talkingDigital

One of the courses I teach at Colorado Mesa University is Media Software Application. It is literally a crash course in which students learn the very basics of the interface and techniques of Mac, Garageband, iMovie, Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator.

Of course, these are not the only applications used by students in the Mass Communication, but they are the fundamental tools that are necessary for almost any multimedia assignment.

In my continuing quest to increase efficiency in my classroom, I have begun using custom YouTube tutorials that I created with Camtasia.

My classroom technique is to use the project work days as an opportunity to do some one-on-one teaching with students who are struggling with the project. This semester, students completed the assignment in a single work day, as opposed to 2-3 work days without the video tutorials.

Here is the playlist. I expect to spend some time this summer working on similar tutorials for the other applications I teach.

English: Classroom in SIM University. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have been teaching at Colorado Mesa University for almost six years. What began as a co-adjunct position teaching a Desktop Publishing course, evolved into a full-time instructor position in which I teach five courses per semester and covering 10 total course titles. I am also the faculty adviser to the student magazine and co-adviser to the school’s chapter of The Society of Professional Journalists. I keep busy, and I love it.

My first full year as an adjunct, I began teaching a course called “Web Content Development.” The previous instructor had primarily taught basic web design, but I felt teaching communication majors about web design was a little like teaching journalists how to fix the printing press.

Instead of focusing on the nuts and bolts of HTML, file management, and FTP clients, I redesigned the course to focus on social media as a communication medium. Facebook was about three years into its proliferation into the mainstream and Tumblr was brand new.

In order to get the students to use social media, I made it mandatory for all students to join a class Facebook group. Only four students in the class were on Facebook and one was on Twitter (but never used it). One or two students claimed that they had some sort of moral/ethical objection to joining Facebook, so I gave them a pass. Less than four weeks into the class every one of the students had joined – even those who had originally objected.

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Just about everyone has a blog or two these days, so it’s become a greater challenge to get yours noticed. It can be a lot of work keeping up with a blog, it’s time you got the attention you deserve.

With these tips, you can bring new life to your blog and build a buzz around your content. Here’s five tips for how to get your blog noticed.

1. Experiment with new formats

If you fear your blog may have plateaued and you’re not getting as much growth or even traffic as you used to, try something new. Give your blog a new look or try a different platform.

If you’ve mostly just been writing posts, try doing a weekly YouTube video or starting a podcast. Putting your voice out there in different ways will help you reach a larger audience than you would with just one format published to one site.

2. Collaborate

Collaborating with other blogs or setting up partnerships is a great way to expand your audience. Both blogs can benefit by sharing readers and you’ll likely get some great new content out of it.

3. Make your social media efforts count

The rules and behavior for social media are constantly changing, which means you need to be able to change with it. You don’t want to pour all your time and energy into a blog and then share it to social media platforms where your potential readers aren’t even active.

Staying on top of trends and knowing your audience will ensure that your shared content gets seen. The people over at Klout are experts in gauging social media success, and they can give you more tips on how to get the most out of social media.

4. Make your blog easy to follow

Don’t make your readers work to keep up with you. Keep it easy for readers to stay on track with your content by adding a mailing list and links to your social media profiles on the sidebar of your site or at the bottom of each post.

5. Blog about what you love

Above all else, you should be blogging about what you love. Find a new hobby and use your blog to help you explore it. When it’s clear that you’re passionate about the subject, it’s a lot easier for readers to relate to your content and want to interact and share what you’re posting.

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