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Assignment: Personal Learning Network Project

Image Credit: The Conversation Prism by Brian Solis and JESS3

For my COMM 4633 Social Media for PR Spring 2013 class at Southeastern University

Students can choose to complete this Personal Learning Network Project or a traditional term paper.

This project is designed to provide you with an opportunity to tailor an assignment to your own learning needs and course-related interests. For this assignment, you will identify an area of social media/PR you want to learn more about, outline a plan of study, and decide on appropriate learning deliverables to demonstrate your mastery of the material. You will then submit this plan to me for approval. Once your study plan has been approved, you will create a personal learning network to guide you in your learning. You may utilize any content you wish including books, web pages, video tutorials, library resources, open educational material, etc. to help you complete your deliverables by the deadline specified in your learning plan. In other words, you will be able to learn the material in the manner, and with the resources of your own choice.

My goal for this assignment is to prepare you for today’s highly competitive and rapidly changing workplace by allowing you to develop experience in directing your own learning. Today, knowledge has a very short shelf life, which means that one of the most important skills you can learn while in college is to become an independent learner. It is my hope that you take this project as an opportunity to help you enhance those skills. It should therefore go without saying that you shouldn’t pick a topic/area you already master for this assignment. Although it would be a way to an easy project and grade, you would simply be cheating yourself and your education.

Though you are welcome (even encouraged) to post any portion of your Personal Learning Project on your own blog, to earn credit for each part, please use MyFire to submit your work.

PART 1 – THE LEARNING PLAN  (50 POINTS OF FINAL GRADE)

DUE: End of Week 3, in MyFire

For this part of the assignment, you will identify an area of social media/PR you want to learn more about, outline a plan of study, and decide on appropriate learning deliverables to demonstrate your mastery of the material. Please use this template when designing your learning plan. You’ll be evaluated based on the thoroughness of your plan. To help you get started, I’ve listed a few examples of possible project ideas below.

  • Researching social media applications for nonprofits and designing a social media training session (the deliverable) for a local nonprofit interested in learning how to engage its stakeholders via social media. This would more than likely be a group project.
  • Researching how journalism has changed with the advent of social media, and offering suggestions / a workshop to the campus newspaper for how to benefit from social media.
  • Researching QR (quick response) applications for small businesses, offering your services to a local business and designing a concept for QR campaign tailored to their needs.

PART 2 – THE PERSONAL LEARNING NETWORK  (75 POINTS  OF FINAL GRADE)

DUE: End of Week 5, in MyFire

Your personal learning network (PLN) needs to include a Twitter, blog and social bookmarking component. We will discuss how to create a PLN in much more detail in class. You also need to identify blogs, web sites, and social bookmarks that are relevant to your project and subscribe to them. You may even want to subscribe to a Google Alert on your topic (optional). At the end of Week 6, you will need submit in a UPDATED description of your personal learning network along with your deliverables. You’ll be evaluated based on the depth and breadth of the personal learning network you built. In order to hand this in, create a list of people you follow on various platforms, along with a one- or two-sentence description of why you chose them:

  • Twitter: list the people in your Twitter PLN with their Twitter UserId. Only list people that pertain to your project (i.e. don’t list your buddies here)
  • Blogs: list the bloggers you followed for this project. Identify them by a) name, b) blog URL, and c) blog name.
  • Social bookmarking sites: list the people you follow on Delicious, Diigo, Pinterest or any other social bookmarking site. Again, only list people you followed for this particular project. List them with their social bookmarking URL.
  • Any other social media sites/platforms

PART 3 –PROJECT DELIVERABLES  (125 POINTS  OF FINAL GRADE)

DUE: End of Week 6, in MyFire

Your project deliverables are identified in your personal learning plan and approved in consultation with me. Remember to include an UPDATED version of your PLN that you submitted in Part 2; identify which people you have added to your network. If all of your deliverables are in digital form, simply submit (in MyFire) the URL(s) to those deliverables. Be sure to indicate what each URL refers to. You’ll be evaluated based on the quality of your final product.

