Not everyone under 30 is glued to the tv, afterall!

I love this story! I have been getting calls for over a year from a persistent young representative for Meltwater, which offers media distribution and monitoring services online. This rep, Lawrence Gann, effectively outsold my current vendor, and we moved our services to his firm last week. So, the young Lawrence comes to CBU to train me and my ITS colleague on the use of the service and its features, and as we are chatting over lunch following the training he mentions he attended the American Idol finale party at Fox.

Lawrence had not watched ANY American Idol segments this season, and as he was sitting with executives from FOX, Chris Allen walks over and Lawrence starts chatting with him. Lawrence introduces himself first, being the friendly, confident sort. Upon introducing himself, Lawrence hears laughter from behind him as he says something to the effect of "I'm Lawrence Gann...and you are...?"

The Fox guys let Lawrence know that he is shaking hands with this year's AI winner. Chris Allen laughs, too, and says, "I guess you didn't watch the show?" Lawrence admits that he hadn't, he just came to the party at the invitation of his Fox pals.

Lawrence then had his photo made with Chris, which he sent me a copy of and I am posting here.

This kid (Lawrence) is going places!

CBU College of Professional Studies students are its biggest fans, greatest success stories

Photo taken walking by Ground Zero today

I took this photo from 1 World Financial Center, while walking through an indoor breezeway to dinner at THe Grill Room, which overlooks the Hudson River at Liberty Street. The World Trade Center site, former home of the Twin Towers, is a gaping hole surrounded by the trappings of construction, but at dusk as we passed by, I didn't see any signs of work going on.

We break at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow, and I will begin to explore the neighborhood...our hotel is literally a stone's throw from Ground Zero, and I can see the Statue of Liberty from my hotel room window. Ambition to hop on the subway, too, and check out select targets as far north as 23rd Street, but staying on the southern end of the island this trip. Kids may be disappointment, because a trip to take a photo of the American Museum of Natural History would require further explore up to Central Park West, and I'm not inclined to try to cover so much ground in so little time.

PRSA Leadership Rally rocks...very organized, PRSA staff is great, and learning lots from fellow chapter officers.

Interpersonal Communication » flash card maker

Mother's Day, 2009

I am so blessed! Katie's friends Savannah and Alex spent the night, and we made a fabulous "girl's dinner," with everyone in the kitchen and setting the table beautifully, dressing up, candles, the whole deal. They are such amazing young ladies, even at 11 years old. Just a delight.

This morning, Alex, who is a skilled pancake "designer" (!) made a heart-shaped pancake stack for me, and Katie made the scrambled eggs, and they brought the breakfast to me in bed. I'm attaching a photo.

In addition, this really blew me away - Alex's mom, whom I've only met once, brought over a beautiful floral bouquet of long-stemmed Irises or Lilies, I'm not sure which flower family. Photo uploaded as well.

New student video below...or click on Vimeo post at right for full-screen version!

CBU intramurals can be fun, and frustrating, as depicted in this video report produced by a team of Journalism students at a soccer match in mid-April, 2009, at California Baptist University in Riverside, CA. As often happens on the Front Lawn during extra-curricular athletic events at CBU, it was a sunny and BLUSTERY day.

Student vlog assignment

Here are links to the 90-second "broadcast" news segments that students in the JRN220 "Podcast/broadcast" basics course at California Baptist University were assigned in mid-April, 2009:


Monica, Rochelle, Kelly...present
http://www.chicanaconfessions.blogspot.com/

Flutter: the next big thing

Okay, this is funny.

"This internet thing..." by Dr. M. Wesch

You gotta watch this one, too...Michael Wesch (not to be confused with Michael Welsch who plays "Mike" in the Twilight movie) presents more than 40 minutes of video that his students at Kansas State University compiled from YouTube to illustrate the anthropological aspects of YouTube for a presentation the professor made at the Library of Congress in 2008.

Fantastic!

By Dr. Michael Wesch, Digital Ethnography at Kansas State University

This video by a professor of cultural anthropology at KSU explores the changes in the way we find, store, create, critique, and share information. This video, Dr. Wesch says on his YouTube Channel, was created as a conversation starter, and works especially well when brainstorming with people about the near future and the skills needed in order to harness, evaluate, and create information effectively.

Does Jon Stewart protesteth too much?

Story by The New York Times News Service
Courtesy of Riverside Press-Enterprise

PR Works - Episode 1

PR Works - Episode 1

Posted using ShareThis

Lee Weinstein of Portland, OR, chats with Dave Mingey, Director of Olympic Marketing for Johnson & Johnson. Topics include: the upcoming Winter Games in Vancouver, the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing and other Public Relations topics.

Not teacher, but learner "guide"

Social constructivist scholars view learning as an active process where learners essentially take responsibility for their own learning. The role of the facilitator in the social constructivist viewpoint is that the instructor and the learners are equally involved in learning from each other as well (Holt and Willard-Holt 2000).

The "introduction to podcasting" course that I've been responsible for guiding as an adjunct professor at California Baptist University this semester is a prime example of an active learning process. Students have learned largely by "doing." The assignments have been built so that my primary role has been as facilitator, or guide, helping students get to their own levels of understanding. The classes have been geared to create an environment for hands-on learning, with an emphasis on individual responsibility for setting assignment goals, production schedules and quality.

I have encouraged students to collaborate, both in and out of class. For the most part, students seem to be enjoying taking part in activities which are directly relevant to the application of their learning--when it's fun to do, and it's something of a social exchange or opportunity, it can help the learning process.

On the other hand, since this is an introductory course and not all of the students have a foundation in journalistic writing or practices, the course might benefit from more guided instruction. With little or no prior knowledge of the subject matter, the students have necessarily had to practice new skills with feedback several times up to this point in the course, now about mid-way. For those who have the J background, the tasks may seem repetitive and pedantic. For those without the orientation, the practice may only just now be creating the requisite comfort level to move to the next level.

In any event, I have been trying to actively assess their individual progress up to this point in the semester, taking each student's learning approach and motivation into account and allowing for generous flexibility in scoring.

One particularly gratifying outcome of the class so far for me: several students are leaving their own imprint in the learning process. I encourage and support their boldness, and willingness to fully participate in this didactic trial.