This week my Audience Connections class starts up again at Drury University. It looks like I have 6 students and my hope is to use new media to make this a global class literally!….
Sticks and Drones started towards the end of course last year. I incorporated the students into the blog by posting their papers (here and here) and tagging posts that I thought applied to the class and the concept in the Audience Connection category.
In a nutshell the class is current affairs in the arts and is a music elective, but a core subject for arts admin majors. Students are required to read blogs, artsjournal, insidethearts and other sites. We don’t limit it to music and try to include full spectrum of the arts (commercial also) as it relates to the challenge of building and maintaining audience relationships. Each week students are required to bring up something that they read and that they feel strongly about. We then discuss and debate.
Now it’s time to step it up a bit. I am in discussions on how to podcast it for anyone to be able to listen and to even participate through comments when I post about it. I am hoping one or more of the students will start a Facebook and/or Myspace page (maybe even a student blog) but also I am looking for suggestions for topics, papers, debates etc…from anyone. If something in the arts world comes up either specifically or in general that any of you would like to hear discussed, then let me know and I will try to make it a part of the class discussion/debate.
My hope is to give students the chance not just to learn about the “real world” in the arts but to interact with it also!