A tremendous champion of WhyHire.me is Lyle Wetsch at Memorial University in Newfoundland. Lyle is a strong advocate of personal branding and using the web for effective communications and marketing. We got to talking the other day about our respective challenges in the classroom and evangelizing the notion that young, adolescent and post-secondary students today need guidance, education and mentoring when it comes to using the Internet safely, appropriately and professionally. Click to continue
In September of 2009, the WhyHire.me learning resources and software were incorporated into a third term course called Career Explorations at Centennial College in Toronto. In November, I dropped in on David Johnson, Dean of the School of Business, for a post mid-term update. This short video covers the background on why the materials and learning platform were used and it offers David’s views on the feedback from students and faculty.
The most interest part of getting WhyHire.me incorporated into a course or entire program is curriculum mapping. Life-to-date, we have incorporated WhyHire.me materials and software into public relations, e-commerce, technology in business, transition to professional and business skills courses. Stay tuned for a detailed blog post from Patti Church, our Chief Learning Architect. Patti will layout several alternative ways to leverage the software, offline and online course materials, worksheets and additional learning resources.
It’s been week since I have written a blog post. Once again, breaking the blogging golden rule but I’m giving myself some latitude because we have been in the middle of officially launching WhyHire.me. Although in theory, I should have been writing more. But moving on…
Over the last month, we have launched the second version of our WhyHire.me portal, finished up a 70 page eBook which is embedded in the portal and produced 7 interactive presentations which will be used by teachers and students either in the classroom or as stand alone interactive learning modules. It’s been a lot of work but rewarding on so many levels. I really feel that what we have developed a product and program that will has tremendous value for those preparing for their professional lives. I wish someone had pushed me and asked me the questions we are asking of our students when I was 20ish. We are giving them a leg up on their careers and a perspective which all knowledge workers need in this economy.
WhyHire.me is being used in 12 classrooms this term. We are getting the professors up to speed on the technology (social networks) but they will all be ready to fly with the content by the end of the week. Everyone involved in the program has been very positive, and like ourselves, believe that this program has great value to our students.
Over the next couple of weeks, we will share feedback from our users here. I will be team teaching at Carleton in the Sprott School of Business alongside Leighann Neilson, so I will have first hand input from the ‘trenches’.
I want to once again thank all our partners who have taken the next steps with us.
At Algonquin College, we would like to thank Wendy Threader, Jim Kyte, Dave Donaldson, Wayne McIntyre, Terry Frederick, Marc Johnstone and Noni Stukel. Algonquin piloted our program last year and showed great leadership and a real understanding and interest in helping their students. The Algonquin students in the School of Business are lucky to have people like this behind them.
At Centennial, our thanks go out to Liz Smith, David Johnson, Michael Vourakes and Linda Donville. These faculty members saw the potential associated with the curriculum and the associated outcomes. Their students get to learn how to use social media tools for research, collaboration and online communications – plus the added bonus of each student being able to fire up a comprehensive portfolio of experiences gained at Centennial College.
