Harnessing people partnerships

 In teaching students, I have tried to include people outside of my circle to speak from their space to my students. This allows the students to listen to perspectives they would otherwise not have known. It encourages them to see how theoretical lessons in class can translate into meaningful projects and processes in the workplace. While I have not recorded all these sessions, the ones I have listed on my blog include Roslyn Albaniel and Ruth Waram some years ago. However, this semester, I decided that it would be good to go down this path again as the unit I was taking was new and needed fresh ideas from other people than me.

The first person to accept my invitation was Bronwyn Kili. As a youth activist, she talked about here experiences of using social media/digital media to run numerous social and community campaigns she was part of. 

She emphasized the role of planning particularly in developing communication plans and strategies. In that two hour period, she talked and explained concepts and ideas around social media use in Papua New Guinea and gave tips on interactive use of social media apps. 

The next person that accepted my invitation was Helen Tuka. She has worked in various organisations over the years and completed a Master of Communication from RMIT in Melbourne Australia. She now works as the Marketing Director for DWU. 

She talked about marketing strategies that the University uses particularly those on social media. She also focused on how 'branding' is important in maintaining corporate identity and recognition of products/services. She also focused on the challenges faced by organisations as they improve their corporate branding and create a communication strategy. 

The last person to come speak to my students was Picky Airi. Mr. Airi is the Director for the Center for Learning and Teaching at DWU. He did a session on using software applications in developing animations. He pointed out the various applications such as Doodly, Toonly and Videoscribe. During the session, the students installed the software called Videoscribe on their laptop and then proceeded to develop a short story animation.

He showed them the use of workflow and demonstrated that is an iterative process and students could utilize a variety of propriety software, open source software and also AI. 

In conclusion, I must say this: Getting communication specialists to show how theoretical knowledge is practiced in the workplace enables students to understand the value of what they are learning in class. The three speakers demonstrated application of key social media and digital communication skills during their sessions and thus promoted the sharing of knowledge to the young people of the next generation. 

My sincere gratitude and many thanks to Bronwyn, Picky and Helen for their time and effort in these sessions.