Last year, I was able to check off an item off of my professional bucket list: present and attend SxSW Edu in Austin, TX. I absolutely loved the atmosphere, discussions, and network connections from SxSW Edu last year. It was an honor to be part of a great panel with Nick Bowman (West Virginia), Nicole Kraft (Ohio State), and Carolyn Hank (Tennessee).
Why is SxSW Edu a great conference for educators in social media? There are many reasons, but what I thoroughly enjoyed was going to a central place to learn about new tools, techniques, and meet professionals in the education field leading the way towards innovative perspectives and insights to bring back into the classroom.
This year, I am very excited to be part of a panel proposal with three other great PR professors: Emily Kinsky (West Texas A&M), Carolyn Mae Kim (Biola University), and Matt Kushin (Shepherd University). Our panel focuses on the role of social media certification programs and incorporating these into our classes. You can see the panel proposal submission here.
Why should our panel be part of the upcoming SxSW Edu 2016 line-up? Here are just a few reasons I can think of:
- We are all coming in from different perspectives and universities: Most of the time, you see panels with professionals who are all coming from the same location, university, company, or even point of view. While this could help provide a universal perspective, shouldn’t we get other views as well? That’s what is great about this panel in particular – we are coming in from different universities in different states (CA, TX, KY, and WV), different teaching and research loads, and experiences in what we have learned and done in our social media classes.
- We combine all aspects of higher education (research, teaching, mentorship): We not only have used certification programs in our classes, but we have done research on them. Our research recently won top teaching paper at the AEJMC 2015 conference with William Ward (who has been a true visionary and valuable asset for our research team). We have each contributed to the Hootsuite blog about our views and sharing ideas with fellow professors about social media education as well. For example, Emily wrote about her use of live-tweeting during her classes and Matt wrote about having a specific mindset when it comes to approaching social media in the classroom. I have done a webinar on the social classroom as well for Hootsuite along with a few posts like this one on preparing digital natives for the workplace when it comes to social media education.
- We talk the talk and walk the walk in social media education: If I had to name three professors who are truly leading by example in the classroom when it comes to social media, the three names would be Emily, Matt, and Carolyn. All three professors are truly dedicated to their classes, students, and community.
Overall, I am thrilled to be part of another great group of professionals for this SxSW Edu panel submission. So, if you have a moment, I would greatly appreciate your time and vote for our panel proposal.
How do you vote for a panel? You can go to our panel proposal page on the SxSW PanelPicker website and click the thumbs up / thumbs down icon and then add your comment about the panel. Public voting counts for 30% of the decision for each panel for SxSW Edu. Voting is open to the public until September 4, 2015.
Thanks and hope you all are having a great day!
Best Wishes,
