This past weekend I spoke at a panel with Dr. Janni Aragon from University of Victoria. Both Dr. Aragon and I teach in our respective universities’ Departments of Political Science, and we are both heavy users of social media in the classroom. We gave a 45 minute joint talk on social media in the classroom (I’ve spoken about this topic extensively in the past, both at Northern Voice 2011, at American University Social Media Club 2011 and I’ve also given workshops and keynotes on the topic).
My experience (e.g. the empirical evidence I have gathered, and the information Dr. Aragon shared during our talk) points to social media as an innovative tool that should not replace good teaching practices, but enhance them. We also discussed how using and implementing social media in the classroom should take into account issues of privacy, workload and learning curves for the social media platforms.
Have you experimented with social media in the classroom?
Hello Raul.
I enjoyed both of your presentations at Social Media Camp, especially the one on teaching. The descriptions that you and your colleague gave about using social media all seemed quite plausible but the courses you talked about where ones where students are mostly evaluated on the essays and reports they produce and on their participation in discussions.
Can you tell me anything about the use of social media by faculty members in departments like Physics or Electrical Engineering where students spend most of their time solving problems that require mathematical solutions? I am very curious about how social media is used in the teaching of such courses.
Thank you.