Using Twitter for Discussion and Feedback during the Social Media Starter Course
Posted on 01. Apr, 2009 by Chi-chi Ekweozor in Events, Social Media Strategies
Yesterday morning saw an incredibly well attended Social Media Starter Course, the second ever and fully booked!
Attendees included staff from Salford, Manchester Metropolitan and Manchester universities looking to engage with the local community using social media, the marketing team from online travel and leisure company, iKnow, a community worker from Trafford Metropolitan Borough and a PR/journalist.
It was a pretty mixed group with varying levels of social media experience and knowledge.
The interactive format of the course meant folk could benefit from a wide range of opinions and comments during the practical session at the end.
Feedback has been good but I do think I must improve on the number of homemade cookies ordered, we ran out far too quickly!
I introduced a bit of Twitter feedback this time, asking a couple of questions on Twitter whilst the course progressed.
It provided a neat way of illustrating the use of Twitter hashtags. I used #smsc for this purpose and it seems to have caught on quite well. Forgot to check if it was being used for something else though and it was! Oh well…
Here’s the first Twitter question:
Question from the attendees at the Social Media Starter Course: how prepared are you for a future dominated by social media? #smsc
The answers came in thick and fast. Tim Difford, Business Solutions Director at IT services provider Steria replied with this:
@realfreshtv I don’t think we’ll notice… It’ll just become BAU. how prepared were they for a world dominated by mobile phones?
A quick Googling of ‘BAU’ revealed it to be ‘Business As Usual’.
Fair point and one that we touched on as the discussion progressed.
@realfreshtv Not ready for future “dominated by” social media as I fear anything dominating/controlling info.sharing +/or social networking
Which I found pretty interesting as someone at the course actually voiced concerns about how social media seemed to be adopted most enthusiastically by advertisers. The pace of change concerned many.
The second Twitter question was spurred by a comment by a ‘sceptic academic’ querying whether Christian Payne (aka @documentally) was real due to his incredibly active social media presence.
@documentally Are you real? How do we know *you* are really meeting the president of the World Bank? Question from someone at #smsc
Christian is possibly the most connected social media enthusiast I know, with all his Qik videoing, Twittering and blogging.
To which he duly replied:
@realfreshtv I am not there.. They wouldn’t let me in.. too much of a threat to world stability..
And then he followed this up with:
@realfreshtv you really had a discussion as to whether I exist?
His final words:
@realfreshtv Academics should read less and do more..
#smsc
So true.
Though modelled rather imprecisely, I think some of that exchange with Tim, Shin and Christian on Twitter during yesterday’s course is a glimpse into how social media can be used in education.
To all those decrying Birmingham University’s new MA in Social Media, I say, let’s see where these new ‘taught’ social media degrees take us.
After all, they promise to “contribute new research and knowledge to the field.”
I for one look forward to watching the new students on the MA in Social Media “engage with professional practitioners, interacting and disseminating ideas through websites, blogs, Twitter and other social media as well as at networking events.”
At least that’s what the course description declares.
I’m particularly interested in hearing how their course compares to Salford University’s Social Media MA which stirred much debate here when it received approval a few weeks ago.
Anyway, back to the Social Media Starter Course.
I remembered to prepare some feedback forms this time so brace yourself for some of the feedback I received on how to improve the Social Media Starter Course:
“Hand outs with information on (just so I wouldn’t have to rely on my handwriting).”
“Try to assess delegates experience of social media either before hand or at start of the course.”
“One to one applied directly to my business, perhaps a max of 5 in a group.”
“Follow up exercises online.”
Fantastic points and I’ll be taking all those on board.
Based on the unanimous feedback from yesterday’s course, I’ll be going ahead with putting together a follow up course to the Social Media Starter Course called Learning Social Media by Doing. Sign up here if you’d like to attend. First 3 people to book before 10th April save 50% off the course price.
A lot more hands on course than the Social Media Starter Course, it is designed to provide social media newbies with a structured environment to practice some of the skills they learnt from the Starter Course.
I’ll be posting more details about it soon. Suffice to say it’s a ‘Bring Your Own Laptop’ event. Course pre-requisites: familiarity with the basics of Social Media. A willingness to try out some social media live…
Stay tuned!
If you attended yesterday’s course and have any questions, comments or queries, leave a comment below!
Likewise, if you didn’t but want to know more.
Finally, dear reader, what should a more practical follow up course on starting social media include, in your opinion?
I’d love to know what you think.
Fire away in the comments.
Photo credit: Shareski on Flickr
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