Using Social Media in Higher Education

Web Basics for Technology Enhanced Learning

Using Social Media

What is social media?

How can I use social media to enhance the learner experience in my school or support unit?

Web Basics for Technology Enhanced Learning

What is social media?

Social media enables people to share and disseminate information with friends and colleagues using the internet.

It is distinct from ‘broadcast media’ (one to many) such as television, film and static websites because it is designed to encourage social interaction (many to many) and create ‘user generated content’ transforming users from content consumers into content producers.

Web Basics for Technology Enhanced Learning

Popular social media sites:

Facebook: large global social network

Twitter: micro-blogging application

YouTube: video sharing

Delicious: social bookmarking

Ning: ‘walled garden’ social

networks

Blogger: personal blogs

WordPress: more blogs

Web Basics for Technology Enhanced Learning

Bringing all the content together:

Google:Add social media widgets and RSS feeds to your

iGoogle web portal to read and update content from

several different sites and applications in one place

Use Google Reader to subscribe to and share

content from blogs, websites, and social networks.

Posterous.com: Aggregate all your social media content

into one blog and share this blog with friends.

Why would I want to use social media in my learning and teaching?

To encourage interaction between students and staff outside the traditional classroom setting.

To enable students to participate fully in your courses - even when off-campus - through discussion forums and blog comments, for example.

To enable students to develop their analytical skills and engage in reflective practice through use of personal journals and blogs.

Why would I want to use social media in my learning and teaching?

To introduce students to a range of rich and powerful multi-media content such as videos, podcasts interactive quizzes, games and photos/images.

To increase the breadth and depth of resources available by using rss feeds from reputable and respected online websites, journals and social bookmarking sites to bring relevant and interesting content directly to your students.

How can I use social media to enhance the student experience?

Set up a private social network on Ning.com for your course and make use of blogs, videos, images, discussion boards and rss feeds all within the “walled garden”.

Set up a Twitter account and post ‘tweets’ containing useful information and/or links to articles on the web.

Create an online discussion forum or a blog for your students to participate and discuss articles via a moderated comment facility.

Web Basics for Technology Enhanced Learning

The Trinity LRC have already begun using Twitter

Web Basics for Technology Enhanced Learning

And created a blog....

Web Basics for Technology Enhanced Learning

UWL has a presence on Facebook....

Web Basics for Technology Enhanced Learning

UWL uses social bookmarks on Delicious....

Web Basics for Technology Enhanced Learning

UWL has recently launched the new online Learning Zone....

Web Basics for Technology Enhanced Learning

The SWWHEP eLearning Team have been working on the SWW TEL (South West Wales Tech Enhanced Learning) project for the past year and have been trialling a number of social media sites including:

NingTwitterBloggerDelicious Posterous Google Reader

Twitter Lists

SWW TEL on Delicious

SWW TEL on Blogger

SWW TEL on Posterous

Web Addresses

Come and share with us online!

http://trinitylrc.blogspot.com http://twitter.com/trinitylrc http://delicious.com/trinitytel http://twitter.com/juliadesigns/education-uk http://swwtel.blogspot.com http://swwtel.posterous.com/

And finally...

It is quite likely that you will agree with the sentiment below after a while!