PodCamp Toronto, the city’s annual social media unconference extraordinaire, happened on the weekend.
This year, Eden Spodek, Marcus Daniels, Diane Begin, Cyrus Mavalwala and I took part in a panel called Social Media Goes to College, about the state of social media education.
It’s based on the Digital Strategy Certificate we’re developing and teaching at U of T’s School of Continuing Studies. And – shameless plug alert – registration for the Spring sessions is now open.
In addition to the five of us, we were thrilled to have a number of our students there to share their ideas, expectations and experiences.
We also had instructors and students from a number of other academic institutions and that sparked a lively exchange. I was glad to see my friend Keith Tomasek, who teaches at Western, offer his POV and capture the session on Storify.
Here’s my take:
Social/digital media education needs a fresh mindset; one that differs from the more traditional approach. As Clay Shirky has said, digital doesn’t mean add-ons, it requires disuptive thinking and new models.
Many institutions are still not including social and digital media in their offerings. This could be a result of a number of things including lack of understanding, fear of losing control and a baked-in resistance to change.
Of those institutions integrating social and digital programs, barriers include taking too long to launch (up to two to three years). That means the course material is out of date before class begins. Like social media, the process to develop and launch should be fast and quick to adapt. Note: I feel we’re fortunate in that U of T SCS is not only supportive but open to innovations and the program was developed and launched in less than six months.
There’s no formal body of knowledge. And if you read David Weinberger’s Too Big to Know, you’ll wonder if a textbook based approach to digital education could ever mesh with the nature of the medium – constantly evolving and with no beginning, middle or end.
As digital and social media continue to move from indie to mainstream, there will likely be more of a demand for digital courses and accreditaitons. I hope institutions and the people who lead them can be forward-thinking enough to abandon some old traditions, learn to be nimble and adopt a test and learn attitude.
What do you think?