 (NOTE: Many thanks to Dr. Corinne Weisgerber for permitting me to use, with very slight adaptation, the Personal Learning Project from her Spring 2012 Social Media for PR class at another SEU: St. Edwards University.)

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28 Study Tips for Acing Your Final Exams

Image Credit: “Despair” by Juliana Coutinho

Final exams are approaching on college campuses around the world. Finals can be stressful, even for the most prepared students. Here are some tips to help you succeed:

Preparing for the Final

  1. Find out what your entire final exam schedule is so that you’ll know how many finals you will have on each day.
  2. Prepare a written schedule for yourself indicating when you will study for each test. Leave some time in your schedule for exercise and relaxation, too.
  3. If the professor offers a study guide, use it.
  4. If the professor offers a review session for the exam, go to it.
  5. If you study well in groups, form a study group.
  6. Know if the final is comprehensive (covering everything since the beginning of the semester or quarter).
  7. Find out what kind of exam it will be. You’d study differently for a multiple-choice (Scantron) final than an essay (blue book) one.
  8. If the final will be taken online, find out if you have to go to a specific computer lab on campus at a specific time, or if you’ll be allowed to take the final on your own computer. Also find out how many chances you will have to take the final. Assume it’s just one chance unless you hear differently from the professor.
  9. If you have your previous exams available, scour the exams for things that you think will be on the final.
  10. Flag your notes by highlighting or using Post-It notes.
  11. Don’t pull an all-nighter. (Though some people are successful with studying all night and then taking a test with no sleep, I wouldn’t recommend you try it for the first time on a final exam.)
  12. Calculate your grades in the class. Determine what score you will need to get the grade you’re hoping for in the class. You may discover that you can’t possibly get an A, no matter how well you do on the final, but to get a B, you only need to get a few questions right.
  13. If you’re an auditory learner, record yourself reading your notes aloud, then play the recording back several times.
  14. If the exam is an open-book exam, this does not mean that you don’t have to study at all. In fact, one of the most challenging exams I ever took as an undergrad was an open-book essay exam. Flag your textbook based on where you believe the questions will come from.
  15. Consider using one of the available smartphone apps to help you prepare for your final.
  16. Create a detailed Final Exam Battle Plan.

On the Day of the Final

  1. Feed your brain. Eat a meal and drink at least two bottles of water.
  2. Don’t overdo it with the caffeine. You want to be alert but not jittery. If you’ve never tried an energy drink before, the day of an important final is not a good first time.
  3. Are food and drinks allowed in the classroom where your final will be? Sometimes, the rules are different for exam days than other days. If you can have food with you, choose things that will not disrupt other students.
  4. Know what to bring with you to the final. Do you need a blue book? A Scantron? (And if you need a Scantron, which specific type do you need?) A pencil? A pen? When in doubt, overpack.
  5. Even if you don’t usually wear a watch, take one with you to the final. It’s unlikely you will be able to look at your cell phone to check the time during the final.

During the Final

  1. For a paper-based exam, read through the entire final exam before you start answering any questions at all. This way, you will know what you’re facing.
  2. If the final is an online exam, find out if you can revisit questions, or if after you click past a question you cannot go back to it again.
  3. If you’re using a Scantron and you skip a question to finish later, make sure you’re answering your questions next to the correct answers. (When I took my GRE to get into grad school, I skipped a question on the first page of the booklet, but never skipped a number on the Scantron. When I realized it, I only had 10 minutes to go back and put the answers with the correct questions. Talk about stress!)
  4. Keep a close eye on the time you have allotted.
  5. Some students benefit from answering the most difficult questions first, while others do better completing all the easier ones. Do what works for you.

After the Final

  1. Do not share with other students what was on the final exam. In most universities, this is a violation of the honor code.
  2. Take a breath, relax, then forge ahead to the next final.

