NITOP is a great conference with fellow professors in psychology who meet each year to share ideas for the classroom, particularly in the Introduction to Psychology courses.  From how to embed videos into PowerPoints to how to incorporate social media into the classroom (which my Mom gave this fabulous presentation! :D), there are so many presentations to choose from.  What I also find interesting is the fact that these are the same issues and topics of conversations we have at our conferences in PR and Communications.

As I mentioned earlier, my Mom gave a presentation on how to use social media in Introduction to Psychology courses – which was very well attended by the conference.  Mom provided a great overview of what social media exactly was and highlighted specific examples of some assignments professors can use for each of these social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Quora, and even augmented reality and mobile applications.  I was very proud of Mom for her great presentation!

Mom (aka Dr. Freberg the original) presenting on social media at NITOP 2012

This conference was also the first event where Dr. John Cacioppo and my Mom had a view of their chapter sample copies of their new Intro Psych textbook – big congratulations to both John and my Mom!

John Cacioppo and my Mom with their new Intro to Psychology Textbook - launch date to be in March 2012!

It has been a great couple of days at the conference – the energy is very positive and everyone is coming together to share ideas and perspectives in all of the lines of teaching.  Doug Bernstein and his team have really produced a great conference and event – we really felt welcomed and part of a wonderful academic community. What has been really fun for me as a PR professional is to see these same similarities appear in PR – and I am hopeful that one day we can have a conference where we can all get together and talk about these same issues and topics within the area of scientific research and teaching practices.  If you would like to follow the conversations from the conference, just follow the #NITOP12 hashtag on Twitter.

Hope you all are having a great day!

Best Wishes,

Karen