• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content

Brave Little Pig

Practical advice about content creation, social media, branding, online profile building, design and more!

  • Home
  • About
  • Contact
  • Show Search
Hide Search

Digital Learning

Should I Publish a Student Blog?

Emily Wade · Nov 25, 2021 · Leave a Comment

Should I Publish a Student Blog?

The simple benefits of publishing a student blog that might surprise you!

A student blog can help graduates find paid employment in a highly competitive job market. In an environment where many graduates hold the same university degree, demonstrating practical skills in blogging and digital content creation can be absolutely vital.

My students are asked to create a WordPress blog as part of their digital media studies at Deakin University. Below are four of the most important reasons for this (and some examples from my students)…

Why are we talking about the potential value of a student blog?

In the 2020 Graduate Outcomes Survey, 68.7% of undergraduates were in full-time employment 6-months after graduation (GOS 2020), with many sectors being negatively impacted by the global COVID-19 pandemic. Sadly, ‘the largest falls in undergraduate full-time employment by study area have been in Communications, down from 60.1 per cent in 2019 to 52.8 per cent in 2020’ (GOS 2020:8). However, rather than focusing on the negative, these figures also highlight how important it is for students to stand out from the crowd, and blogging is one way they can do this (visit this post for extra advice about standing out in a changing job market).

It’s not about ‘going viral’ or even having a huge volume of work to showcase. Instead, a student blog can demonstrate passion, work ethic, commitment to an industry and practical media-making skills. In order to be successful, the blog should be developed strategically, and with a broader audience in mind than a teacher or small group of classmates.

Infographic with very light pink background and a title which reads ‘4 Simple Benefits of Publishing a Student Blog’. Below the title is a white brushstroke graphic with black text on top: In a competitive job market where many graduates hold the same degree, demonstrating practical skills in blogging and digital content creation can be absolutely vital! 
Below this, there is a black circle with a picture of a white, cartoon style pig in the centre and curly arrows pointing to four reasons: builds your writing and media-making skills, demonstrates your ability to engage a real-world audience, helps you to stand-out in a graduate employment market, Showcases your passion and commitment to an industry/field. Small, black text at the bottom: www.bravelittlepig.com.au.
Infographic created in Canva by Emily Wade

A student blog can develop practical skills in real-world environments

We (students and teachers) talk regularly about the importance of writing for an external audience. This can be an abstract concept for students who are conditioned to working within a traditional educational system. They’re used to satisfying an assessment rubric, criteria or marker, but not necessarily a real-world audience. So, during our digital media units, we encourage students to engage in a process of ‘learning by doing’ with platforms such as WordPress, YouTube and Soundcloud. We also engage with students, industry professionals, and others, on social media platforms such as Twitter. This public engagement allows students to develop skills in online publishing, networking and community building.

Real-world engagement is also where the concept of an external audience starts to become more tangible. So, rather than doing the bare minimum to satisfy assessment criteria, students create engaging content that an audience will genuinely love and find value in. While some students discover this quickly, others need a little more time and encouragement. And one of the most powerful forms of encouragement can come from seeing the work of their peers, so here we go…

Inspiration from some stellar students!

Below is some media (a blog and two videos) created by students in a third-year Digital Media Entrepreneurship unit during 2021. The featured students created this content to ‘pitch’ their own (hypothetical) start-up concept and have given me permission to share their work here.

Firstly, Olivia’s blog features her pitch for a more sustainable alternative to single-use plastic bottles called OneWay. She writes with a consistent and engaging tone of voice, which places the reader front and centre in the story.

You’re on your way to work, but you’re running late because you simply didn’t want to get out of bed this morning. In your Monday morning madness, you pressed snooze one too many times.

Olivia Styles (2021)

As a reader, it’s hard not to engage with content written like this because it’s creative, entertaining and informative!

The next video was created by Zoe and embedded in her blog to promote the concept of an educational app called Foresight. The detailed custom-made graphics featured throughout, along with excellent planning, filming and editing, have produced a very impressive result!

Foresight – Career education reimagined by Zoe Lusted (2021)

Our final feature is a video produced by Sam (also embedded in a blog) to promote her start-up idea for an LED illuminated dog harness with GPS tracker called Spot Spot.

Introducing Spot Spot by Samantha Wridgway (2021)

The work featured above isn’t perfect (and neither is mine) but these students have demonstrated creativity, professionalism and clear communication skills in developing highly compelling content. They have discovered the ‘magic’ in creating content that engages audiences in meaningful ways.

