Acceptable academic use of social media
Sunday, April 20th, 2008Last week John Krutsch asked me “do you think there is ever an ok way for teachers to use social media in classes or for course work without being creepy?”. My answer was yes if they are used in the right way, and that is what I would like to elaborate on.
The thing I find about integrating classroom tools into social media, is that for me to truly accept it the tool needs to serve a purpose. If the tool is just a calender that is inserted into the normal interface of a social device like Facebook or Myspace what is the point? what purpose does it serve? Student’s will still have to go to their course web site to truly do anything of importance, so in my opinion the app is just adding to the noise. I feel that the use of networks like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter should not be used in classes. (the one exception are classes on society or social behavior.) The use of these networks invades student’s private lives which they may want to keep separate from their school work.
While I find social devices mentioned above to not be acceptable there are platforms that are acceptable. Blogs for instance are a great source of information that are often used in a social way. The use of these for academics is highly acceptable because they can be used for the purpose of study or a way to get feedback from classmates. While blogs can be very effective they like other forms of social media need to be implemented correctly. The use of these types of media while less invasive can still feel very invasive to college students. That is why the way they are implemented is very important. Just requiring the use of blogs in your class can cause a creepy tree house effect, and may meet rejection from your students. I believe that if you explain the use of the blogs in class it will most likely have a much better effect. Also offering an alternative to blogging in your class may also accent this effect. While the use of social media in the classroom is acceptable you need to implement it correctly to achieve the desired effect.