Inside View

Teaching Social at Third Level

I have taught social media since 2006 when our Clonmel cohort represented 30 of the first 150 Irish on Twitter. Every semester I try to amp up our results and this year our focus should result in a playbook others might enjoy using.

I started the programme by reviewing dozens of eureka moments, beginner's mistakes and shortcuts shared by 45 strength and conditioning students who shared their observations on a co-authored slide deck. Another of their co-authored presentations appears below.

Sports & Conditioning Profiles from Limerick School of Art and Design

Networking after a 42 Year Pause

I HOOKED UP with a dozen friends a few days ago, some 42 years since I last saw them. Several of them have no social networking profiles and it interested me to see how everyone discovered something announced on Facebook.

listen to ‘Driving East from Lancaster’ on audioBoom

Practical Social Media for Athletes

I THINK THERE'S a strong surge of athletes, coaches and fitness fanatics using social media. I believe it's natural to add content through easy channels like Instagram and Tumblr so I set up several assessment methods to measure the reach of content shared via these methods.

I'd like to follow you if you're sharing data from your wearables or tracking progress along an activity grid. I'm learning a lot by trying to keep up with 50 very fit athletes on the social media module in the Sport Strength & Conditioning degree in the Limerick Institute of Technolgy.

[Bernie Goldbach normally teaches creative multimedia for the Limerick School of Art & Design.]

The #LSADmedia presence

Liam Noonan at Ground Zero of Robocode.

A SERIES OF SPECIAL events, sponsored by the Limerick School of Art & Design (LSAD) Media Desk, have generated enthusiasm about the creative multimedia programme in Clonmel. In April, a group of social media, public relations, games development and applied communications students will commission a website that articulates the #LSADmedia brand.

The Clonmel campus of LSAD is the centre point of this initiative. The campus hosts first year social media students, third year public relations students and fourth year applied communications students. A fourth cohort of software developers on the Thurles campus of the Limerick Institute of Technology is also contributing to the planning and execution of #LSADmedia strategy.

During the final week of March 2014, #LSADmedia puts a special emphasis on social marketing concepts arising through Marketing Over Coffee, including:

-- Four tips from @cspenn for dealing with Facebook's increased brand Page penalties.

-- What @webby2001 thinks about the Facebook free lunch plan ending.

-- @jasonfalls and @smxplorer on the Great Facebook Swindle.

-- @bobmoz on The Billboard Twitter Real-Time Chart. 

-- @cesardielo Photos getting more social.

Props to Christopher S. Penn's totally excellent newsletter for including these strategic social marketing observations.

[Photo of Liam Noonan in Robocode 2014 on the LIT-Thurles campus. Supported by #LSADmedia.]

Wundering in Ireland

Scraped from Share Your Adventure.

THE FIRST WUNDERING MOLESKINE took its very first turn and shared its adventure via a social beacon that ended up on a Google Map. This means a community-based project proved we can connect the creative art of primary school students to a global mesh of social networking.

Another Semester with #icollab

Screenshot from the iCollab Google Map

NEARLY 50 STUDENTS in the Limerick School of Art & Design will work with the #iCollab project during the spring semester of 2014. The project offers an excellent working model of Alternative Pedagogies with some excellent background information on the iCollab blog. [1]

Teaching Tools and Tracking Thought Leaders

Image from Mitchell Levy.

CREATIVE MULTIMEDIA STUDENTS in the Limerick School of Art & Design will set out to find and learn from thought leaders this semester. Along the way, I believe they will enjoy listening to thought leaders on the FIR Podcast Network.

Misogyny on the Curriculum

Screenshot from PSmag.com.

I PLAN TO REWARM the topic of misogyny in a social media module I teach, hoping to discover techniques that work for creative college students. I have a family reason that motivates me.

I want to ensure my six year old daughter can handle the anxiety that bubbles alongside the social media streams many women navigate in their lives. It seems grossly unfair to have women expect to encounter raging misogyny as part of their online lives. And it's excepti0nally troubling when their complaints are easily dismissed by law enforcement agencies.

Amanda Hess writes a compelling piece for the Pacific Standard, laying out a chronology of abuse she has encountered online. She isn't the first to raise the issue in a prominent way and I know others will have similar stories to tell this year and next. Perhaps by spotlighting the issue on a third level social media module, I can squelch some of the undesireable behaviour before it ramps up in the workplace. 

Misogyny

  Download epub Readings on Civility

[Bernie Goldbach is the senior creative multimedia lecturer in the Limerick School of Art & Design.]

Blind Referees and LinkedIn

Lumia Screenshot by @topgold

IF COLLEGE STUDENTS expect to get meaningful endorsements from blind referees, then they should set up a LinkedIn profile and keep it updated.

Because I've more than 10 years inside the LinkedIn ecosystem, I get direct requests from recruiters, company directors and senior staff members of various organisations when they consider employing one of our graduates. In many cases, I haven't worked directly with or taught the job candidate but LinkedIn shows me on the faculty of a relevant educational institution. Sometimes I'm asked to to verify the syllabus that the candidate completed. Other times, I'm asked about the kind of group project work the student finished. I am asked to serve as a reference by prospective companies more than students ask me to list my details on their CVs.

We count on LinkedIn to help improve the opportunities our students have to complete three month periods as interns with creative companies. It's relatively straightforward for the companies involved to see the kind of academic programme I represent and to make a quick determination about the level of proficiency our students might have at various stages of their education. Thanks to LinkedIn, I can generate placement opportunities for students faster than a full-time student services staff member.

Learned After Teaching Twitter for Seven Years

Screencap from Twitter in its early Irish days.

SEVEN YEARS AGO, we brought Twitter into our Tipperary college classrooms. Back then, the largest concentration of people tweeting in Ireland lived within 10 miles of each other near Clonmel.

I spent a few minutes thinking out loud about the main points I now teach when unpacking Twitter for academic credit in the Limerick School of Art & Design.

Learned While Teaching Twitter