Today I served as one of the guest panelists on #PRstudchat on the topic of social media in PR education. I'm afraid I didn't say much that Teaching PR readers haven't already heard, but it was fun anyway. The conversation was so lively that the search on Tweetdeck had a hard time keeping up.
Some thoughts: I emphasized (as usual) that educators should focus on principles rather than tools, because tools will change but principles are more lasting. By principles I mean transmedia storytelling, collaboration, entrepreneurship, etc. I also said that I think social media should be incorporated into all PR classes rather than segregated into its own course -- after all, it's incorporated into a larger PR program in practice. The trick, I think, is to help students become confident in their abilities to figure new tools out for themselves.
On the question of textbooks, I'm not opposed to using books to teach social media (I've used David Meerman Scott's New Rules and Bernhoff & Li's Groundswell with success), but told the crowd that I subscribe to Josh Hallett's approach: "learn by doing." I think some people were surprised that I wasn't opposed to textbooks out of hand--but maybe my definition of textbook is different from theirs.
Another question asked about using a backchannel such as live tweeting. Is it helpful or disruptive in the classroom? Well, I can't multitask well enough to try it. Honestly, for me it would be disruptive. I know that Mihaela Vorvoreanu had students live tweet a guest lecture (with the speaker's permission), which seems to me a good way to practice Twitter without disrupting the class, but a lot of the people in the chat seemed to think it would be helpful, and fun. (Have to say, though, it seemed to be the pros and students who were in favor of it! And Robert French was definitely opposed.)
We also talked about evaluating SM use in the classroom. In my opinion, for beginners, just grading participation (i.e., setting a number of tweets or blog posts, etc.) is enough. Upper-level students, though, need to show they can create and use SM channels for clients. In the capstone campaigns class especially, I expect students to integrate social media into their programs as relevant to the client and its publics. This includes everything from setting up the tools to using analytics.
Last, we discussed how educators can keep up with the rapidly changing digital environment. Frankly, I don't think you can effectively teach SM unless you participate in it. Other people suggested using an aggregator to read blog posts and news, joining PROpenMic, reading current books, and going to professional conferences.
All in all, it was a great discussion--this post doesn't even cover what I said, much less what everyone else contributed. Thanks again to Deirdre Breakenridge and Valerie Simon for inviting me to participate and Mikinzie Stuart for moderating. The chat, which takes place once a month, has a LinkedIn group for more information. I definitely recommend it to students and educators. [Addition: chat transcript.]
