April 23, 2015 at 8:34 am, by Carl

For anyone in an industry, like Higher Education, that still isn’t aware that the world has changed.  From a Fast Company July 2014 Article:

 

Shows like Tosh.0 and @midnight are themselves very digitally savvy in a way that a lot of other TV programming isn’t. How much of that is a conscious effort on your part versus just naturally reflecting your audience?

 

Well, it’s a conscious effort to reflect our audience [laughs]. Because this is how they live, right? Our fans want to have a conversation with Comedy Central. They don’t just want to sit and watch the show. Part of our marketing department is now called Fan Engagement. It’s about how we stay connected to our fans 24/7. We don’t have a digital department. We used to, but it became very clear that digital is just a piece of everything we do. So if you were working on digital marketing, well, you’re just doing marketing. If you were working on making digital content, you’re just making content.  From Comedy Central President Michele Ganeless

Do you see it?  “digital is just a piece of everything we do.”    What if every professor out there understood this?   If our audience lives a digitally savvy life that demands “a conversation,” then why are some classes still afraid of using mini-computers?  Why are students told to “put your phone away” or even have drop boxes where their phones are forced to be stored?

Around the same time, in Wired, Mat Honan had a killer editorial on the same point that people no longer want to be passive observers.

 

This instant Internet, ubiquitous and pushed to our smartphones, lets us experience events not only as they happen but together—even when we are physically apart. It’s not watching something at the same time as someone else; it’s watching it with them. We’re not just broadcasting anymore; we’re ­conversation-­casting.

 

Television has talked to us for decades, but it never listened. While we all watched events like the moon landing at the same time, we did so in pockets of isolation. This is why the so-called second screen has triumphed over the first. It’s why “second screen” is such a colossal misnomer; the phone is the first screen—always with us and always on. And it has made our big screens more vital. By combining the two, we connected ourselves.

 

Thanks to this, live TV has never been better. The ability to comment immediately and have anyone respond has given live television a power-up; it has provided motivation to tune in to things we might otherwise skip or TiVo. Because a show isn’t just something to watch anymore—it’s a way to connect.

 

 

What if your class wasn’t “just something to watch anymore–it’s a way to connect”?  We at Valencia are starting work…again…on trying to improve our online classes.  I can tell you, if we don’t at least incorporate this, whatever we come up will be just as bad as now.  Three years ago, my peers in the History Discipline did a year of reflection and investigation about how to change our online classes.  Our biggest takeaway is inline with both Comedy Central and Honan’s articles….people don’t want to just passively sit there.  They want to interact.

 

Yes, I know its tougher, perhaps, in academic classes than with @midnight where students/the audience perhaps isn’t as thrilled about being there.  Still, the point holds validity…the more you work, whether online or face-to-face, to connect the students and allow them to interact, and yes even use their minicomputer (aka…smartphone), the more overall engagement you will have.

 

Better engaged students leads to more learning.