Teaching, Collaborating and Networking with Digital Technologies and Social Media

• In Event: 3423 - Teaching and Learning Symposium Roundtable
  In Informal Discussion Roundtable: Table 9: Teaching Sociology with Nontraditional Texts

Abstract

Digital social technologies such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn have begun to make their mark on higher education pedagogy. Social media is increasingly being employed in the classroom to enhance students’ conceptual understanding of digitally-enabled social interaction, provide opportunities to practice networking and explore social network theory (see Rainie and Wellman 2014), and to develop collaborative civic and community-oriented relationships. Indeed, the skilled and thoughtful use of digital technology and social media enhances face-to-face communication in and out of the classroom, opening up avenues for, and piquing interest in, involvement in community organizations and social justice movements, reflecting the increasing enmeshment of the online and offline spheres (see Chayko 2018). Its use, however, requires careful planning, alignment with course objectives, and the implementation of strict and specific classroom social media policies. As a professor and director of an undergraduate program in digital communication, information and media, I have been researching, teaching, and working with digital technologies and social media in depth over the past decade, guiding and supervising dozens of instructors along the way. In this roundtable presentation, I will provide an overview of my use of Twitter and other social media technologies to foster and model concepts relevant to digitally-enabled social interaction and to enhance learning and collaboration. I will share elements of my planning process, both individually and for the program I direct, specific assignments and curricula (including an innovative cross-course assignment undertaken with faculty and students from two other universities), and the social media policies I developed to help the process unfold smoothly and safely. Finally, I will discuss how social justice-oriented civic and community relationships have developed as a result, and how students responded to and helped inspire and create these kinds of pedagogical innovations.

Chayko, M. (2018). Superconnected: The Internet, Digital Media, and Techno-Social Life. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Rainie, L. and Wellman, B. (2014). Networked: The New Social Operating System. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Author

• Mary Chayko, Rutgers University