Celebrity Guest Stars

Think your students can’t communicate with well-known professionals from all over the world? Think again. MaryJane Hand, an associate professor of English and communication at Miami Dade College’s Wolfson campus, has arranged for accomplished musicians, dancers, and graphic artists, as well as American soldiers in Iraq, to chat online with students in her writing class about their professions. Among the guests who answered questions from the students were John Gentry Tennyson, a pianist, and Teddy Mulet, with Gloria Estafan’s Miami Sound Machine. At a Wednesday morning session at the League for Innovation conference in Charlotte, N.C., Ms. Hand described how her students were energized by the experience, with some even continuing e-mail communication with the professionals after the course was over. The virtual-guest lecture series, facilitated through WebCT software, got the students writing more, said Ms. Hand. Nearly all the well-known guests participated in the online chat without asking for compensation, Ms. Hand added. —Andrea L. Foster