I subscribe to a lot of ezines, blogs and forums. I do this to keep informed about developments within my industry (public relations, journalism and professional communication).
I subscribe to an enewsletter by Tony Jacques about crisis communication. Called “Managing Outcomes” the newsletter is emailed to subscribers and generally features a case study based on current events.
I subscribe to a lot of forums and groups on LinkedIn. I have experimented with a number of forums and providers. I have settled on LinkedIn because of its professional focus. There is also the added benefit of linking directly to my electronic resume. If I comment, people can see who I am to be making such comments. Likewise, I can view everyone else’s profile too. I mainly subscribe to the public relations and professional communication groups. The other advantage of LinkedIn is that you have to be accepted into a group. This means that you will know other group members (at least by industry). For example, the Public Relations Institute of Australia group only accepts current paying members of the PRIA.
I subscribe to many, many Twitter accounts – mostly relating to public relations and journalism. Some are linked to blogs like @jayrosen while others are linked to hashtags like #commschat. Most are reputable news sites and emergency services, like the Queensland Police Service, Breaking News and ABC. I love being able to follow events from start to finish and knowing immediately. It can become compelling however, and distracting, so I use Tweet Deck to order some of my subscriptions and avoid becoming overwhelmed.
I have several RSS feeds that let me know when blogs I am following have a new post added. Much easier than checking the blogs individually each day!
ProfComm@CQUni also has a Facebook site, a You Tube Channel and a Twitter account. We use this to reach our student groups – informally, rather than in any targetted pedagogical way (except for You Tube which hosts all of our online lectures).
The readings in Theme 5 have encouraged me to look further at these subscriptions. All of them, without exception, are about my industry rather than about learning and teaching. Whilst I use examples from this information within the class setting, it is to illustrate a point and to keep my content current, not to improve my teaching. The blog by Graham Attwell, Pontydysgu, as recommended in our readings for this activity is excellent. The number of international visitors and the depth of information is awesome. I notice that Graham Attwell also has a Twitter address and Facebook group.
So now I have started adding to my subscriptions. Being a Twitter nut, I have found @moocsNews, a learner-focused online directory of MOOCS, and @insidehighered featuring higher education news. This led me to the Inside Higher Ed blog at http://www.insidehighered.com which, although American based, provides some great international news about the university sector – including trends in learning and teaching. Then I found http://www.changinghighereducation.com a fantastic blog about how changes in the world are redefining excellence in tertiatry teaching. Then I found a group on LinkedIn called “Higher Education Teaching and Learning” – I submitted a request to join the group, my joy at the LinkedIn restrictions may yet come back to haunt me!
This has been a very useful and productive exercise for me. It has reinforced to me that I need to look beyond my area of expertise to the nature of my teaching.
Dr Celeste Lawson 