To be honest when I first signed up for Social Media this summer I thought I would know and understand most of the information that would be taught in the class. I never thought it would be easy but I did think I had a handle on the social side of things. With a new job, a pregnant wife, and a new semester of school I was looking to lighten my course load a little.
Well did I get that wrong and I am glad that it turned out the way. Social Media has been one of the best classes we have taken at BGI. Though the super intense course load at the beginning had me thinking otherwise. Here is a recap of some key learnings over the semester:
Brand:
The brand tagging exercise really spoke to me. It helped me to see how people may perceive me and take that to create the individual brand I want people to see me as. I have used the learnings in this exercise a couple times at work already to ensure the brand is moving in the right direction (sorry Chris).
Social Video:
The first social video we did really brought our class together and allowed for the projects to get better with each rendition. I think this could have been done earlier in the semester for our learning journals and would have gotten more people off to a social media start
Media Project:
The social media project we did at the last intensive was unbelievable. It really brought together our learnings through the quarter and left me feeling really good about what I had learned. I would like to have done something like this at each intensive, maybe using a different form of social media. One time it could be videos the other could be audio. I think our time could be spent more wisely on this then doing the braid on what projects are we going to do.
Learning Journal:
I thought the personal learning journal and the BGI beat were a lot to do throughout the quarter. The class tied in perfect with some of the other things we were doing in other classes, I just wish the professors of those classes would have allowed our Beat and Journal to be used for both classes (CRL and Marketing) it just seemed like we were duplicating information.
Tools:
I think using the different forms of social media were great. Delicious did not work out for me as well as I had hoped. I would like to see different forms of media in the coarse in the future. Possible do a call over oovoo or require the students to test out 1 or 2 new forms of media and then report back on them. That would be great information to have on the channel. I think more important then the BGI BEAT topic. How great would it be if each student or group reviewed and reported on the top social media trends.
Syllabus:
I too had a hard time with the syllabus though I assume that is a channel issue. Maybe you could leave the channel the way it is but do a google doc or some other medium to host that work. It would then cover the accreditation guidelines but allow the students to see tools that actually work put to use in a business environment.
In closing this class was amazing and I would love to help out in the future. I noticed you are looking for TA's for the summer though we are having a baby in May. This is still tempting.....I have used the teachings in the class many times at Wizards already and have been asked to give as much input as I can into helping them with their social media. That is a testament to how great this class was.