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Esteemed broadcast journalist John Palmer visited my mass media class

I was thrilled to have the opportunity to have two esteemed members of our Advisory Council visit my 214 Mass Media course. Vetern broadcast journalist John Palmer, pictured here, thrilled students with his riveting tale of how he broke the story of aborted rescue attempts of American hotages in Iran (1980). The image that sticks with you: the dried out lasagna sitting in the pan clued Palmer in that White House staffers had been up all night, and that the hostages weren’t coming home as planned. Later, corporate communications powerhouse Dave Monfried came to discuss his current work with AIG, in the midst of financial and public relations crisis. Students enjoyed hearing his take on one of our class topics, the tensions between public relations and journalism. Several stayed after to ask the experts questions. As one student wrote in an email message after, seeing the guest speakers “was an amazing learning experience that most classes don’t offer.”

After spending a week learning about new technologies to improve teaching and learning, (see “Spring Breakin’ It 2009″ post), here are my top pics from FTI (Faculty Technology Institute):

1. Blogs

Two years ago, I was a skeptic. A year ago, I began teaching blogs and other Web 2.0 technologies in my mass media classes. Now I see almost unlimited possibilities for teaching, collaboration, and producing media messages. I have begun a class blog for my gender course. Watch this video on blogging:

Sad story: One of our favorite restaurants was destroyed by a fire this week (see story below). It used to be Mimi’s, but was recently sold to The Boathouse franchise. They had just reopened, and we were going to go this weekend. It has (had) a wonderful deck that looked out over the marsh, and was a perfect place to take the kids. Sad. I hope the rebuild soon.

http://www.charleston.net/news/2009/mar/05/fire_engulfs_boathouse_james_island/

We spent our first Charleston Christmas at the beach.

David walking Amelia to school on her first day of Kindergarten.

 

4. My office.

If I ever needed extra incentive to come to work, this would be it. Located in the center of campus, our historic building dates back to the 1830s and was beautifully renovated just last year. The views from the piazza outside the third floor of my office are some of the more spectacular on campus, in my opinion. I work out here from time-to-time, and it’s where I have “pop (aka soda) with the prof” every third Friday.

Your first spring break in Charleston, SC? Oh, you must be at the beach. Or maybe at the Aquarium with the kids?

No. I’m in a windowless conference room in the Tate Center on campus, learning all things blog and wiki. And I’m on my way to becoming the coolest prof ever–though I probably have to share that title with 19 other faculty members. I’m doing the Faculty Technology Conference, exploring ways to improve my teaching with new Web 2.0 technologies.

It’s only 36 degrees outside, so looks like the beach would be out anyway.

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