still relevant to the discipline. All papers must be the author’s original, previously-unpublished work and each author is permitted to submit a maximum of two papers for consideration. All papers should be 1500-3000 words in length.

Students are strongly encouraged to review their papers before submitting them, and to use any feedback they may have received. Students should also contemporize their papers if necessary.

The deadline for submission is December 15th, 2011 at 5pm.
Papers should be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief at editor.ubcpssa@gmail.com.

UBC Journal of International Affairs

Founded in 1985, the Journal of International Affairs is a student-led, faculty-reviewed journal at the University of British Columbia that showcases UBC undergraduate essays of the highest caliber. UBC students get a chance to have their work circulated to numerous universities and institutions across Canada and the world, offering an incredible opportunity to have their work published and distributed early in their academic careers.

The JIA is also accepting undergraduate essays from an international network of 21 schools, whose work serves to broaden the journal’s perspectives.

We are looking for research papers or photo essays from a variety of disciplines written on Post-1945 topics related to global political issues.

Some suggested themes include:

Sustainability and climate change

Regime change

Financial turmoil

Civil liberties, humanitarian law.

Access to food and water

Gender issues

Arab spring

Please remember that essays are not restricted to these topics, and that students may submit papers that are related to any number of global concerns that they feel are relevant to the field of International Relations.

Requirements

Submitted papers must be roughly 1200-3500 words, written in English, be properly cited, have received a grade worth 80% or more, and must not have been previously published.

Deadline

The deadline for submissions is December 15th, 2011. Students should include their name, University, Faculty/Department, and year standing in their submission.

Possible Questions:

How many submissions do you get? We get on average 80 to 100 that we seriously consider. Last year we published 10.

What is the proccess like? You’ll submit your paper online. It will get reviewed and placed on a short list for publication. From there there will be several rounds of editing partnering you and other students experienced in the field. If the Editorial Board then decides to publish it, it will be reviewed by a faculty sponsor. The JIA is published in Mid-March.

We look forward to your papers! Please send them in Microsoft Word (.doc) format to Iana Messetchkova, JIA Director of Communications at irsa.prelations@gmail.com.

Posted in bridging academia and practice.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – November 25, 2011

On managing climate change financing (a new paper in Science by Donner, Kandlikar and Zerriffi)

Blue Skies Leaving Kota Kinabalu..

photo credit: thienzieyung

While climate change isn’t really very directly my area of expertise, most of the scholarly research I undertake has deals with public service delivery decisions, budget allocations and policy choices under multiple constraints. Determining where to allocate scarce funds within the domestic policy arena is hard enough, one can only imagine the multiple degrees and layers of complexity that addressing climate change brings along.

I just learned of a new Policy Forum paper by my colleagues at UBC Simon Donner, Milind Kandlikar and Hisham Zerriffi where they address these questions. Donner et al indicate that mechanisms should be implemented to ensure that the funding goes to critical areas to tackle the most pressing challenges.

You can read the Policy Forum abstract of Donner, Kandlikar and Zerriffi (2011) here:

At the 2010 Cancun Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the international community agreed in principle to one of the largest development programs in history. The developed nations pledged to mobilize U.S.$100 billion per year by the year 2020 to “address the needs of developing countries” in responding to climate change. The funds, which may apply to adaptation and mitigation, are proposed to flow through multiple channels, including existing development banks, official development assistance, bilateral programs, international private investment flows (e.g., carbon markets), and other public and private mechanisms. Recommendations provided by a transitional committee for the management and operation of the proposed climate change financing will be considered by the parties to the UNFCCC at the upcoming conference in Durban, South Africa

My own research has used integrated assessment (a set of heuristics to integrate multiple disciplines to provide policy-makers with robust suggestions on policy decisions) to address issues of industrial restructuring. One of the tenets of integrated assessment is to focus on where resources can be better spent so maximum effectiveness can be attained with the least investment.

In their paper, Donner, Kandlikar and Zerriffi have sought to spell out sound policy recommendations on how financing should occur. From the media release at UBC:

Donner, Kandlikar and Zerriffi provide specific recommendations for ensuring that countries meet the funding commitment, that waste and misappropriation are minimized and that money is directed to the most effective programs. These guidelines include instituting an “adaptive” regulatory system to close funding loopholes, employing a decentralized network of third-party auditors and adopting a scientific approach to evaluating program effectiveness.

It will be very interesting to see if policy-makers and participants in COP 17 in Durban will listen to the sound advice of these UBC scholars.

