3. TEACHING & SOCIAL MEDIA
• Questions
• What?
• Why?
• How.
• Looking Forward
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4. QUESTIONS
• What is “social media”?
• Why is social media relevant to education? (Or, why should
educators use social media?)
• What are the implications of social media for the college
classroom?
• What are strong ways to use social media in the classroom?
• How is social media changing higher education and academia?
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6. “There are three hallmarks of social media:
Evolution, Revolution and Contribution. First, it
is an evolution of how we communicate,
replacing email in many cases. It’s a revolution:
For the first time in history we have access to
free, instantaneous, global communication. [. . .]
Third, social media are distinguished by the
ability of everybody to share and contribute as
a publisher.”
—Mark W. Schaefer,
author of The Tao of Twitter
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10. SOCIAL MEDIA APPS
• 72% of online adults use social media platforms (up from 66%
in 2010)
• 66% of these use social media for keeping in touch
• 14% use social media for a hobby or common interest
• 9% make new friends and comment
• 5% want romantic relationships
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11. MOBILETECHNOLOGY
• 91% of all American adults own a cell phone
• 74% of students have an Internet-connected
computer
• 93% of students go online
• “College students are much more likely than
the overall cell owner population to use the
internet on their mobile phones, although all
young adults do this at a relatively high rate
regardless of student status.”
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13. “SOCIAL MEDIA”TODAY
• Enhances the speed and breadth of information dissemination
• Is freely accessible and usable
• Is easily accessible, usually by several means, like Web and app
(device indifferent)
• Encourages many levels of user
engagement: like content, dialog,
and governance
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15. • Redefines our relationship
to “media”
• Connects to something
“real”
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16. “The students get more engaged
because they feel it is connected to
something real, that it’s not just
learning for the sake of learning. . . It
feels authentic to them.”
—Christine Greenhow,
“Twitteracy:Tweeting as a
New Literary Practice”
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17. “Groups of children can teach themselves
almost anything.You take children and put them
into groups of four or five and then you ask a
big question.The internet is full of answers, but
you must ask the questions that turn on the
mind…when they find the big answers they
believe in themselves, and they believe in the
world around them.”
—Sugata Mitra,
“We Need Schools... Not
Factories”
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18. SOCIAL MEDIA
• Redefines our relationship
to “media”
• Connects to something
“real”
• Develops digital literacies
• Allows for “response”
• Builds community and
collaboration
• Promotes amateur culture
and creativity
• Challenges educational
paradigms
• Low cost (FREE!)
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23. BLOG
• Is easy and free
• Delivers course information
• Acts as a starting point
• Contains assignments
• Saves paper
• Allows easy updates and
communication
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25. DISQUS
• Acts as a forum/discussion
for web sites
• Is easy to set up and free
• Allows social media logins
• Provides threaded
discussions
• Encourages feedback
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30. USING SKYPE
• Requires a camera and mic
• Requires a good network
connection on both ends
• Available for many devices
• Use of a projector recommended
• FaceTime a good alternative
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31. “My favorite activity was definitely the
three times that we had the opportunity
to Skype with the Mailer experts [. . . ].
Their collective first-hand knowledge of
[. . .] Norman Mailer proved to be
priceless learning information in the
classroom. Not only are opportunities like
this seldom in the classroom, but all of
the experts were so easy to
communicate with and learn from.”
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32. “The Skype interviews were
outstanding. I could not believe the
questions we were able to ask from
people who knew Norman Mailer
the best. It drew me closer to the
artist as a person and helped me
appreciate his work on a different
level.”
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37. BEST PRACTICES
• Follow school policies
• Think before you tweet —
use a pro account
• Define Goals
• Set hashtags
• Determine accessibility (1:1
Tech necessary?)
• Use It!
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