Are you involved in putting together a transition year programme?  Looking for TY English modules which will benefit your students and fit department guidelines?  Hoping to include a module that will help students secure transition year work experience?

Well, the Blogging & Creative Writing Module offered by eConsult Ireland, can offer all of these things.

Many of today’s young job-seekers are blogging their way to success!  In the highly competitive recruitment environment, it’s more important than ever to stand out from the crowd.  One way to differentiate yourself, while at the same time gaining some skills to help become job ready, is to blog about a topic that you love.  It could be a sport, cause, social topic, political issues or a diary style log of the TY journey.  Most importantly it should be a topic that the student is genuinely interested in – if you are passionate about a subject, then it will be easy to speak about it with confidence.

What is the Blogging & Creative Writing Transition Year Module?

The TY Blogging and Creative Writing Module is designed to help students express themselves through creative writing, while giving them practical experience using WordPress, the world’s most popular website content management system.  Some of the most famous global brands use WordPress including Sony Music, eBay and Xerox.  It will provide hands on experience of this digital platform, which will enable students to gain a new skill which many of them can use in the future.

What is covered?

• Lesson on common blog features – examples from genres that interest the students. Choosing the right topic.
• Lesson on writing a blog – how to formulate a headline, blog structure, style, referencing, appropriate use of language, linking to other bloggers work.
• Demonstrate the blogging platform – Each student to set up a WordPress blog.
• Lesson on customising the blog to your personal style and add content – colours, adding hyperlinks, editing text. How to add plugins to your blog.
• Lesson on how to create your own images and edit audio clips. How to add images, audio clips and video to the blog.
• Lesson on how to research good sources of content for your blog. All about the importance of keywords and SEO for search engines.
• Learning how to critique each other’s blog and post comments. Importance of providing constructive feedback and being able to take that on board.
• Lesson on best practice, plagiarism, copyright and online commenting guidelines. Tips on where to share blogs and how to get your content noticed.

Assessment:

• The module can be assessed on a continuous basis in accordance with the student being able to complete each of the elements necessary to set up the technical side of the blog.
• The student can also write a final blog on their learning reflection of the module.

Skills & Learning Outcomes:

1. Becoming knowledgeable in a chosen subject.
2. Critical thinking by commenting on and assessing others’ blogs.
3. The ability to set up, edit and maintain a WordPress blog.
4. A tool to bring into an interview situation.
5. Practical skills in the areas of creating visuals and editing audio.
6. Getting a head-start on the basics of digital marketing.
7. Confidence in overall ability to work with blogs.

Facilitator: 

Allison Ryder (MSc Digital Marketing / BSc Tourism Marketing) currently provides marketing consultancy and training to SMEs.  Allison completed a pilot module with Glenart College, Arklow, earlier this year in which the students responded overwhelmingly positively and the majority said they would recommend it as a TY module to peers.  In the feedback, one student commented “A lot of jobs require you to write articles or blogs so this gives you an idea of what to do” while another student said “It could be useful in a job interview because they know you can set up a website”.

 

For more information please contact Allison:

www.eConsult.ie – 089 441 4442 – allison@eConsult.ie