Overheard in a meeting this past week, “There is a clear distinction between students who are eligible to graduate, and those who are qualified to practice”. Whoa! Hold the phone! Did I hear that correctly?
Okay, so after I peeled myself off the ceiling, got my heart rate back to normal, and thankfully, continued to listen, there followed a thoughtful and rational argument for the distinction. For many programs of study at universities there are external bodies that grant the professional designations that allow professionals to practice. Yes, you must successfully graduate from the program, but then there is the final hurdle, passing the industry’s governing body, that finally allows you to be what you’ve studied to become. Accountants and nurses are professionals that experience this.
What does this mean for fields such as marketing where there is no single licensing body to crown the capable? Sure, there are plenty of designations in the marketing field, but no single body that grants the “must have” declaration that you are a marketer.
So I wonder, if you are a student, a marketer, an employer, a faculty member, what do you think “Eligible to Graduate” means for BBA Marketing Management students? If they graduate, should they be ready to work? and at what?
Amanda Bickell 
Dear Amanda,
This is a quick one. I was in the audience when you presented on “why I divorced powerpoint” (or something like that) at the recent Centre for Academic Growth Teaching and Learning Workshop at Kwantlen. Thanks for a superb presentation. I really like your website! I need your nuggets of wisdom on the following: 1) How do I create a twitter account for my classes? 2) How do have my students create personal blogs through my personal website? I have asked my students to create their personal blogs, but I want them to do via my personal website? Or can they? Here is the url of my personal website: http://www.quist-adade.com. As you can see, it appears like a jungle. I would love to have something like yours. Any suggestions.
Best,
Charles
Posted by Charles Quist-Adade, PhD | June 12, 2011, 4:03 pmHi Charles, many thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed the presentation. I hope I can continue to help. I’ve posted some ideas about using Twitter in the classroom. There are a couple of different ways outlined in an earlier post at https://amandabickell.ca/2011/01/17/twitter-is-great-4-learning/. I don’t create an account for my students. I don’t really want to have to manage it. This semester I asked them create their own accounts and then I created a list for each of my classes. You can find the one for the Advanced OB class at https://twitter.com/#!/list/AmandaBickell/entr3110. I then use Hootsuite to track all of my class lists.
The OB class is blogging too. I decided that I wanted the students to have ownership and control over their own blogs. Rather than create a class blog, I asked them to create their own blog and then when they post to it, they are to tweet a post announcement including a link to their blog. The twitter list is then a resource for the whole class to find everyone else’s blog.
For grading, and my own sanity, I use Google Reader to track all of the posts and comments. I just started using this recently and it has saved me an incredible amount of time. Again, there is a little set up, but it is well worth it.
I really like your site, particularly the photo menu. If you want to have student content on your site you can ping back their posts, or include a link to the class Twitter list page, and I’m sure there are other ways.
Maybe others can weigh in on how this works for them, or what they do? I’d love to hear how others use these tools too.
Posted by Amanda Bickell | June 15, 2011, 9:40 am