social media for the social classroom

WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITYDEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION STUDIES

SOCIAL MEDIA, SOCIAL CLASSROOM

Bowman, N.D.

2 April 2014

#UTSMW

Media and Interaction Lab

http://www.cci.utk.edu/social-media-week


SIX POSTS = SIX POINTS

• Mass lectures are an historical and integral part of University experience…

• …that often leave students disengaged and disenfranchised

“…if the Professor has to use a mike, maybe that’s a sign…[of what?] ”



• Mass = one to many• Lecture = one-way

delivery

Join “Us”

Mass lectures, as with mass networks are incredibly efficient at distributing information, but their structure does not foster engagement.



• Common complaints:– Lack of cognitive engagement – Lack of “attendance”– Lack of P2P connectedness

• P2Peer & P2Professor



• One way to supplement the mass lecture is to increase out-of-class contact, but:– Office hours & study sessions are

corporeally restrictive (and can be cost-prohibitive)

– e-mail is attentionally restrictive – Learning management systems are

administrative, anti-social, and “artificial” to the Millenial(?)



• Facebook might address these by providing a persistent classroom– a ‘ready space’ for

engagement and relationships



• Given the (a) persistent nature and (b) natural usage of Facebook, the platform might serve as– Classroom Commons (Scharwtz,

2010)

– “Third Places” (Steinkuehler & Williams, 2006)

http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ873643

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2006.00300.x/pdf



• Sample– N = 321 students in

one mass lecture (195 male, 126 female; variety of majors)

– Voluntary enrollment in supplemental Facebook page

• Facebook Usage– 46% joined (n = 148)– Avg. of 6.88 posts (SD =

9.50, skew = 4.09); 1.88 responses per post

– Heavy positive skewed, suggesting a few ‘super-posters’ with many lurkers


SIX POSTS = SIX POINTSExam

ReviewAdmin Class-

Related Links

Peer Support

Humor Affect Unrelated Links

Instructor Support

Random

# posts 201 119 61 17 16 15 13 8 27

Avg # comments

per post3.60 2.47 1.46 3.41 2.74 .292 .288 .375 1.64

# posts initiated

by Instructor 64a60 39 0 3 1 5 8 13

Avg # of comments per post

3.66 1.22 .923 0 4.33 0 0 .375 2.92

# posts initiated

by students 137b59 22 17 13 14 8 0 14

Avg # of

comments per

post

3.54 3.71 2.00 3.41 1.15 4.39 3.75 0 .357

One student posted 81 times! 14 starts, 67 responses(final score = 81%)



• Cognitive learning – In-group: (M = 78.55%, SD

= 8.54) – Out-group: (M = 72.64%, SD = 13.60)

• “No” correlation between number of posts and grades – r = .158, p = .061

t(319) = 4.71, p < 001, eta-squared = .056



• Students’ had more positive dispositions toward – each other

• n = 133 “well-wishings”

– the course• One of 283 student posts expressed

negative commentary (test difficulty)• Of 17/96 negative comments about the

course in eSEI, none referenced technology

They also showed their Instructor a unique brand of … err … love.



• Students engaging class online scored higher on their exams– Increased contact with content– Increased contact with each other

• A ‘double-dose’ of (persistent) content, from multiple perspectives



• Quasi-experimental design does not account for self-selection– “rich get richer” effect?

• How accurate are the “super-users”– Invoking the jury theorem


TWEETING TO TEACHERS

• Twitter is useful for:– enhance

social presence in distance learning (Dunlap &

Lowenthal, 2009)

– Sharing knowledge nuggets “in the moment” (Skiba, 2008)

Twitter can get a great way to engage students when a “teachable moment” hits,

in particular one outside the classroom.

http://patricklowenthal.com/publications/Using_Twitter_to_Enhance_Social_Presence.pdf?referer=http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=twitter+in+classroom&hl=en&btnG=Search&as_sdt=1,49&as_sdtp=on#search=%22twitter%20classroom%22

http://nlnjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1043/1094-2831(2008)29%5B110:ETCNET%5D2.0.CO;2



• Early sample of tweets from #WVUCOM425– Course on Computer-Mediated

Communication– N = 34 in class (n = 13 involved on Twitter) – Course also used ‘combined’ Facebook page

http://hawksey.info/tagsexplorer/?key=tWpc6u27QQXOolLrTZkEyxA&sheet=oaw&mentions=true&retweets=true


Can you identify the two-step flow process in the #wvucom425 map?

http://hawksey.info/tagsexplorer/?key=tWpc6u27QQXOolLrTZkEyxA&sheet=oaw&mentions=true&retweets=true



Pros

• Connects students in a meaningful way with extra-curricular content (and people)

• Sustains conversations beyond the classroom

• Data easy to trace

Cons

• Cognitive demanding (Bowman et al, 2013)

• Exposes students (and their thoughts) to the general public

• Open for “hijacking” • Data easy to trace


CONCLUSIONS

• Social media can serve as a supplemental course activity

• Aid in… (Keitzmann et al 2011)

– Sharing of content– Conversations around content– Groups generating new content


CONCLUSIONS“His facebook page is awesome! It helps with studying for the test and getting general questions answered fast ...You could tell that he loves the subject and enjoys teaching it too.”

~ Blind Student Eval

“Dr. Bowman would stay on almost all night helping students with last minute questions”

But also….


…BUT A WARNING!

• “Millenials” ≠ “teched” (Hargittai, 2014)

• Not all tech is seen as easy to use (Bowman et al., 2012)


FOR MORE INFORMATION

Nick Bowman, Ph.D. [CV]Twitter (@bowmanspartan)Skype (nicholasdbowman)[email protected]

Media and Interaction Lab

http://comm.wvu.edu/fs/research/lab

http://ndbowman.info/cv.htm

mailto:[email protected]





COLLABORATORS

• Mete Akcaoğlu• Megan Bryand• Lindsay Carr• Matt Martin• Keith Weber• Martin Hawksey

• #WVUCOM105• #WVUCOM425• David Westerman• Elizabeth Cohen• Jaime Banks • Nicole Ellison

social media for the social classroom

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