Sharing on the Web, Not For Retweets, but A’s

 Kathryn Doheny for The Fordham Ram

This implementation of social media is just one example of how college professors are taking the classroom experience online. This trend has since taken off in American universities. College professors, for example, are using common resources such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Tumblr to engage students on platforms of which they are already a part. Some are tapping into smaller resources, such as Google+ Hangouts, WordPress and Edmondo, to introduce students to less popular, but more effective, mediums of social media.

According to one study conducted by Pearson Learning Solutions and the Babson Survey Research Group, 41 percent of college professors are using social media in the classroom, a seven percent jump from just a year ago. The goal is for professors to meet students where many of them are spending their time and energy, the Internet. So, does it work?

The answer relies on the success of a few critical components, each of which depends on how a professor introduces social media and how his or her students respond. One of these factors is creativity. The use of social media in classrooms is effective when it challenges students to use it to test their creative abilities.

Social media is exceedingly successful at allowing its users to produce content. Many of these targeted mediums allow students to go beyond traditional assignments and focus on visual and interactive elements of classroom materials. When designing websites, creating blogs or uploading videos, students are forced to make poignant decisions about how things are most effectively expressed. Allowing students to engage in social media forces them to consider the responses their material will foster among their peers.

Another essential factor is engagement. Professors must engage students in new ways, rather than replicating conventional activities and simply moving them online. Class lectures are traditionally seen as mundane and foster passive learning, but social media has the potential to turn this model on its head.  Some professors, for example, allow students to tweet questions during class for the teacher to answer after class. Students can answer these questions and use online conversations as study guides. Some professors create blogs, which allow students to incorporate information and resources to be found online.

This includes helpful documents from around the web and videos on major video sites, such as YouTube and Vimeo. The variety of materials available encourages students to search beyond the confines of a lecture. It teaches students that the college classroom is far more multidimensional than it often appears.

A third component is collaboration. Assigning students to group projects is not a new concept in college classrooms, but the incorporation of social media allows students to interact beyond the confines of face-to-face meetings. They can be in communication through Facebook pages, Tumblrs, Google Plus Hangouts and other resources in an attempt to participate in an ongoing conversation. This also prepares students for employment, because online collaboration is a necessary skill in today’s workplace. Employers seek young people who are social media savvy. Understanding how to target specific audiences and craft entertaining material is an essential in many job markets.

Elizabeth Cornell, an English professor at Fordham, has been incorporating social media into her classes for a number of years and has made great strides in fostering a more interconnected classroom community.

“Traditionally, the classroom has not been a social place. Students arrive to class, sit in a chair and, the teacher hopes, listen to a lecture and take notes,” said Cornell. “Social media can be a way to encourage students to be more active during class hours and outside of class.”

Cornell has incorporated a few major social media platforms to develop this teaching method, including Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter.

“I find Facebook to be particularly useful because most students are comfortable with that medium. It’s easy for them to write original material and respond to other people’s posts. However, I change things just a bit by having students write rather long posts (for Facebook) about something they’ve researched and include a link to supporting material,” said Cornell.

This incorporation of social media in the college classroom does not come without obstacles. When not engaged, students often retreat to social media for personal uses rather than academic uses. Also, some educators are worried that posting classroom information online might jeopardize the personal privacy of students and professors.

Similar to my initial reservations, students who are less active users of social media find social media to be an intrusive requirement for success in a course.

“There are many good reasons for not wanting to join the digital herd, including not wanting to divulge personal information to companies such as Facebook,” Cornell said. She who has had experiences with students who hesitate to join Facebook and Twitter for classroom purposes. Cornell is happy to accommodate students who are hesitant to create online profiles.

Whether these obstacles persist as a major hindrance to the implementation of social media in college classes remains unclear. It is safe to say, however, that social media is not disappearing anytime soon, and its impact on students will continue to grow. Whether or not students and professors will choose to intertwine education and social media is up to them.

The success of these efforts depends largely on professors, who must be at the cutting edge of new social media outlets, and students, who must be willing to engage with social media in the classroom — that is, for an A, not a “Like.”

Joseph Vitale, FCRH ’16, is an English major from Staten Island, N.Y.