Facilitating a Connection
As an online instructor, how can you use microblogging to facilitate a connection between students and experts in the field?
In order to facilitate a connection between students and experts in the field, I would encourage students to "follow" certain experts if there too were using such social networking. Many professionals have incorporated social networking; therefore, they are easily accessible and influential.
As on online instructor, I would encourage students to follow leaders in the industry, and to subscribe to professional pod casts and micro blogs where available. ( AAPC, CMS, etc)
I would ask the students to find experts in the field whose work that they admire or find interesting. This way if the information is meaningful to them, they are likely to be more active microbloggers.
In our community there is a large USDA facility. I would make a connection with their personnel and determine the possibility of microblogging with their personnel and establish the parameters for my students and I to do so.
Shenita,
I agree with you. More an more social networking is done on the professional level. It makes sense to use that type of a use for a pattern.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Amy,
What a great idea! I want to "borrow" that. There are great examples of social media that are content specific if needed.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Angela,
That is a great idea. There are more and more blogger experts that can be used.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Miriam,
That is a great idea. I think you could create online mentoring with this model.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
I would suggest that they network with professional and (Subject Matter Experts)SME's. The people in those communities will guide them in the right direction. In addition, they will share there experience and common practices which can be quite valuable.
Guerda,
That is so true. I think we think that we can bring people into the online course when in reality it is pretty easy.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
I've not yet done this, but I was a student in a course that hosted a TwitterChat with a field expert. We all joined at the same time, and followed a specific hashtag. The industry expert would post information, and a series of questions would follow from students with the same hashtag. I liked the live 'interactive' part, but didn't like the 140 word character limit. However, the instructor was able to post an archive of the twitter chat when we were done - so that was neat.
Valerie,
You may want to try Google Hangout. It seems to be pretty robust.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
I think this would be most readily applicable to the education courses I teach. There are most likely several education experts who use Twitter, and connecting students with them would be a bonus to their development as educators. I have not used Twitter before. I have so much going on that it seems like it is just one more thing to keep up with. However, after reviewing this section, I can see potential benefits. I will certainly play around with Twitter to see how I can use it to connect my students with experts in the field.
Greetings,
Personally, I have had students follow industry and recognized leaders so that the class can discuss current events and trends. Additionally, I have been able to get students to connect with my networking contacts to ask questions as well.
Best wishes,
Rick
Rebecca,
I like your enthusiasm! The more time ( even short time) they can be in the content more and more and that is a good thing! I want them thinking about how they can apply and how they can engage in the content all the time. I know this is a dream.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
Richard,
I think that is such a smart idea to have students "follow" a leader through social media. It will teach them the language of success! Great idea.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
By having student able to contact non-instructor experts, they can reinforce their learning experience through third party contributions.
Harry,
Yes, they can, and they can see how important communication is (words and format) is in their field.
Dr. Kelly Wilkinson
The use of microblogging could be similar to a ‘book report’ in that the student could use the timeframe to monitor experts in their field of interests and simply report / discuss current events. Similar to a ‘whats So-So doing ___ (current date)’ and continue on a daily/weekly basis. This could be similar to ‘story telling’ outcomes where many learn from this one work effort.
