Developing Podcasts To Assist Students With The Production Of A Professional Online Presence

HEA Changing The Learning Landscape

My Background

Dr. Thomas Lancaster Senior Lecturer in Computing at Birmingham City University

Leader of Innovations in Computing Education Group

Programme Leader Computer Science

Teach students about Professional Online Presences and employability

Have organised and presented several HEA workshops and published research on the subject

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Current employers are very interested in the wide range of sites that students use to present themselves online

Their “professional online presence”

This can include both directed sites (such as a personal website or a LinkedIn profile) and unorganised sites (such as Facebook)

Students need to be encouraged to present a positive view and portfolio about themselves online

Many academics are not ready to provide this, which is something that I hope to help with as part of this funded project

My View

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The HEA have funded this project to develop a series of eight podcasts to train students on issues related to Professional Online Presences

The podcasts are to be based on eight existing sets of slides (Open Educational Resources) which I have prepared, so this is largely repurposing

The Funding

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8 Sessions Of Material Available From The HEA:

1. Overview (The Internet and its role in employability)

2. Preparation (Claiming identities and preparing profiles)

3. LinkedIn (Using LinkedIn for marketing)

4. Facebook (Preparing Facebook accounts for public consumption)

5. Video (Using YouTube for self-promotion)

6. Web Sites (How to produce a personal web site)

7. Promotion (Making full use of the social media opportunities)

8. Advanced (Monitoring sites and demonstrating expertise)

Existing Resources Available

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Example – Session One

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http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/events/detail/2012/08_Jun_HEA_STEM_Employability_BCU

Resources Available At…

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The personal challenge (and benefit) is a lack of experience creating podcasts

I intend to explore a balance between best practices, achievability and the typical academic “lack of budget”

Repurposing existing resources is useful, but they may not be presented in the best way for podcast use (and some updates will be needed)

A particular challenge with this material will be working out how to change a visual format into an audible one

The Challenge

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A blog has been prepared to track developments and progress at:

http://professionalonlinepresence.com/changingthelearninglandscape

The hope is that the main site will eventually archive materials and information related to the wider Professional Online Presences area

My own details and my Professional Online Presence can be found at:

http://thomaslancaster.co.uk

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