Now it’s your turn: What final exam tips do you have to share? Please let us know through your comments below.

barbara_is_listening

 

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Informational Interview with a Corporate PR Pro :: COMM 4363

For this assignment in COMM 4363, you will choose and interview a corporate public relations professional — as opposed to someone who works for an agency, and then write about this interview.

In the Week 4 section in MyFire, submit a Word file with your 500-word (minimum) recap of the interview. In addition to the recap, you’ll need to provide me with the PR professional’s contact information (name, title & company, phone number and e-mail address).

Due Date: See our course in MyFire

Though a face-to-face interview is preferred, a phone or webcam interview is acceptable. An interview that is e-mail or text-based only is not acceptable.

Schedule your interview at least a week before this assignment is due, preferably two. PR professionals sometimes have unpredictable schedules, and it’s possible that you may need to reschedule.

Include an introductory paragraph that introduces the PR professional, including title and company, educational background, etc. Mention your connection to the professional (how you found him/her) and how you conducted the interview (face-to-face, phone or webcam).

Questions/Topics you need to include:

  • What’s a typical week like? (If no week is typical, then what was last week like?)
  • Tell me about a project you worked on that you are especially proud of.
  • What do you do to keep current in the PR industry?
  • What do you wish you would have known before starting your career in PR?
  • How important is writing in your career?
  • If you’ve ever worked for an agency, how is agency life different from corporate PR life?
  • What three tips would you offer someone just starting out in PR?
  • After interviewing this person, are you (the student, not the practitioner) more or less likely to want to have a career in PR? Why?

Some questions you may wish to ask:

  • Did your education prepare you for working in PR? How?
  • What has surprised you the most about working in PR?
  • How has PR changed since you entered the field?
  • How does technology affect your daily work?
  • When your company is hiring for an entry-level PR position, what makes a candidate stand out?
  • What professional organizations are you involved in? (For example, PRSA, IABC, etc.)
  • Ask for feedback on your resume
  • More informational interview questions

Some things you may wish to do:

  • Include a photo of your interviewee. (This can be a photo he or she provides or one that you take yourself.)
  • Link to your interviewee’s LinkedIn profile and/or blog.
  • Conduct the interview using Skype and two webcams. Record the interview with Vodburner, and post the interview at your blog.

Questions?

barbara_is_listening

[NOTE: This must be an informational interview that you conduct this semester. Do not “recycle” an interview that you conducted during a previous semester.]

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Final Project Options for Corporate PR

mammoths
Image Credit: paul (dex) bica via Compfight

For your final project in COMM 4363, you will analyze a Fortune 500 or Inc. 500 company from a public relations perspective. Your project is due on the last day of class, with progress reports due during the semester.

This project is worth a total of 350 points of the 1000 available; a rubric will be available in MyFire by the second week of the semester.

You will have the option of creating the written portion of the project as a traditional term paper or as a series of blog posts. Let your professor know your decision no later than Week Two.

If you choose to do this project as a traditional term paper:

  • Use APA style for formatting and source citations
  • Include a title page and table of contents
  • Submit your paper in MyFire.
  • NOTE: Another option is to write a traditional term paper of at least 10 pages, on any topic discussed in our textbook Reputation Management. I will write a separate blog post with more details on this option, if any of my students choose to write a traditional term paper.

If you choose to do this project as a series of blog posts:

  • Create one page (not post, but page) on your blog with hyperlinks to all the posts; list the posts on your page in the order below. Submit the URL of your page  in MyFire.
  • Cite your sources within the posts, and also provide hyperlinks to the each original source if the source is available online.

Required elements:

  • An overview of the company and what it does
  • A timeline of the company, using an interactive timeline creator such as Dipity, Timetoast or Timeline JS. The timeline needs to include at least ten milestones, with dates, images, descriptions, etc.
  • Based on Grunig & Hunt’s models of PR, which model is the company using? Provide examples.
  • Describe the publics, including customers, of the company (or one of its subsidiaries)
  • Top challenges facing the company (including the current financial market)
  • For at least one news release, compare how the news release appears in the company’s online newsroom to how the story appeared when it was published in the media
  • An analysis of how the company uses and benefits from (or could benefit from) social media. Provide links to all major social media accounts for the company, if available.
  • An overview and critique of the company’s online newsroom
  • Career opportunities in PR, corporate communication, marketing, etc., within the company
  • Based on your research of this company, are you now MORE or LESS likely to want to work for the company? Why? Provide at least two paragraphs of a rationale for your decision.

