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The Social Media Classroom
The Social Media Classroom, a browser-based, free and open source environment for teaching and learning, grew directly out of the first minutes I stepped into a physical classroom and began to realize that I needed to readjust my assumptions about students, classrooms, and educational media. Five years ago, when I began to teach at Stanford and UC Berkeley, two places where I had expected web-based media to have permeated the classrooms, I was surprised to see blank looks on so many faces when I announced that students should start their personal blogging and wiki collaborations.… more
Forgive the very delayed reply, Jason! You ask a good question. Of course, I teach courses on social media issues and digital journalism, so it isn't so much a belief that technology in learning can be beneficial (I am not a big believer in benefits being inherent in technology -- how a tool is used matters a great deal), but that my students have to learn about social media because it is the environment in which they live, work, and play much of the time. However, I'm very interested in what anyone has to contribute in terms of citations of empirical work that can be used to justify the use of technology in education. My own opinion is that online media can overcome some of the mis-affordances of the classroom (only those who are comfortable speaking extemporaneously while being observed by others do well in classroom discussions, only one person can speak at once, the visual communicator is less visible than the verbal communicator, for example) and has affordances of its own that can be beneficial (discussions can be extended beyond the classroom, multimedia can be used, students can take time to compose thoughtfully, nobody is watching you while you are composing, peer to peer interaction rather than performing for the teacher is encouraged, etc.)
Classroom Authority and Twitter
An interesting aspect of Twitter's recent surge in popularity has been how educators have embraced the technology, not just for networking and personal communication, but also in the classroom. Many teachers have found Twitter to be a helpful tool for accessing the backchannel—the discussion students are having about what is going on in the classroom—in real time. In a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article, Jeffrey R. Young interviewed two teachers who use Twitter in large lecture courses, projecting students' Twitter posts in the classroom live. Experiments like these frighten many instructors.… more
Actually, my colleague Negar Mottahedeh (http://twitter.com/negaratduke) and several others here, including myself and many others in the HASTAC network (www.hastac.org) are using not only Twitter but all forms of social media to restructure communication. Negar held the first-ever (so far as we know) Twitter Film Festival, where her students watched and tweeted for a week. It was fabulous to participate via tweets. Another colleague, Laurent Dubois, did something similar for his course on colonialism and world soccer. And I do in "This Is Your Brain on the Internet." HASTAC Scholars (grads and some undergrads, 130 of them around the country) also live blog and micro-blog the conferences they participate in, extending the network. It's only around the edges, but don't give up. It's happening. Come join us, if you are interested. You join simply by signing up to the website. John Jones, by the way, is one of the exemplary HASTAC Scholars, a real leader now and in the future, too. HASTAC is a network of networks and part of a higher education extension of the Digital Media and Learning network. Thanks so much for your interest and comment!
Digital Media and Learning Conference 2010
Earlier this year, we issued a call for proposals for panels and presentations for the first Digital Media and Learning Conference, an annual event supported by the MacArthur Foundation and organized by the Digital Media and Learning Hub at University of California, Irvine. I was honored to be asked to be this year's conference chair. Our initial theme is "Diversifying Participation." Here's some of the language we used in formulating that theme: "A growing body of research has identified how young people's digital media use is tied to basic social and cultural competencies needed for full participation in contemporary society. We continue to develop an understanding of the impact of these experiences on learning, civic engagement, professional development, and ethical comprehension of the digital world. Yet research has also suggested that young people's forms of participation with new media are incredibly diverse, and that risks, opportunities, and competencies are spread unevenly… more