Social Media in Teaching and Learning

So today, I ran a workshop on the Power of Social Media in Teaching and Learning.  As we discussed in the session, there are many things to keep in mind when considering using social media in education (privacy being only one of these many things), and at some point I will write a post outlining some of these considerations.  But, at the end of the session I shared a document listing a number of really useful social media tools, as well as ideas of how they can be used in educational settings, and links to specific examples.  And after I thought I should share them here as well so others can take a peek and think about how these tools might support their students.

If you would like an electronic copy of this handout, or if you would like to know more about using social media tools in your teaching, come and talk to us!

Social Media Workshop, September 21 2016 – Examples to Think About and Links to Check Out

Networking Tools

Example activities

Image sharing

  • Flickrhttp://www.flickr.com/ (used for storing and organizing images and sharing them out, with search functions) – CAN LIMIT SHARING
  • Instagramhttp://instagram.com/ (a photo sharing app for smart phones built for social networking and sharing images) – MOBILE (limited)

Example activities

Video sharing

  • YouTube (for storing, organizing and sharing out videos) – http://www.youtube.com/ – CAN SHARE TO LIMITED PEOPLE
  • Vimeohttps://vimeo.com/ – for storing, organizing and sharing out videos – NO ADS, FREE LEVEL IS LIMITED
  • Slidesharehttp://www.slideshare.net/ – for creating voiceover PPT presentations and sharing them (note, no privacy options unless purchased)
  • Vinehttps://vine.co/- create and share looping videos – smart phone app allows you to create a video up to 6 seconds long with the in-app camera – MOBILE

Example activities

  • Showing activities on a field trip
  • Student projects (showing steps of an activity, lab experiments, etc.)
  • Interviews, case studies, practicum activities (privacy could be a concern – waivers, etc.)

Organizing and sharing information – Curation: collecting and sorting content, and in this case, digital assets (digital curation)

Example activities

Blogs (for pushing out content, usually posting content on a regular basis, and allowing for interaction by way of liking and commenting) (wordpress, blogger, tumblr)

Example uses of Twitter

  • Announcements and reminders
  • Quick links to interesting resources, searching for experts in the field and industry-related feeds
  • A way for students to network with industry and industry professionals
  • How about a twitter story, for example in ESL
  • In the classroom – a way of keeping tabs on ongoing questions during a lecture or video
  • 60 Inspiring Examples of Twitter in the Classroom: http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2011/12/60-inspiring-examples-of-twitter-in-the-classroom/

Use of blogs in education

Collaborative tools

  • Wikis (for example, Wikipedia) – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
  • Etherpadhttp://etherpad.org/ – a synchronous wiki-like tool used for notetaking and archiving – can be used by multiple people at the same time, so is a collaborative tool – I’ve seen it used it in meetings where everyone can take notes at once to make sure everything gets recorded.
  • Google Docs – https://docs.google.com/

Example activities

General examples

Synchronous communication

  • Skype (a synchronous communication tool) – http://www.skype.com/en/ – LIMITED VIDEO
  • Google+ hangouts – you can broadcast video “hangouts” where people can get together and discuss issues live, or bring in guest speakers – https://plus.google.com/hangouts

General Resources

D2L Monthly Upgrades – What’s new in September

Welcome to our monthly Camosun D2L Upgrade Report.

For this month’s upgrade, not a lot has changed, but there is one thing that may affect our faculty here at Camosun: a small addition to quiz tool.

Direct export of report data to Microsoft Excel

In the past, you have been able to export quiz results to a CSV file for viewing off-line.  Now you can also export quiz results directly to Excel.  For those of you who didn’t know about this function, try it out!

To export quiz results to Excel:

  1. Go to the Quizzes tool in your course.
  2. Click on the little down arrow next to the title of the quiz you want to see results for and select Grade.

    exporttoexcel1

  3. At the top of the page, either in the Users or Attempts tab, click the Export to Excel button.
    exporttoexcel2You will then be prompted to save the generated Excel file to your computer.

You can also export a quiz’s Statistics to an Excel file now by:

  1. At the top of the Quizzes tool main page, click on Statistics.exporttoexcel3
  2. Click on the title of the quiz you wish to see statistics for.exporttoexcel4
  3. In the User Stats or the Question Stats tab, click the Export to Excel button.exporttoexcel5You will then be prompted to save the generated Excel file to your computer.