Posted in bridging academia and practice, environmental policy, policy instruments.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – November 17, 2011

World Toilet Day (Nov 19) and World Toilet Summit (Nov 22-24)

DSCN5623

photo credit: ya3hs3

A question I get asked rather frequently in scholarly (and laypeople’s) circles is why do you do research on the politics and governance of wastewater?” The notion of what happens to water after anthropogenic activities have changed its properties (read: after we have polluted it) seems foreign to many individuals, even scholars immersed in the social science of water. This is, as Jaimie Benidickson has mentioned, very much the ‘culture of flushing‘.

Wastewater has been a major focus of environmental engineering research. Studies that focus on impacts of industrial and urban effluent use on agriculture and the potential for waterborne diseases have also been relatively popular. Yet, social sciences’ scholars seem to think of water primarily in scarcity/access terms (e.g. drinking water) rather than in terms of water quality and use (i.e. wastewater). This isn’t a new phenomenon. Common-pool-resources (CPR) theory and neo-institutionalism are both apt bodies of literature that can be well used to explore questions of water scarcity. Yet few folks focus on the governance of wastewater as I do.

Much like talking about wastewater, talking about toilets is also rather taboo. The discomfort that “talking about shit” brings along is not foreign to me either. I was a young undergraduate chemical engineering student when I first started working on designing municipal wastewater treatment plants (at bench-scale and industrial scale). These aerobic, activated-sludge effluent treatment processes were very effective in processing (you guessed it) urban/residential wastewater. But in sampling urban wastewater to process, I was able to witness the broad-ranging variation in sanitation infrastructure within the urban area where I was living, and the negative impacts that inadequate sanitation facilities had on local, vulnerable communities. As I have moved forward to do research on the governance of wastewater, these images have stayed imprinted in me and have shaped my body of research work.

Yet the sanitation infrastructure we have in major urban centres (I live in Vancouver, British Columbia) is not by any stretch of the imagination equal to what others have in developing countries. According to the latest UNICEF-WHO WASH report 2.5 billion people do not use improved sanitation. The sad news is that even if we met the Millenium Development Goals (MDG), there will still be 1.7 billion people without access to basic sanitation. While the proportion of the world population that practises open defecation declined from 25% in 1990 to 17% in 2008, 1.1 billion people still defecate in the open. We do not have enough infrastructure for human waste disposal. In plain English, not enough toilets.

Thus the relevance of World Toilet Day. From their website:

World Toilet Organization created WTD to raise global awareness of the struggle 2.6 billion face every day without access to proper, clean sanitation.WTD also brings to the forefront the health, emotional and psychological consequences the poor endure as a result of inadequate sanitation.

While the activities planned by World Toilet Day are light-hearted in nature, I strongly believe that the main message is relevant. Consider how lucky we are to have improved sanitation facilities and almost-universal access to toilets in urban areas, and consider donating to charities that work to build sanitary facilities in developing nations. On November 19th, think about this.

Posted in bridging academia and practice, wastewater.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – November 15, 2011

Policy choices, budgetary constraints and the Conservative government move to decline continued funding of the Canadian Environmental Network (@RCEN)

Protest against the proposed KeystoneXL tar sands pipeline

photo credit: Fibonacci Blue

While as a scholar of policy analysis I’m fond of governmental budget cuts that are justified (e.g. in the case of bulging government spending on non-priority issues). But I can’t help but find Environment Canada’s non-renewal of a long-standing funding partnership with the Canadian Environmental Network (RCEN) rather perplexing. I can’t see the justification to cut funding to organizations aimed at building stronger networks of activists, scholars and that aims to reach out to the general public.

That this Canadian government is not making the best choices to protect Canada’s environment is neither a surprise nor an unknown issue. Environment Canada (and Stephen Harper himself) have been heavily criticized by numerous Canadian environmental policy scholars (myself included). Environmental policy decisions in Canada at this time are not smart. Let’s just remember the specific case of asbestos and Canada’s active lobbying to have chrysotile asbestos not included in the Rotterdam Convention) for just but one example.

My research has found that environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) can have very positive impact in domestic and global environmental policy making. All reservations made of course, but at least the ENGOs I have studied have had some very positive effects. The Canadian Environmental Network facilitates networking and coalition building across some 600 non-profit organizations aimed at protecting the environment. If a democratic government’s policy objectives (as per Theodore Lowi and Guy Peters) are to provide public services in the best interest of their constituency, one would think that the Federal government would want to continue or even increase RCEN’s funding.

Cutting travel expenses of high-level government officials and bureaucrats? I’m all for it. Cutting unnecessary expenses? Absolutely. Cutting funding to the Canadian Environmental Network does not rank high in my policy priorities for this country (and possibly for nobody else with 2 cents of common sense).