Also, choose two from the following if you are working alone on the project:

  • One crisis the company has faced and how it dealt with it
  • Describe how the company is involved in its communities
  • Awards and honors the company has garnered in the past 10 years & how the company is using the awards/honors for promotion
  • Interview (phone or e-mail) a public relations professional within the company
  • Create your resume and cover letter as though you are applying for an entry-level PR position within the company
  • Another section of your choice, as long as you clear it with your professor by Week Four

Important Dates

  • Week 2: Choose a company.
  • Week 3: Let me know your decision of whether you’ll do a traditional term paper or a series of blog posts.
  • Week 4: Last date to pitch an idea for a section in your paper to me (if there’s something you would like to write about your company that is not on the list above)
  • Week 8: Final project due
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Arrive, Survive and Thrive in Prof. Nixon’s Classes, Fall 2012 Edition

Image Credit: “Pink Water Lily” by Barbara Nixon

An Open Note to All of Prof. Nixon’s Students:

Welcome back to our Communication Department at Southeastern University; I hope your summer break was a blessed one. I spent a lot of much-needed time with family, along with moving from Florida to Arkansas.

To get ready for your Fall 2012 classes, please read the following.

Materials for COMM 4363 (online course, Term A)

Materials for COMM 3333 (online course, Term B)

Getting Inside My Head

So that we can make the most of this semester, please (Please, PLEASE) take some time to read through the blog posts I’ve included here. I promise you, it will be well worth your time. (How often do professors let you get inside their heads, letting you know their tips for success and their pet peeves?)

Additionally, here are a few more tips:

  • When communicating with me via e-mail (or Facebook), always put your course number (such as COMM 4363) in the subject line to help me immediately identify who you are and frame your questions or comments. Do your best to write in full sentences, paying attention to standard English grammar and spelling. Always sign your e-mails with your first and last name, as your e-mail address will not make that readily apparent to me.
  • When submitting an assignment in MyFire, always put your last name as part of the file name, and also include your name in the document itself. Papers submitted without your last name as part of the file name cannot earn full credit.
  • If an assignment is due in MyFire, the only way to get full credit for the assignment is to submit it in MyFire. (E-mailing an assignment to me can be risky; I receive 250+ e-mails a day, and there’s a chance I will not even see it in my inbox.)
  • Follow me on Twitter, if you really want to get inside my head.

Let’s make this a great semester together!

(PS: If you’re one of my Fall 2012 students reading this post, please leave a reply to this post so that I can know you have read it. If your reply doesn’t show up immediately, no worries — I may need to approve it before it appears, if you’ve never commented on my blog before.)

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5 Painless Tactics for Keeping Current in Public Relations and Social Media

give me five!
Photo Credit: Martin Fisch via Compfight

At the Public Relations Council of Alabama’s PR:Recharge Conference this month, I was asked to share Fully Charged Social Media Strategies with a great group of public relations practitioners, professors and students. One thing we discussed was how to keep current in our ever-changing world of PR.  Here’s a quick guide to five of my painless tactics.

One: Read PR blogs.

There are hundreds of blogs about public relations. I’ve bookmarked many of them in Diigo for you. You can subscribe to them using your favorite RSS reader (such as Google Reader), or just read them on the web. Some of the most helpful blogs I’ve discovered include Gini Dietrich’s Spin Sucks and Shonali Burke’s Waxing Unlyrical.

Two: Subscribe to daily or weekly PR e-mailed newsletters.

