3 Tips for Teachers Using Social Media in the Classroom

Dan Klamm is the Marketing Communications Coordinator at Syracuse University Career Services, where he leads social media engagement. Connect with him on Twitter @DanKlamm and @CareerSU.

Social media opens up all new avenues of communication for college students, their classmates and their professors. A typical class may only take a few hours a week, but now with social media, the classroom can be a lively, 24/7 experience. Professors are more accessible, often clarifying assignments via Twitter or sharing content on their blogs.

Students benefit from these extra communication channels. They can process information and contribute to class discussions at their own pace. They can more easily ask questions of their peers and professors.

This new layer of conversation also raises questions about appropriate boundaries, such as whether students and teachers can connect online as “friends.” The state of Missouri recently took a stand, declaring Facebook friendships between students and teachers illegal.

But that shouldn’t discourage the opportunities presented by social media in the classroom. Here are some guidelines for educators using social media effectively while maintaining professional boundaries.

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1. Survey Your Students About Social Media

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Ask your students how they use various social platforms and which ones (if any) they would be interested in integrating into class. Some students may be ardently opposed to using Facebook for educational purposes, for example, while others might think it’s great. Suggest possibilities, such as adding a Twitter backchannel to classroom discussions or holding extra office hours on Google+ two evenings per week. See which ideas stick and think about which ideas align with your course objectives.

Social media is a way to enhance student learning and grow discussions. For this reason, it’s important that students feel comfortable with whatever social media you decide to integrate into the course. If they don’t buy-in, the experience will not be as rewarding for them or for you.

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2. Utilize Groups and Communities

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Take advantage of the many options that exist for group discussion. With Facebook, you can establish a class page (or even a private class group) where students can interact with each other, post content and ask questions. With Twitter, you can create a “class hashtag” which all students can use to tag their tweets about course-related content.

Also consider Ning groups, CourseSites.com and other niche community platforms. The goal is to get students communicating with other students and with the professor without having to follow or friend anyone. This allows students to reap the benefits of engaging with the class community but does not force them to share their private profiles and digital lives with every class they join.

Keep your communication with students in the official group or page designated to the class. The last thing a student wants is a professor intruding on his or her personal Facebook wall to announce that an assignment is late. Likewise, if you follow students on Twitter, use your judgment in commenting on their personal tweets. Keeping class interactions in transparent groups will also quash any appearance of impropriety or inappropriate student/professor relationships.

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3. Establish Clearly Communicated Boundaries

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Once you decide how you’ll be using social media, let your students know the boundaries of how they should engage with you. For example, some teachers will welcome retweets or friend requests, while others might prefer privacy. This will reduce the chances for hurt feelings or misunderstandings down the line. You can even use this as an opportunity to educate students on the importance of being aware of one’s privacy settings and their implications for one’s career.

This also involves setting boundaries for yourself on what is appropriate to express on your social networking profiles. If you encourage students to follow your tweets, for instance, you should more carefully consider what kind of messages you post. Be prepared for students to form perceptions of you based on what you say (or don’t say) via social media.

By some estimates, more than 80% of college professors use social media in some way. As more and more educators venture into the world of online technology, new and innovative possibilities will emerge. By being mindful of your students’ comfort levels, encouraging group discussion on official class pages and being clear about your boundaries, you will create lively and extremely useful communication channels for your students.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Bard College at Simon’s Rock

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Tech Talk Podcast: Social Network Burnout

Feeling overwhelmed with keeping up appearances on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and all the other social media sites you use? Stephanie Rosenbloom, a New York Times reporter, provides some tips on this week’s Bits: Tech Talk podcast for streamlining your online presence so you have more time for your offline life. (Also in the interest of saving time, the Tip of the Week segment looks at a way to speed up e-mail conversations by jumping to chat mode from a message.)

Not sure what the term “augmented reality” means these days? This week’s Tech Talk Term of the Week segment explains it all.

The business world has always had its ups and downs, but the Flame Index site tracks a company’s bad times. It rounds up news about events affecting a company and ranks the companies having the worst time of it. John Jones, one of the site’s creators, explains how the Flame Index collects the headlines and creates its frequently updated list of corporate woe.

This week’s episode also takes a quick look at the week’s news — including Google’s grab for Motorola Mobility, Microsoft’s new Windows 8 blog and the Federal Trade Commission’s crackdown on companies that violate the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.

To find out more about the show and links to topics that were discussed, go to the Tech Talk page.

You can download the show by subscribing from the New York Times podcast page or directly from iTunes.

For help finding specific segments of the Bits: Tech Talk podcast, use these time codes:

News – 31:19
Stephanie Rosenbloom – 21:12
Tech Term – 12:10
Flameindex.com – 09:08
Tip of the Week – 3:23

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