As an academic, I find myself almost always torn. When I see stupid policy decisions, I feel the need to become more of an activist. My research informs the decisions of policy makers at the local and global scales. Yet, sometimes even when the evidence points out to specific, smarter policy choices, governments still take a different policy trajectory. Political considerations, budgetary constraints, and a myriad other elements factor in how governments decide and implement policy. Yet I can’t stop myself when I foresee that a particular decision will have negative effects, particularly in the environmental field.

In a democratic society, the public demands to have a voice in policy decisions that affect their welfare. If we consider that civil society (ENGOs) work towards protecting the public’s best interest, one would think the government would consider continuing funding of an organization such as RCEN, which helps build these networks of activists. Apparently, that’s not an important issue in this government’s environmental policy agenda. And that’s disappointing.

There is a petition circulating in several list-serves (including a number of academic forums) to ask the Canadian government to continue funding RCEN. Only time will tell if said petition will be successful.

Posted in bridging academia and practice, public participation.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – October 17, 2011

Real-life policy discussions on Canadian and British Columbia post-secondary education with Minister @NaomiYamamoto #POLI350A #bcpse #cdnpse #bcpoli

There are a number of reasons why I teach Public Policy (350A the Canadian version and 352A the comparative, cross-national version when I am asked to teach it). First, because I believe my students deserve to learn practical skills for when they go out on the workforce. My course Public Policy (POLI350A) is designed to provide them with policy-analytical, collaborative, team-building and research/writing skills.

Second, because I believe that the theoretical and empirical lessons learned in a Public Policy Analysis course can be applicable in real life situations. So I designed my course to be an applied, theoretically-founded and empirically-informed course. My students undertake a 72 hour, under-pressure policy-analytical exercise. And they learn a lot from it.

Extremely honored to have The Hon. @NaomiYamamoto , Minister of Advanced Education of British Columbia guest lecture on my Public Policy class #UBC

This week I had the pleasure to host The Honorable Naomi Yamamoto, MLA for Lonsdale North Vancouver and Minister of Advanced Education of the province of British Columbia. Minister Yamamoto spent an hour guest-lecturing and interacting with my 3rd and 4th year undergraduate Political Science students. I was extremely pleased at the depth of respectful, engaged intellectual discussions my students had with Minister Yamamoto.

Minister @NaomiYamamoto speaking to #POLI350A students on #cdnpse policy #bcpoli

Theoretically-grounded and empirically-informed intellectual discourse is the foundation of good policy design. My students and Minister Yamamoto engaged in a very productive conversation on the future of Canadian and BC post-secondary education. Minister Yamamoto challenged my students to come up with the #1 barrier to access to postsecondary education, and ways to overcome these barriers.

I have conducted theoretical and applied research on policy analysis. I have also undertaken consultancy policy-analytical projects. Because of my experience both in industry, and advising governments, I firmly believe that inviting guest lecturers who are working in the actual policy field is a substantially productive exercise, and I publicly wanted to thank Minister Yamamoto for taking the time to have this conversation with my students, for helping me educate them on the challenges and opportunities for British Columbia’s post-secondary education policy and for opening the forum to an engaged, civilized conversation on something all of my students have a stake on (as well as me): their future.

Posted in bridging academia and practice, policy analysis, teaching.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – October 15, 2011

A brief overview of my research trajectory and future plans

Every scholar is required at some point to lay out a research plan and to showcase their research agenda. Given the broad variety of topics and issue areas that I have worked on (call it intellectual curiosity), I sometimes struggle to answer the kind of questions that for other scholars may sound easy. I sometimes read my colleagues’ websites and I find it amazing that they can articulate what their research interests are in such a brief, concise way. So this blog post (a work in progress) aims to articulate my research trajectory to date.

My research is motivated by a keen interest in cooperation amongst agents. Why do people cooperate to manage common pool resources (CPR) and can we look at a wasted resource (wastewater) through the lenses of CPR theories? What drives firms to co-locate in the same geographical region even when they are potential competitors and how do clusters of allied (coupled/interconnected) industries respond to a multiplicity of stressors? What strategies do environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) use to put pressure on governments to reduce their pollutant emissions and what are the underlying reasons why these ENGOs build transnational coalitions? Under what circumstances do business use cooperative approaches to pollution control?

My research explores questions of multilevel and networked governance through cooperative approaches. Using a multidisciplinary analytical approach that borrows from the sociological, urban studies, planning, anthropological and policy sciences’ literatures, I examine case studies from the environmental field (specifically water, solid waste and hazardous/toxic waste), thus exploring new models of governing.

