9. b) Viral Videos: enhancing Students' digital literacy skills and employability (Inox Conference Suite 1)

Viral Videos: Enhancing students’ digital literacy skills and employability

Dr Ana Cruz (Business Administration and Economics Department, International Faculty)

What is this about?

The digital advertising expenditure in Europe was estimated to be €20.9 billion in 2011 (Adex benchmark report, 2011) with video accounting for €395.4 million. Despite the growing market it is estimated that there are currently 200,000+ unfilled positions for Digital Marketing (Monster, March 2014). Taking into account the growth of digital marketing it is paramount that graduates are not only IT literate but that they have the ability to turn knowledge into strategic and effective application. This session reports on a group creative assignment. The aim was to enhance digital literacy skills and employability of final year marketing students through the creation of viral videos. The session will present the best students' videos produced in 2013 and 2014. The session will provide insights into how students applied theory into action, the students’ performance and to provide a more comprehensive view, some of the students’ non assessed self reflections will be presented. In 2014 the students worked with a client. The client’s view will also be presented. The session will finish with a critical reflection of the barriers, benefits and lessons learned.

The session tackles key aspects of the conference namely transferable skills such as team working, critical thinking, digital literacy, independent planning and ‘Real life’ tasks.

How will colleagues benefit?

Colleagues will benefit by being exposed to an innovative assignment that engages students by allowing the expression of both criticality and creativity through the use of technology and application of what makes content viral. Colleagues will also benefit from the key challenges; barriers and lessons learned derived from this type of technology, employability and creativity led assignments. These can support colleagues who wish to pilot or implement a similar assignment so they can build on the lessons learned and improve the approach. I am aiming to have a two way conversation during the session, to share ideas, to inspire and be inspired by my collages about thinking of different ways to engage a particularly challenging generation to engage (the connected generation C).