Discussion on how Social Media can be used for both teaching and Marketing

1. Having presence within
the OU brand
An Academic Perspective

2. Who?
● Andrew Smith
● Network Engineering
● MCT
● @teraknor

3. What?
● Cisco Systems
● Manufacturers of shiny interweb data packet
shoving technologies
● Internationally recognised certification

4. What (for example)?
Cisco Engineers
and network
engineers in
general play with
these kind of
devices

5. Where (in OU terms)?
● Undergrad T216 - CCNA
certification
● Postgrad - F56 - CCNP
(x3) and CCNA-Security
certification

6. My Perceived Problem?
It is a matter of perspective … and a collective problem

7. My Perceived Problem … ctd?
It is a matter of perspective … and a collective problem
Cisco Certification > OU
OU > Cisco Modules

8. Opportunity
Creation of a leaky module
Educate OU students and be seen by the global Cisco
community

9. Opportunity - Teach by Twitter
Daily updates
‘Edusnippets’ in sync with
T216 Cisco study
From 2 to 4 times a day

10. All Free!
● We cannot predict what platform our
students/customers prefer to use
○ it could be a smart phone / tablet
○ or a web browser
○ or a specific application
● Nor should we care
● Developers everywhere have created the
software for us, for free
● so, lets use them all

11. Using Internet Gaffer Tape
T216

12. Automate ...
● Automate, Automate, Automate
● Sequential CSV’s of Cisco related content
○ Follows study calendar
○ We know more-or-less when students will be covering
content
● Use a separate CSV with weekly reminders
○ what should you be studying
○ what assignments are due
○ day schools (classes) or other module events
● As we are externally facing, occasional
information on the course opportunities we
offer
○ Covert rather than overt

13. Automation continued ...
● Why CSV …
○ they work with the Hootsuite publisher
tools
■ but no repetition
○ they must be 5 mins or more apart
○ there has to be less than 140 characters,
as Twitter is the lowest denominator
■ requiring precision
● We generated over 1000+ automated
updates, which can be reused, amended,
added to etc

14. Enjoying multiple sources ...

15. Talk to them?

16. Generally they are ...

17. Find your allies ...
You will be
surprised what
others will RT,
share or promote
for you …

18. Impact ...
T216 14J has 400 students, best
effort estimates put at around 25% to
30% participation in social media
Yet, we note that there is a
community of 700 to 1000
We get many ‘faves’, RT’s, likes,
comments, shares … for some posts
many, others few and of course none
on others

19. Assessing Impact ...
● Feedback is very positive.
● With ethics approval now secured, in
May. I will be conducting research into
the perspective of all users.
○ Both internal and external.
● Watch this space

20. It is a learning cycle ...

21. The End ...
“Judge someone by
their questions
rather than by
their answers.”
― Voltaire