The Impact of Social Media in the Classroom

Seth AllenAdjunct Sociology Instructor

Montgomery Community College

The Impact of Social Media

• New Media Literacies• Research on Social Media in the Classroom• Practical Suggestions for Social Media in

Teaching and Assigning Projects• Ethical Implications of Using Social Media

Social Media and Higher Ed

https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/hs3CVry2EQ8

Howard Rheingold’s Media Literacies

• (1) attention: the ability to identify when focused attention is required and to recognize when multitasking is beneficial;

• (2) participation: more than consumers, participants actively participate-knowing when and how to participate is important;

• (3) collaboration: participants can achieve more by working together than they can working alone;

• (4) network awareness: an understanding of social and technical networks;

• (5) critical consumption: identifying trustworthiness of the author or text

Research on Student Social Media Use & Education

• Towner & Munoz (2009) survey 238 undergrad and grad students at an East Coast college:– 75% of participants added a classmate as a friend– 51% got class notes from Facebook friends when

they were absent– 45% used it to collaborate on a course project– 48% of instructors with FB accounts used them

contact instructorsFacebook was used primarily for informal instructional

purposes (i.e. student-to-student interaction)

Research on FacultySocial Media Use & Education

• Towner & Munoz (2009) survey 172 professors through FB groups for educators:– 13% used Facebook for instruction purposes– 67% agree/strongly agreed that FB allows for

student-to-student interaction– Nearly half used Facebook to make annoucements– 67% felt that Facebook aided out-of-class discussions– 38% felt that Facebook helped in-class discussionsFaculty use Facebook as a supplemental tool for

communicating with students.

Results from My Survey

Disseminated a social media survey to instructors on TeachSoc listserv, NCCCSPA & NCSA Facebook pages, 23 participants.

Most instructors saw social media as supplemental and several received criticism when forcing students to use it for grade

Results from My Survey

Results from My Survey

How I Use Social MediaTo remind students of upcoming assignments

To link to articles relevant to weekly discussion forum

Teachable Moments with

LinkedIn

Teachable Moments with Twitter

Content Analysis on Twitter with #hashtags

Just put the # before keywords to search for

it.

Potential Uses for Twitter: •Doing a content analysis for current events/trends•Communicating with students• Assessment of Daily Class Activity

#sociology

Teachable Moments with Pinterest

Screenshot from the Pinterest account

“Sociological Images”

Other potential uses:•Assigning a visual portfolio•Pulling together images for a class

Teaching with YouTube

A YouTube account is FREE – if you have a gmail account, you can get started with YouTube.

Screencast-o-Matica FREE screencasting software

http://screencast-o-matic.com/

Implications of Social Media

Social media can facilitate the academic & social integration, vital components of a student’s decision to remain in school [presenter’s observations].

Tinto (1993) suggests that social integration (based on the theories of Durhkeim) that student stay in school because:

1. Academic Integration1. Formal – They understand how to enroll in

classes/prepare for graduation2. Informal – They feel validated by profs as

competent individuals, sense a personal connection to instructors

2. Social Integration – Students feel connected to their peers.

Leaving College: Rethinking the Causes and Cures of

Student Attrition (1993) – Seminal study of causes of

student dropouts

Ethical Implications of Social Media

• Use of closed groups within can ensure FERPA compliance

• Much of the supplemental course material available through textbook publishers is copyright and cannot be disseminated on FB

• Facebook must be used a neutral third space, students must not perceived that instructors are attempting to encroach on their personal lives.

“Facebook is not an educational panacea; it appears that its greatest strength is to facilitate education-related communications between students”

-Terri Towner & Caroline Muñoz

Ethical Implications of Social Media

• Erosion of teacher-student relationship through ‘friending’ or ‘following’

• Potentially alienates students on the wrong side of the digital divide

• Contribution to students’ divided attention span

Works Cited

Rheingold, H. (2010, October 7). [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/attention-and-other-21st-century-social-media-literacies

Towner, T., & Munoz, C. (2011). Facebook and education: a classroom connection?. In C. Wankel (Ed.), Educating educators with social media (pp. 33-57). Retrieved from http://library.acaweb.org/search~S15?/dsocial media in the classroom/dsocial media in the classroom/-3,0,0,B/frameset&FF=dsocial media&7,,29/indexsort=-

Online Teaching Resourceshttp://www.ncccspa.org/teaching-tips.html

Sociology Teaching Resourceshttp://www.ncccspa.org/sociology-resources.html

Psychology Teaching Resourceshttp://www.ncccspa.org/psychology-resources.html