It’s that time of year: in college classrooms all over the nation, students are getting ready to put together final presentations to demonstrate what they’ve learned in their classes. This semester, I decided to raise the bar a little and to turn the traditional final presentations into free workshops open to the Austin community! I figured our students do excellent work, so why hide their work behind our classroom walls? Why not turn this into an opportunity for our students to give back to the community?
So here’s what we’re doing:
At the beginning of the spring semester my students divided into teams and picked a specific area of social media/PR to develop a workshop on. The topics they picked weren’t necessarily topics we devoted a lot of time to in class. On the contrary, I told the students they would have to identify experts on their topics and use social media platforms to set up their own network of online mentors. Those mentors, I explained, would act as their primary teachers.
All semester, my students have been busy growing their personal learning networks, interacting with experts in the field and scanning their Twitter and RSS feeds for valuable resources. Basically, they’ve been picking up seeds of wisdom here and there and now that we are reaching the end of the semester, the student teams are getting ready to host a 75-minute training workshop open to the public. Their topics range from social media metrics, branding, to Facebook for nonprofits. If you live in the area and would like to learn more about social media, we’d love to have you join us!
Workshop information:
- Social Media Measurement: The Basics & What You Need to Know
- Tuesday, April 24th from 3:30-4:45 pm in Trustee Hall 118 on the St. Edward’s campus
- Optimize your Social Media Presence (follow it using the hashtag #SOCMEDPROS)
- Thursday, April 26th from 3:30-4:45 pm in Trustee Hall 118 on the St. Edward’s campus
- The New Face of your Nonprofit: Utilizing Facebook for Nonprofits
- Tuesday, May 1st from 3:30-4:45 pm in Trustee Hall 118 on the St. Edward’s campus
- You Are What You Tweet: How to Brand Yourself On Twitter
- Thursday, May 3rd from 3:30-4:45 pm in Trustee Hall 118 on the St. Edward’s campus
PARKING INFO: Parking can be found in the visitors lot or parking garage (see map).
{ 2 comments }
FANTASTIC idea. Hope you don’t mind if I steal it sometime.
Steal away! The project is described in much more detail on the back of the syllabus (see syllabus tab).
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