At the very core, my research (and teaching) are driven by a keen interest in narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor, in reducing overall poverty worldwide. I use my understanding of cross-national comparative public policy (and in particular my work in environmental policy) to provide research outputs that policy makers at the global (intergovernmental secretariats) and local (federal, provincial, regional and municipal) scale can use to improve human welfare.

My empirical research has found, amongst other things, that:

  • River basin councils have proven innovative institutional reforms to govern water, yet they are ineffective in improving wastewater management at the municipal, provincial and federal levels.
  • Environmental non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) can successfully use coalition-building strategies to effectively put pressure on national governments to improve their pollution-control performance policy under specific circumstances that include campaigning for issues that have a direct effect on human health.
  • Small cities with mono-industry structures will engage in countervailing strategies if faced with multiple stressors, whereas cities where there is potential for industrial diversification will broaden their repertoire of industries.

MY CURRENT RESEARCH AGENDA

7 years ago I decided to refocus my research to examining water through the social sciences lenses. I find it really hard to let go of the field of environmental economic geography and I am still interested in issues of industrial restructuring. Finally I am working again in the field of solid waste management, specifically looking at the politics of garbage. Much of my field research has been in Mexico.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – October 13, 2011

An undergraduate student’s guide to Twitter in higher education

While my research blog was primarily designed to write my thoughts about policy issues that are of interest to me (and discuss my current research agenda), I’ve also found that my students needed a lot more guidance on how they can use Twitter. I encourage (read: quasi-force) my undergraduate (3rd, 4th year for the most part) Political Science students to use social media, and I figured I should write a guide on how to use Twitter in higher education. Primarily, because I do believe in the power of social media to advance academic pursuits. And of course, you can follow me on Twitter here (@raulpacheco).

There are a number of social networking sites, but I find the microblogging platform Twitter the most useful of them all (I am also on Google Plus, LinkedIn and Facebook). This past week, I found at least 3 different ways in which you (my undergraduate students) can use Twitter:

a) As a source of information. Depending on who you follow on Twitter, you will see that there are many people who share informational tidbits that can be of (a) general interest or (b) specific use to your academic pursuits. I follow many academic colleagues, both from UBC and outside, and I spend some time online reading news tidbits that are of general interest to me. I also have set up a monitoring board for anything that is related to issues of Canadian post-secondary education (#cndpse) and politics in British Columbia (#bcpoli). Other useful hashtags include #UBC of course, anything related to the University of British Columbia, and #canpoli or #cdnpoli(Canadian politics).

add research and network

b) As a means of communication with me. Throughout the years I’ve been using Twitter, I have found that my participation on Twitter helps my students talk to me fast, either privately (via Direct Message) or publicly. The advantage of having public conversations with me is that another student follows me and other students/classmates, they can easily track my conversation and either contribute or ask me a question. You can see the kind of conversations I have with my students (and colleagues) by searching @raulpacheco.

conversing with my students

c) As a virtual, instantaneous sounding board. This past week, I assigned a 72 hour policy analysis so that my Public Policy students could see the realities of being a policy analyst and learned how to do quick, on-the-spot policy research. Several of my students had conversations amongst themselves that enabled them to learn from each other, bounce ideas off-of-each-other and provide moral support.

students share information

Or simply to discuss a particular issue that is of relevancy to everyone:

conversation with students

d) As a networking tool. I am connected with many sustainability- and ecologically-minded individuals in British Columbia, Canada and worldwide. Having a List column on my Twitter management system (I use HootSuite) for all of my students (current and former) enables me to keep tabs on them, see what they are up to, update them on what *I* am up working on and doing research about, and for them to connect with other former and current students of mine. This particular instance is helpful as I have a number of former students in key policy positions in the US, Canada and Europe. For example, one of my students (pictured below) works for the United Nations Environment Programme (I have plenty of other bright former students studying their graduate degrees at Carleton, London School of Economics, Columbia, or working for government agencies like the UN, CIDA, IDRC, etc.)

simon

I was able to connect with the British Columbia Minister of Advanced Education (The Hon. Naomi Yamamoto) through Twiter, and she attended two of my lectures. I would have not been able to connect with Minister Yamamoto in the same way were it not for Twitter.

networking

These are just four basic points. One more innovative element that I have found interesting is the use of location-based applications such as Foursquare, cross-posted to Twitter. I saw a couple of my students use it indicating that they were sitting at the library and that they were available to chat or study together. This would prove useful particularly for group projects (both my courses this term have these) and for sharing notes and comparing ideas.

Posted in social media for teaching.

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By Raul Pacheco-Vega – October 3, 2011