prclass – a social media learning experience

Back in 1996 when Fanshawe College’s Corporate Communication and Public Relations program started, the Internet was just taking off with the public. It was an exciting time for communicators and individuals who pay attention to media trends. As the program coordinator, I wanted the curriculum to teach students traditional and foundational PR knowledge, but also how the Internet works and how to publish to the Internet.

Ten years have passed and new waves of media influence have surfaced including blogs, podcasts, wikkis. In 2005 I was aware a few of the students and Otte Rosenkrantz, one of our faculty, were blogging. Chris Clarke, one of our graduates from 2006, jumped into social media and it helped him in his career search. He knows his stuff. Chris felt strongly that our program should have social media as part of the curriculum.

I agreed.

It’s October 2006 – time for me to learn about social media experientially – and students in our program will be doing the same. It seems a few students in this year’s class have already been blogging, but most have not. 

So, this blog is a class experiment. The 49 students will soon be individually posting to this site.  Their topics range from PR trends to new technologies to sweeping societal patterns. In each case they are trying to figure out how their topic relates to public relations. They have been charged with providing comments on an assigned topic and a few useful links for readers. There is also an expectation that dialogue will ensue between members of the class based on the postings. It would be wonderful for us to have conversations with people outside the class as well (you!). 

We have much to learn from the people who have been participating in social media for a few years. You’ll note that I do not yet know how to link to other sites. I’ll learn

A goal of the prclass blog is for all of us to post with ‘class’.

My hope is that the students and I will learn about social media by participating in it together.

Dana Morningstar, M.Ed.

Program Coordinator, Corporate Communication and Public Relations,

Fanshawe College, London, Ontario, Canada