Student blogs (and embedded multimedia content) can speak volumes about skill and motivation that a written application or university degree alone simply cannot. Not to mention that engaging with student work like this is my inspiration!

Based on the brilliant content that these students have produced, I think the future of the communications field is looking very bright!

A blog often forms just one part of a personal-professional online presence. If you want to dig deeper into this topic, head over to How to Brand Yourself.

References

Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching (2021) 2021 Graduate Outcomes Survey National Report, QILT, accessed 25 November 2021.

Cover Image by Thought Catalog on Unsplash

A Virtual Graduation Speech for 2020

Emily Wade · Dec 22, 2020 · Leave a Comment

A Virtual Graduation Speech for 2020

Students finishing University at the end of 2020 weren’t able to participate in a physical graduation ceremony due to Coronavirus (COVID-19) restrictions. Granted, these formal events are not always as innovative and engaging as they could be. Steeped in tradition and featuring regalia (cap and gown) signalling levels of academic achievement, some would argue that these ceremonies are out of touch with modern values. Despite this, most people agree that it’s still important to celebrate important lifetime achievements such as successfully completing a tertiary degree!

In the absence of a traditional, physical graduation ceremony option our digital media alumni group organised a virtual alternative: the ‘Officially Unofficial Graduation Ceremony’, held via Zoom on a Monday evening.

I was tasked with saying a few words to encourage, inspire and recognise our graduates (representing the group as both a former student and current teacher at Deakin University). Before I started writing, I searched the web for ‘graduation speeches’ in a quest to find ideas and inspiration. I found various blogs with listicles of the most inspiring ‘commencement speeches’ (a term mostly used in America). The same names were often featured near the top of these lists: Steve Jobs (Stanford, 2005), Michelle Obama (Tuskegee, 2015), Natalie Portman (Harvard, 2015), and Amy Poehler (Harvard, 2011) among others. Many quotes that I found were inspiring but somehow, not quite suited to a virtual graduation ceremony at the end of 2020. I left the computer for a while and to ponder…

I came to the conclusion that I needed to compose a very short speech (a lengthy speech via Zoom might kill the celebratory vibe very quickly)! Quite simply, I wanted to congratulate our graduates and provide them with hope and inspiration for the future. Once I had settled on these goals I started drafting, inspired in-part by a book I was reading at the time called ‘This One Wild and Precious Life’ by Sarah Wilson and some recent posts and videos I had seen on Instagram.

Zoom Screenshot from the night!

Below is the speech I gave on the night…

In the crazy and somewhat unprecedented year that 2020 has been, graduating from your degree is an amazing achievement, and one that you’ve most likely had to fight harder for than you expected to almost 12-months ago, given all of the extra obstacles that have been thrown your way.

So, take this moment and be proud of your achievements, before moving forward with hope.

For some of you, graduation is something that formalises and embeds your existing skill set and career path, for others this is the beginning of something completely new. For some of you, the next step is uncertain and if this year has reminded us of anything, it’s that life is uncertain.

Life is a continuous journey of learning, growing and finding your way, along the way. If you feel that you’ve finished, you have certainly finished this thing, but there are still many more exciting and challenging steps to conquer on the road ahead.

As staff and fellow students at Deakin, we have been honoured to have you with us and we look forward to staying in touch, and collaborating with you into the future.

One of the most exciting things to consider now is that regardless of your particular degree, you will all be storytellers of some kind. You have the skills and experience to communicate with, and persuade others on any number of topics. This is so powerful because what our world needs more than anything right now is clear communication and empathy for others which can lead to meaningful change.

I don’t want to turn this into a climate change rant but I really feel that David Attenborough’s final Instagram video is fitting here, for several reasons. So, over to you, Sir David and congratulations to every one of you for achieving this very important step in your journey!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by A Life On Our Planet (@davidattenborough)

‘What happens next is up to us…‘ from @davidattenborough on Instagram

Are you a teacher or student in Higher Education? I’d love to hear some of the innovative ways that you celebrated graduation during 2020! Share your thoughts below…

Header Image: Photo by Keith Luke on Unsplash

Subscribe to Brave Little Pig

Enter your email address so you never miss a new post!

Copyright © 2022 · Monochrome Pro on Genesis Framework · Log in

  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
 

Loading Comments...