Know-how and Content Worth

“I can’t publish!”
Once I teach my students about online tools and they are all ready to go, many of them tell me that they can’t publish. They feel what they have to say does not merit publishing because nobody would be interested in reading it.
This is when I realized that teaching online publishing and marketing tools was not only about having my students learn the know-how, but that it was more complex than that.
Once my students overcome all technical difficulties and are finally ready to press de WordPress’ blue button labeled “Publish,” many of them, believe the content of their publication will be of no interest to anyone.
I finally realize that teaching the need of a tools does not only involve teaching students how this tool can help them, but also making them understand that what they have to say matters.
This is yet, a third step that I need to accomplish in order to make my students successfully use online tools for publication and marketing.

Discussing the Importance of the Tool Before Teaching the Tool Itself

How will WordPress help my career?  This is the question I many times encounter when telling

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my students they should create a website or a WordPress. com site.  If I ask them to create a WordPress.com website as a homework assignment, some of them even tell me that they will not do their homework because they do not want to have a website.

These responses taught me that I was taking much for granted.

What I have learned is that I should make sure I thoroughly introduce the tool first and only once my students have a proper understanding of the usefulness of a given tool, I should go to the hands-on assignment.

For instance, if you want your students to make a podcast, you should first make sure they understand what the practical use of podcasts is.  If they study marketing, communication, or business, then you should talk about the importance of podcasts as a marketing tool.  If they study journalism, you should make sure your students understand how through podcasts, they could showcase they work and actually start a journalistic career there and then through the publication of audio programs, commentaries, interviews, etc.

A good video tutorial explaining the use of some basic and free online tools including article-marketing, forum-marketing, and video-marketing is “Where Can You Advertise Your Business For Free on the Internet-The Top 3 Ways” by Jared Wiener.  A “Case Study: Blogging Works Even For A Gunsmith” is a video discussing the importance of WordPress as a marketing tool by Bill Seaver of MicroExplosion Media.

To sum up, make sure your students understand how a tool can help them accomplish what they want to accomplish or what the exact practical potential of that tool is.  Only once your students thoroughly understand this, you should introduce them to the tool itself.