I did a little bit of an experiment for my class this semester. It wasn’t a new assignment or a new project necessarily – but something I feel will become a solid addition to my future classes. I have had a lot of guest speakers come into my classes, particularly in my social media class #Freberg13 this semester. However, this one was memorable because this speaker was chosen by the students.
The guest speaker was WHAS11 Sports Anchor Adam Lefkoe, who has established himself not only an Emmy winning journalist and sportscaster in Kentucky, but became a viral sensation for his sports cast, particularly his Rapcast. If you want to see Adam’s other casts, you will want to check out his YouTube channel.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojBsb63BZns[/youtube]
Once this video went viral, all of my students were sharing this on Twitter with using the class hashtag and I thought – wow! This is super cool! I took a chance and reached out to Adam to see if he had time to possibly speak to my class. Fingers crossed, I got a tweet and email back from Adam said that he would be more than happy to come and speak to my class.
After finalizing all of the details, I let the students know Adam was going to come to class. Lots of excitement on Twitter emerged with this news. I arrived to class as usual on Wednesday and finally got to meet Adam in person. I had heard great things about him not only from the students, but other social media colleagues at UofL, so it was a pleasure meeting Adam in person.
What was the reaction from the students towards Adam’s guest talk? They not only liked it, but they raved about it. I’ve never seen any class – and I have been teaching for five years now – so excited and engaged for a guest speaker.
Students were very inspired to write about what they took away with from Adam’s guest talk. Terdara wrote about Adam shared how it is okay to respond to negative comments while Elizabeth highlighted the fact that Adam pointed out you not only need to consume information and content on social media, but create it as well. Amanda wrote about Adam discussed how it was key to have your own voice on social media. Justin’s post focused his post about Adam’s talk about what he can apply for his future in sports writing and broadcasting on social media. Sieanna also shared similar points, but also talked about what she learned from Adam during his hour with us and did wish he would have rapped for his class talk. Maybe next time! 🙂
I mentioned this to Adam after his talk – that this probably was one of my favorite guest talks as well as a professor – ever. I felt like I was able to take away a lot from his talk as well – the students who wrote blog posts did a great job in the main points from the talk, but here are some of the things I was able to take away from this experience:
- Listen to your students: Class should be interactive and professors can learn from students in class as well. I felt that by listening to the students and who they wanted to have as a guest speaker, I was able to walk away with some great points about social media, online reputation, and establishing your own voice. Special thanks to the students for this!
- Building networks outside of the university: Social media has allowed professors a tool to connect with professionals outside of the university. With a simple tweet and email, I was able to make a new connection with a great professional in the community. Adam was quite the celebrity on campus – a friend of one of the students waited outside of class to get her picture taken with Adam.
- Learn from the experts: For Adam’s talk, I felt I was not a professor – but a student as well. I enjoyed the presentation, stories, and references Adam was making in his talk and I felt I was able to walk away with some great points to share with others on this. Adam was able to engage with the students, make them laugh, and share some valuable points and tips for them to know as they enter out into the workplace and in life.
In summary, I will continue to have a list of guest speakers for my class, but I am going to have at least one spot where I will allow the students to choose who they would like to bring to the class. Only requirement will be for them to be working or using social media successfully. I strongly recommend fellow professors to do this because with this one step, my class experienced a wonderful guest talk and convinced me I need to do this every semester.
Second, special thanks to Adam for taking the time to share his insights and stories with all of us. We greatly appreciated it and as many of my students voiced on social media on the class hashtag, this was their favorite guest speaker for the class. Thanks again and it was great having you in class, Adam! 🙂
Have a wonderful day!
Best Wishes,
Karen
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