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

  • Flickr – http://www.flickr.com/ (used for storing and organizing images and sharing them out, with search functions) – CAN LIMIT SHARING
  • Instagram – http://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
  • Vimeo – https://vimeo.com/ – for storing, organizing and sharing out videos – NO ADS, FREE LEVEL IS LIMITED
  • Slideshare – http://www.slideshare.net/ – for creating voiceover PPT presentations and sharing them (note, no privacy options unless purchased)
  • Vine – https://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
  • Etherpad – http://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

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