Taking social media to school

This week I start teaching a course in Online Journalism to M.A. students at the University of Western Ontario [2].

As anyone whoâe(TM)s been following me on Twitter [3] knows, Iâe(TM)ve been anxiously prepping for this for the past few weeks. Itâe(TM)s not that I havenâe(TM)t taught at colleges and universities before. I have plenty of times. But this time is different.

This time the topic and the technologies at hand have come together so well, so fortuitously, that I would be stupid, lazy or both not to use them to my full advantage to teach the course. I also want to use the same technologies to prepare for the classes and to gather around them a social community ready to pitch in, teach and learn together.

Iâe(TM)m explaining this because I think it might be helpful as you consider how to use social media tools for training within your organization and because I could use your help too.

The course at Western is about how to tell great stories in new ways. Itâe(TM)s about taking the best of traditional media and traditional journalism and applying it wisely to the wired and wireless world of mobile devices, diffuse community and social media.

Through social media tools like flickr, Twitter and YouTube Iâe(TM)ve connected with journalists, bloggers, librarians, PR specialists, programmers and other folks in North America and beyond. They all have great stories and experiences to share. So, itâe(TM)s only natural to involve them in the course. To that end weâe(TM)ll be using an online social network for the course Iâe(TM)ve set up at ning.com [4].

Itâe(TM)s not only a space where the students can come together and work on group projects, but also a place for my social media colleagues to audit the course, work with the students and act as role models and sources for the stories the students will be working on.

Why role models? Well, many of the students will have little if any experience with Web 2.0 concepts like tagging, social bookmarking or RSS feeds. Some will never have joined any social network other than facebook. Some will be scared of it all.

I know that from my own past experience, from watching Howard Rheingoldâe(TM)s recent teaching experiences [5] at Stanford and from a very educational lunch with Centennial College instructor and communicator Melaine McBride. So, itâe(TM)s important that they see that other folks, many of them much older, have adopted the tools and are using them effectively for communication, professional development, networking and news.

The students and the social media course auditors will also be collectively gathering stories about online journalism and social media using a common tag for the social bookmarking site delicious. That way weâe(TM)ll have a growing resource of highly relevant, contemporary stories to use for research and discussion.

A group of my social media colleagues including Phillip Smith [6] and Amber MacArthur [7] will be dropping in to speak to the class via Skype video. Iâe(TM)ve also decided to make the course open. Iâe(TM)ll be recording class lectures and discussions and broadcasting them live. Theyâe(TM)ll be archived as video and audio and Iâe(TM)ll put the slides up on Slideshare [8]. I even hope to cross-pollinate ideas with a class Boston-based video blogger Steve Garfield is teaching [9] concurrently at Boston University.

With less than a week to go Iâe(TM)ve already had support, advice and participation from dozens of folks including a blogger from South Africa [10].

This is an experiment. Iâe(TM)m not sure how the students will take to it or how it will all work out. If youâe(TM)d like to participate, drop me a line [wmacphail[at]gmail.com]. Iâe(TM)m thrilled by the kindness and wisdom Iâe(TM)ve received so far. Would love to have you join the exploration with us.

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