Graduate Assistants Continued...
Welcome back to part two of the graduate assistant project at the Institute for Interactive Technologies at BU. In my previous session I wrote about the Kellogg's and Black & Decker projects that are underway for the spring semester of 2008.
Attracting BU's upcoming stars for a brighter future
The Client
The Need
The Master's program of Instructional Technology (MSIT) is looking for future students interested in the Instructional Design Field. If you are in the field of Instructional Design, when approached by people whom are not familiar with our studies the first question we usually hear is "What exactly is Instructional Design?" with a curious yet confused "deer in headlights" kind of look. The need to keep the program booming is a ongoing project, one with the goal of attracting the brightest and best undergraduates of Bloomsburg University.The Solution - The Next Step Symposium
The current focus of the marketing campaign has been targeted at the top 20% of seniors on campus. A introduction website is being designed with:- Podcast testimonials from alumni
- Statistics of the program's job placement rate
- Key information about Instructional Technology
"The Next-Step Symposium" will have guest speakers composed of our alumni working in the field as well as faculty and staff about the great possibilities that accompany after perusing a Master's Degree in Instructional Technology. The expected turnout is 500 in attendance and if you know of anyone who is interested, pass the word along! Good luck and I hope there is good food!
Additionally, there has also been some concerns brought to my attention about marketing towards the top 20% of undergraduates as opposed to another category of the student population. Some feel that the measurement of a GPA as an undergraduate does not necessary imply that they will excel once they are in the IIT; they argue that some of our best alumni are the lesser of the outstanding student population as an undergraduate and the IIT would be missing out on potential Instructional Design all stars by doing so. Some feel that the standards of the MSIT should be increases and we need some bigger brains in the MSIT.
The majority of the current program was not included in the top 20% of their undergraduate class but I believe that future candidates of the MSIT will be hearing podcast success stories as told by the people sitting in the classrooms right now. I feel that this program is an outstanding opportunity and am honored to be apart of it. For the people that earned to be top 20%, congratulations and I hope we can draw their brains and / or work ethic to the MSIT. Regardless, this program still holds potential for the remaining percentage of the student population that has the heart and creativity to find out how freaking awesome it truly is.
Regardless of this matter, the faculty and staff excel at preparing the students to be working professionals as instructional designers, eLearning designers and interactive multimedia developers. I know alumni that fall on both sides of the percentile categorization that share in the success after they received their degree from the IIT here at BU. I would like to hear from others about this subject, what do you think?
A side note
I am hoping to gather some feedback for this event so I am going to post for next week the remainder of GA projects underway. I would like to emphasize that I am excited to share the remaining projects and in no way categorizing the importance of one project over another in any kind of sequential order in these series of posts.
Posts
1 comment:
Aaron,
These are great posts that you are including in our class blog. You are doing a great job highlighting all the wonderful projects underway this semester in the department and at the IIT. Thanks for gathering all this information and posting here for all of us to read.
Sara :)
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