An online video guest lecture at Katholieke Hogeschool Mechelen in Belgium.
I had the pleasure to give a lecture yesterday to students taking PR courses at HKM in Mechelen focusing on how students could use web 2.0 in their job hunt. The aim was to offer students tips that they could use when looking for a job and applying for one as well as invite them to have a more critical and niche approach of using web 2.0 applications.
When I first got in contact with the school we agreed to do the video guest lecture since Geert Van den Eijnden, order  the lecturer hosting the course, illness showed great interest in “playing” with new media and since at that time I was not aware of my schedule for this month.
However with my coming to Belgium and therefore travel to Mechelen it was tempting to abandon the online idea and opt for the traditional in class delivery. The solution we found offered a balance of both a big surprise for the attending students.
Geert joined his class as usual. We connected using TokBox, which we have tested before, and tried to solve some of the technical glitches on the go. They had to do with school IT protection for downloading new software or cables too short for the laptop to allow it to be turned towards the classroom so that I can see them as much as they saw me. Apart from that everything went well and the bandwidth was broad enough so that I could even embed and play a video from YouTube during the talk. I used Michael Cera’s video resume, a parody of Aleksey Vayner’s infamous “Impossible is Nothing” no longer available online, to show albeit in a funny way how a video resume should not be.
The interaction with the students was good. Some of them, having quickly figured out how to find me, started sending me messages on Twitter. Others sent me LinkedIn requests. They were engaged, well informed and answered my questions in a manner that showed a critical and strategic approach to job hunting. Their questions too were interesting and reflected concern for how their use of new media could impact their work. They were also interested in my personal story, which I was glad to share.
After an hour of online lecture, I joined them in the class. Judging from the amazement of more than half of the students present, they weren’t expecting me to be so close.
Bruno Neuville, the KHM’s Communication Management Director of Studies, also attended the class. He qualified the lecture as both interesting and innovating. I felt honored to have him had in the classroom.
But I was not the only one to have given a lecture at KHM. In fact Geert invites throughout the year a series of speakers, local and international specialists from public relations, media, social media or journalism in attempt to provide students with as much business insight and contacts.
As usual, my presentation is embedded below:
[slideshare id=2580867&doc=khmexperimentation-091125041134-phpapp01]
congrats, Ana! you’re up to very interesting things!:) i really enjoy reading about them and checking out your presentations. best of luck in the future and lots of energy to keep it going! 🙂