My favorite PR newsletter is from Ragan Communications: the PR Daily newsfeed. When I want to read the latest on PR, this is the newsletter I turn to first. And since it comes directly to my inbox each morning, it’s easy to quickly skim the day’s hot topics.

Three: Listen to PR podcasts.

Some of my favorite podcasts are: For Immediate Release, Inside PR, PRStudCast, Trafcom News, Marketing Over Coffee and Coming Up PR. My favorite time to listen to podcasts is during my (almost) daily two-mile walks in this sweltering Florida heat. I also listen to them when I drive, work out and clean the house. Some people prefer to listen to podcasts on their computers; my preference is listening to them on my Motorola Photon or iPod.

Here’s a short video on how to subscribe to and download podcasts using iTunes. If you’re not an iTunes person, you may want to visit Podcast Alley, where you can find thousands more podcasts. You can listen to the podcasts directly from the website.

Four: Follow PR practitioners on Twitter.

Are you a public relations student (or recent grad) just getting started using Twitter?  Or are you a seasoned PR practitioner looking for some fine folks to learn from? Try following some (or all) of these people or organizations in my Twitter Starter Pack for PR Students. They all have something in common: they tweet useful or interesting information for people involved in public relations.

Five: Watch the news on TV.

Yes, I said “watch the news on TV.” I mean on a real TV, with a complete newscast, not just bits and bobs that you catch online. I start off every day a steaming mug or three of chicory coffee and at least an hour of broadcast news, usually with 30 or so minutes of local news followed by the  Today Show. By knowing what’s going on in the world, it helps frame the snippets of stories I read or hear online throughout the day. To be sure that I’m keeping up on the news, I also listen to the podcast version of  NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me weekly news quiz. (I sometimes even play the Lightning Round of Wait Wait in class to see how much my students know about what’s going on in the world.)

Your suggestions?

What additional resources would you recommend?

(NOTE: This post is an updated version of one I wrote in last summer.)

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Social Media News Release Assignment

Daily News Walkby
Photo Credit: John Fraissinet via Compfight

For your final assignment in Writing for Public Relations, you have a choice between two projects. You can either prepare a Social Media News Release OR write a detailed blog post about Social Media News Releases.

This assignment is due in BlackBoard on April 29, 2012.

Option #1: Prepare a Social Media News Release

  • Using either PitchEngine, PRXbuilder or your WordPress blog create a Social Media News Release for your client.
  • Feel free to adapt a news release or personality profile that you have already written this semester to this new format.
  • See pages 136-139  in Public Relations Writing and Media Techniques on creating your SMNR (NOTE: Your book calls them Smart Media Releases or Multimedia Releases.)
  • Include one news release of at least 250 words, along with
    • at least one photo that you took to accompany the story
    • at least two relevant quotations
    • at least two relevant hyperlinks
    • boilerplate information about your client
    • tags that help describe your release & client
  • If any of the information you are using in the release is not factual, you’ll need to make this very clear with a disclaimer.
  • In BlackBoard, submit the URL to your SMNR.

Option #2: Write a Blog Post about Social Media News Releases

  • Blog post should be 500-1000 words. (NOTE: This will be in much more depth than other blog posts you’ve written.)
  • Include the following in the blog post
    • What is a Social Media News Release?
    • What are the advantages & disadvantages of a SMNR?
    • When should a PR practitioner consider using a SMNR?
    • Offer links to at least two websites that will help one create a SMNR
    • Provide links to SMNRs that at least five different organizations have created
    • Provide 5-10 tips for SMNR creation
  • There should be at least ten hyperlinks in your blog post. ALWAYS link to sites where you get your information; not doing so is plagiarism.
  • In BlackBoard, submit the URL to your blog post about the SMNR.
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7 Things Small Businesses Need to Know About Social Media NOW

This afternoon, I have the opportunity to speak to a group of Lakeland area small business owners. Below are the slides I will be using.

7 Things Small Businesses Need to Know About Social Media NOW

And here’s a link to the social bookmarks for the sites and tools I will discuss in the presentation.

Questions about social media?