Key Learning, ideas,
applications found from project examples:
The first projects
I found and read about were from the social media blog post of University of
Georgia. This blog had a list of student projects and
each inspired me to write lesson plans for similar projects. The one
project that caught my eye was selling art in second life. It is fair to say a
good majority of my freshman students consider themselves "gamers".
Second Life while not as popular as it was three to five years ago is
still a recognized online game. Cash and game currency transactions are
increasing in popularity and academic textbooks for E-commerce and Marketing
are taking notice as well. This type of lesson plan would talk directly to my students'
interest, I just never knew how to incorporate it. The project shows how
one student made digital art and then sold it on Second Life. Using that social
medium I can demonstrate to students different social media marketing concepts
as well as getting them to think beyond social media marketing meaning Facebook
ads. I went back to that list of projects and found one more I really
enjoyed which was a Sports Blog Post. My colleagues and I
try to incorporate blogs as a class participation and a way for students to do
written homework assignments. This blog in particular was designed by a student
to follow his favorite division in hockey and blog about it,
from trades to the business side of hockey it was professionally done and well
written. Giving the students a professional topic they have an interest in I
think would create more of a passion and response towards blogging.
The next project used
curation as a tool for a marketing project. To be honest before my classes, I
often stuck to the tried and true marketing class experiences, drawing
logos, branding old products, and using social media for marketing in a very
"safe" way. I mean safe as what was easiest for me to manage as
far as the classroom is concerned. This project was for students to use
curation and social media for their main class project. The project I'm sharing
and found resourceful as a business education instructor was regarding branding
insights from a journalist. In BU240 our Marketing class we deal with branding
and using curation as a project tool seems like a natural fit. The example I
used was about branding. This particular curation about branding is the same
one I plan on showing as an example to my class. They used Storyful, which is
like Storyify and curated from around the Internet all different
resources about brand awareness. It was a great example of using social media's
different platforms to hammer home a important marketing concept. The example
shows not only written articles but also diagrams, charts, and videos. Showing
that to students would be a benefit because they would recognize the need
to research branding from different learning styles, not just reading about it,
but finding other representations. That thought was really the biggest
accomplishment I took away from this project. Every example paved the way for
me to have students use social media in a way to build further on the power
points, and reading I ask them to pay attention to and do on a nightly basis.
It's one thing to read about brand awareness in their text book, it's another
to create that awareness on their social media pages. Another great benefit
from these projects that I can show my students is showing them how these
projects build their digital portfolio that aides in their employability. I
cannot sugar coat how fierce the competition is in the job
market especially for marketing. These types of projects they are
participating in act as a great living documentation of their marketing
ability, and understanding of concepts such as brand awareness. While it
won't guarantee them the job, it certainly won't hurt. The
hands on experience in establishing and working with an actual brand
awareness campaign through social media would be easier to draw upon during an
interview than just the definition given in a power point lecture. That thought
about interviews, and building an online project portfolio really had me
excited to take some of these idea's right back into the classroom for the
students.
The thought of building
a digital portfolio was the major takeaway from this
project. My second major takeaway came from a project I read about
that didn't quite fit into my business classes, but had an overall community
theme that I felt was an important note to bring back to students. The
Charleston Chalk board brought forth a sense of community and the power of
social media. This project made the sense of community linked to social media a
very real connection. Community pride is something every successful leader and
business professional should share. This project has led me to meet with other
business adjuncts to try and create a community awareness project that we can
incorporate into all of our classes. It's hard to believe that before
that initial meeting we've never even thought of something like this. I
understand we get so comfortable and so use to our routine day in and day out
in the classroom as well as the tried and true lesson plans, that thinking
about larger projects during the semester can be difficult. I spoke with
the adjuncts about those feelings, and we all agreed that using that
as a crutch is no longer intelligent for a student focused, student driven,
business. I know the majority of us at this meeting having this conversation
didn't feel we were in that dreaded teaching rut, but it was important to make
it generalized to speak to those who perhaps were or realized they were.
We are now moving forward with a plan to use our marketing,
finance, management, and small business class to help a local non for
profit company increase their awareness, both community wide and through social
media. The next phase of our plan is to come up with class specific assignments
that all contribute in some way, similar to the project I detailed in Depaul's
Digital PR class.
Overall this project
brought light to some great ideas teachers and classes have already established
for projects. What I liked most about it, was the excitement it gave
me to put my own business class twist on it. While some of the projects
seemed great for their time, I think with some of the resources I
have available I can build upon their great ideas, like a physical curation of
projects. Some ideas I feel are solid, and want to
reuse. Ultimately I think the students will benefit the most from
this project, as they have from others.
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