He drew a very clear analogy that resonated with me. Way back in the late 19th century, visionary teachers and school administrators had to convince people of the need to make space and develop curriculum for shop class and home economics. Why? These two disciplines were deemed essential skills for tomorrow’s graduates.

Today, the same could be said for digital media citizenship.

This week, I participated in a panel discussion about the impact of social media on the high school experience. From my perspective as a parent, I do advocate the notion that parents should get in the game (click the link to see my presentation). One can assume that kids that grow up on the web get it. I checked my son’s Facebook settings and noting he was sharing everything with everyone, despite our family guidelines. He thought he had the settings nailed – not so. He has also needed to learn the lesson that you are what you post on the Internet.

Recent events have also highlighted just how tragic cyber-bullying has become. Over the past few weeks, I have noted people calling for more education or perhaps digital media citizenship courses for our tweens, teens and up and coming graduates. At this local meeting, parents were asking, “what is the high school doing to teach our kids”? Our local high school touches on social media across a handful of courses. I would imagine school board officials are taking a broader look at this now or soon. Perhaps we will see high school credit courses offering digital media citizenship? It would be a great way to mentor more up and coming leaders.

At the post-secondary level, we are seeing the career success agenda wrap social media/digital media citizenship into select classes and programs. From our viewpoint, it is something that needs to be weaved into entire programs from the day a student arrives. Check out David Johnson’s perspective on professionalism. As the Dean of the School of Business at Centennial College, it starts on day 1.

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.

You can’t see anything because you are not in a class that has adopted WhyHire.me as a program and learning environment for personal branding.  Those that have chosen to use the program have closed the doors to the public while they learn and explore the world of social networking for personal branding.  Yes, this generation is very aware of social networks because of Facebook, MySpace and YouTube but they are not familiar or comfortable with using social networks for developing a professional presence.  That’s why we have developed a place where they can learn and experiment with their classmates and professors.  We’re also playing with them in their new sandbox.  We have 14 classrooms involved in business programs at Algonquin College, Centennial College and Carleton University.

I spoke to a few classes recently and here are a few comments from students in the class:

“The presentation was great, I really enjoyed it even though it was pretty early on a Friday morning. I can say it was very inspiring for me, gave me new ideas on to what I can do with me as a brand.”

“After your talk today (which very much inspired me), I was thinking I would film an introduction video of myself for the profile. A sort of visual media piece to make me stand out and inform people of what I’m about.”

“I think the lessons and system are very educational. The creativity and thought put into this system is very much appreciated. It’s about time we started stepping away from just the traditional resumes and use technology to help promote ourselves. Congratulations to you and your team for being so innovative and allowing a new perspective into the education system.”

I’m looking forward to the second part of the term, as more students play, experiment and start to understand the power of the developing their own personal brand.

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.