SMCEDU Chat: Wrapping Up 2009, Looking Ahead to 2010

We had a great #SMCEDU chat today, headed by Social Media Club founder Chris Heuer. Joined by many who have shown early interest and contribution to the project, we tackled the subject of the top three priorities for social media education as we head into the new year:

1. Community Identification and Engagement

This is something that we’ve been working on and have accomplished, although greater awareness can always be achieved and wider participation will increase the breadth and depth of shared knowledge

2. Create a program/plan document for Social Media Club chapters or local SMCEDU supporters to follow in starting a program

With the help of Booz Allen Hamilton social media lead Steve Radick in the DC area and Social Media Club-Richmond in the central VA area, collaboration between SMC chapters and universities is continuing. We’ll keep you posted as progress is made and share documentation on how to cultivate formal relationships between schools and businesses

3. Open coursework development to provide resources to educators looking to start teaching social media

According to members of the social media education community like Alex de Carvalho and Mashable’s Brett Petersel, this would be a valuable resource. Many others have also expressed interest in seeing this happen.

There were other great ideas, like this suggestion from Ana Adi and this observation from Susan Beebe. Also, this point brought up by Alex de Carvalho sums up one of the major challenges in defining social media education.

The scope of the project is and always has been ambitious, but we’ve got an experienced, knowledgeable community that cares about the quality of these lessons. With their continued help we can address and implement many ideas, starting with the plan above.

The holidays are a busy time for everyone, so we’ll resume SMCEDU chat again on Monday, January 04 at 12:30pm EST. This link should provide you with a way to add a reminder to Google Calendar, let me know if you have any problems/questions with it.

So, Happy Holidays to all, and thank you for a great first (half) year for Social Media Club Education Connection! Just a reminder: if you know of any teachers involved in or interested in social media education, let them know about our Ning group to stay connected with the community! We constantly post updates to our efforts and this is the best way to provide feedback or ask questions.

Thanks to all who have helped, we’re looking forward to big things in 2010!