The benefits of higher education

This semester, I'm working on the community outreach team at the Columbia Missourian as part of my  participatory journalism class. In addition to being a three-credit class, we also work newsroom shifts. In one of our class sessions this week, our teacher Joy Mayer hosted a Google+ hangout with journalists across the country to talk about their publications' commenting platforms. Since participatory journalism looks at how to engage readers, learning about commenting and keeping audiences involved is integral to our course.

However she did it - Joy organized three excellent speakers:

• Jack C., Knoxville News Sentinel, a Scripps publication
• Todd O., Associate Community Manager at Mashable
• Kate M., social media product manager at NPR 

As a class, we learned a lot about three very different types of news outlets. We heard how many comments they receive per month, what their thoughts are on moderation, how they are innovating in the community space and where they see the future of comments.

And we also got to see real-world, working journalists interact with each other. This Google + hangout not only taught us about how various publications are using comment platforms, but gave three journalists a time out in their day to learn themselves. When two of the sources began a conversation with each other, my heart melted.

One fear professors have engrained in students' mind is the idea that once you start to work, you don't get to learn. You do, do, do and don't have time to think to improve or gain new ideas. So this 'hangout' was an honor because not only did it teach me as a student, but I saw the smiles on three working professionals' faces when they got to take some time and learn. When something is for education, the work force realizes it's for the greater good and participates, even if it's a detriment to their day. So hopefully the hangout let them pause, learn and grow in their own positions as they preached them to my class.

Overall, I'm going to miss the daily world of education and hope I can continue to learn and participate in things like this!