As social media continues to become part of our lives, today’s connected learner has more information at their fingertips than ever before. In this session, discover opportunities to improve student success through the implementation of creative, collaborative tasks through social media. Go beyond 140 characters of engagement, and encourage students to construct their own learning by using popular Web 2.0 tools to bridge the gap between pedagogy and technology. Goals – At the end of the session, participants will be able to: Establish criteria for implementing social and digital media in their classes, identify when students may need to unplug, and implement social media tools such as Twitter and Padlet into a lesson plan

1. Talk about learning!
@kenjeffery #etug
Social media:

2. Today’s session
• How my background led to my interest in this topic.
• Social media: distraction or benefit?
• Social learning and social media—research
• Five strategies for implementing social media.
• Open discussion.

3. credit: Clemens PFEIFFER, Vienna

4. credit: Marcin Wichary from San Francisco, U.S.A. CC-BY-2.0

5. credit: Eva Crawford

6. what drives me?
• In seeing how printed communication has changed,
thinking about where it’s going.
• Interest in seeing how people communicate using
technology.
• Keen interest in how people LEARN using
technology.

7. my research
• Royal Roads University, MA in Learning and
Technology.
• Examined 15 research studies in social learning.
• Examined 25 research studies in social media in
education.
• Performed a meta-synthesis to compare and draw
common themes between them.

8. Down with book learning
up with social media?

9. Learners are
already there
• 90% of first year college students report using
social networking,
• and 97% of those report using Facebook regularly
(Smith & Caruso, 2010).
• 94% of youth without home access still connect to
social media (Ahn, 2011).

10. The negative side
• A correlation between the distraction of instant
messaging and poor outcomes in prolonged,
deeper studying such as reading (Levine, Waite, &
Bowman, 2007).
• Facebook users reported having lower GPAs and
spend fewer hours studying per week than non-
users (Kirschner & Karpinski, 2010).
• “Electronic media use is negatively associated with
grades” (Jacobsen & Forste, 2011).

11. The positive side
• Promote the use of social media for collaboration and
exploration in the classroom (Fuller & Pittarese, 2012).
• “There is potential for [Internet technologies] to
support more dialogic and synergistic approaches in
group and individual activity than is seen at
present” (Beauchamp & Kennewell, 2010).
• “Courses that utilize social media force students to be
self-starters and have the potential to encourage them
to be creative” (Friedman & Friedman, 2013).

12. Breadth vs. Depth
• Wide learning is exploration, discovery, ‘casting a
wide net’, communicating, dreaming.
• Deep learning is dedicated study, detailed
research, reading, scrutiny, focus.
• Both are necessary and beneficial.

13. Where does
social media fit?
• Doesn’t replace focused activities.
• Start wide before going deep.
• Supports collaboration, discussion, exploration
and interest.
Use it to support
dialogue!

14. Socially
Constructed
Learning
Lev Vygotsky
1896-1934
!
!
• learning is social
• meaning-making through
interaction with information

15. British Columbia
Institute of Technology

16. Being Crammed
Into Teams

19. Social Learning Studies Social Media Studies
constructivism, cognitive conflict content creation
authenticity and self-reflection privacy, educational autonomy,
and self mediation
communication and collaboration interactivity
influence of positive emotions engagement
access, distractibility, and
personal autonomy
In examining studies on the effects of
socialization in learning and the use of social
media, some common themes emerged.

20. Common themes across
the studies
• Engagement
• Interactivity
• Creativity
• Self-mediation
• Autonomy

21. Engagement
Being able to reach learners positively gets them interested
in the subject matter, or draws them into further learning.
Social media can be the ‘hook’ that facilitators and teachers
use to garner interest, and set the tone for deeper learning.
Interactivity
The ability for a learner to work on assigned learning
projects interactively through connections to information,
subject matter experts, facilitators, and other learners is
a key component of social constructivism.

22. Creativity
Through projects that require creativity, resolution of
cognitive conflict, and collaboration, students are able to
take control of the subject matter, and build knowledge
by comparing new information to their existing schemas.
Self-mediation
Students directing their own work, sharing learning
results and outcomes with each other, and making
their own decisions on how to proceed give
opportunities for learner self-mediation and reflection.

23. short text (140 characters) Twitter, Today’s Meet
brief text and multimedia Facebook, Padlet, Instagram
edited audio or video Mozilla Popcorn Maker, iMovie, YouTube
long form text, images,
and multimedia
Google Drive, Weebly, Wordpress
Implementing
social media

24. engagement Twitter, Today’s Meet
in-class Twitter chat,
backchannel,
talk to an expert
interactivity
Facebook, Padlet, Google
Docs and Hangouts
collaboration, teamwork,
peer feedback
creativity
Wikis, iMovie, Popcorn
Maker, podcasting,
pinboards
create, present, discover,
make connections
self-mediation
Google Drive, Weebly,
Wordpress
blogging, reflection,
sharing ideas, e-portfolios
Implementing
social media

25. What about autonomy?
• Surfaced as a recurring theme: the ability for a
learner to feel in control of their learning.
• We are trying to help students become learners, not
memorizers.
• In some cases, you can allow the student to choose
their own social media tools!
• Encourage learners to start growing their own social
media PLN (personal learning network).

26. Aligns well with
Blooms taxonomy

27. Challenges
• Students need guidance in understanding digital
citizenship.
• Must be easy to use, not buried in menus.
• Longevity of shared information.
• Options change over time.
• Students need access to device of some sort.

28. todaysmeet.com https://todaysmeet.com/smlearn

29. padlet.com
padlet.com/Ken/smlearn

30. www.gflashcards.com

31. education.weebly.com *free teacher accounts

32. Diigo.com *free teacher accounts

33. What next?
• If your social media ‘lessons’ follow the five
themes, you will have the best chance for success.
• Try just one thing as soon as you get back.
• Keep trying, it doesn’t always work.
• Be creative and flexible.

34. –John Dewey (1859-1952)
“If we teach today as we taught yesterday,
we rob our children of tomorrow”

35. Thank you
• slidedeck and cool links: kjeffery.com/etug2014
• follow me on Twitter: @kenjeffery