For professors and future scholars, we are always trying to look for new ways to bring in the best resources and guest speakers in our classes on public relations, research, and experts in the social science field. With the new advancements in technology, we have been able to bring in guest speakers to come speak to our classes via the Internet, particularly Skype. Students are able to see and interact with these guest speakers and ask them questions and about their field, research, and contribution to the body of knowledge. I had asked the students before the class to write down questions that they would like to ask the guest speaker to send me and it really created a great learning experience for everyone – the students were able to focus on the guest speaker and listen to their presentation.
I had the opportunity to have Dr. John Cacioppo come and speak to my PR Cases class last month to discuss the ELM and its impact on Public Relations. Not only did Dr. Cacioppo speak to our class about his work on the ELM, but he really provided some great insights about where social media research is going and how the ELM can be applied to it, as well as his current work on Loneliness and Social Neuroscience. It was such a wonderful experience for my students and I, and without the new technology of having Skype, we are able to do that. I believe that we are going to see more of this in our classes, and I do believe that we are seeing a transition of classes moving more towards the online format as well as using these new services to bring in the experts and iconic researchers into the classroom to educate the future professionals and researchers in our discipline. It is our role as professors and professionals to bring the best resources and individuals into the classroom and be innovative in incorporating new technologies in the process to enhance the overall learning experience for our students. 🙂
So, if you would be interested in hearing the podcast from Dr. Cacioppo’s guest lecture for my class, here is the link to the WMA file with Dr. Cacioppo. By the way – if you have a PC, you will be able to open this document find, but if you have a Mac, you will have to open this document in Safari instead of Firefox (for some reason, Firefox does not open it currently.) I think that you will enjoy the guest lecture as much as my students and I did – thank you again Dr. Cacioppo for speaking to our class! 🙂
I hope that you all are having a great day. 🙂
Best Wishes,
Karen
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