Fun and Interactive Social Media Influencers Class Activity

Why Teach Students About Social Media Influencers

Last year I got the opportunity to present at the Accepted Student Day event at Shepherd University. This event offers students who have been accepted to the university an opportunity to visit our campus and get to know us better. As part of that, faculty give presentations on their area of expertise. Students and their parents attend the presentation that interest them.

My task was to inform the audience about some of the things we do in the communication department and give them a preview of what they can learn.  Naturally, I talked about professional communication and social media. Because the presentation needed to appeal to a wide audience, I presented on the broad steps anyone can use to build a brand on social media.

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Empowering Students to Deal With Smartphone Distraction in the Classroom: Phone Free Class Day Extra Credit

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Cell Phone Addiction Lesson Plan Review

In my last post, I talked about so-called cell phone addiction. I provided a cell phone addiction lesson plan that I did last semester in my social media class. That cell phone addiction worksheet and activity was aimed at building a discussion about some of the concerns that social commentators, health care professionals, and former employees of tech companies have raised regarding the negative side of smartphones and social media.

In this follow up post, I will share an extra credit opportunity I created to empower students to choose to not use their smartphones during class.

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Getting students to think about smartphone addiction (cell phone addiction lesson plan)

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Cell Phone Addiction

“Cell phone addiction” is a strong term that may or may not be appropriate to describe our current obsessions with our phones. But, now that I have your attention, I think it is important to bring into the classroom a discussion of the wider, perhaps unseen and perhaps deleterious, implications of cell phone culture in today’s society.

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Here’s My Communication Research Class Assignment on Analyzing Media Placement

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Why a Communication Research Class Quantitative Content Analysis Assignment?

In my opening post to the Spring 2018 semester, I reviewed several new assignments and activities I will be bringing into my classes this semester.

In this post, I will discuss the quantitative content analysis assignment that students will complete in my COMM 435 Communication Research course. The project simulates an analysis of earned media placement.

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What’s Changing? Hubspot Academy, Google Analytics, Meltwater software and more!: Spring 2018 Class Updates

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I hope that everyone had a relaxing and rejuvenation winter break.

I’m going to kick off Spring 2018 with something I like to do on this blog at the start of the semester: Offer a preview of some of the changes and updates I’m making to my classes (Here are all past “What’s Changing” blog posts). Some of the things I will share below are items that I have blogged about recently. However, most of these items are new topics that I I hope to expand upon with blog posts during the course of the semester.

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Fall 2017 Strategic Campaign Client Presentations: Reflections and Learning Opportunities

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This semester, my COMM 470 Strategic Campaigns students had the opportunity to take on an international non-profit as a client. That non-profit was Children of Uganda.  Children of Uganda seeks to give a hand up to women and children in Uganda. Among its efforts, Children of Uganda helps put Ugandan children through school and provides micro-funding for income generating projects for Ugandan women.

It was an amazing learning opportunity to partner with the passionate and dedicated team at Children of Uganda. It was very inspiring for me. And I believe it was for the students as well.

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Teaching Students to Create an Online Personal Branding Strategy: Personal Brand Exercise for Students

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Online Personal Branding

Lately, there’s been a lot of buzz about Mark W. Schaefer’s new book: Known: The handbook for building and unleashing your personal brand in the digital age. For example, Ai Addison Zang reviewed it.

[Read book reviews I’ve written about Schaefer’s other books: Return on Influence and Born to Blog]
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A Social Media Education Blog by Matthew J. Kushin, Ph.D.