SOCIAL MEDIA INTERACTIVE TOOL FOR CURRICULUM DELIVERY: EXPERIENCES OF FIRST YEAR PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS IN A RURAL SITUATED UNIVERSITY

Author(s):  
Billey Addam
2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 10-22
Author(s):  
Katie Steckles ◽  
Peter Rowlett ◽  
Angharad Ugonna

A survey was created to investigate the experiences of mathematics undergraduates with informal mathematical activity prior to starting university, and links these with the decision to study mathematics. A questionnaire was completed by a small sample of first-year undergraduates at two UK universities. Generally, incoming undergraduates are shown to have a high level of enjoyment of mathematics and engagement with informal mathematical activity. Popular activities included mathematical puzzles and games, and online videos about maths. Students were often engaged with family or via social media, playing computer, tablet or phone games, watching TV game shows with mathematical aspects and participating in organised competitions. Only around half engaged via talks or workshops organised through school and watching more structured documentaries or videos of lectures. Few participated in organised clubs. It seems there was greater engagement with ‘fun’ aspects of mathematics than with activities which demonstrate mathematics linked to career choice. The link to goals of outreach and similar initiatives is discussed, with further research indicated.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-17
Author(s):  
Momin Kashif ◽  
Mirza Nisar Baig

Background: The rapid growth and availability of smartphones and social media platforms (SMP) have changed the medical students' approach to learn and manage the information about their academic, personal and professional lives. Methods: An online survey was done in undergraduate medical students of PIMS, Karimnagar to collect information about usage pattern and perception of SMP, and willingness to participate for using SMP as a learning tool in medical education. Results: Total 433 (Females – 275) out of 600 students participated in the survey from the first year (125), secondyear (151) and third-year (157) MBBS students. Everyone is using some type of SMP. They find SMP nearly equal to lecture materials and subject notes as a useful learning tool and there was significantly increasing trend of perception of SMP being a useful learning tool from the first-year (79%), second-year (83%) to third-year (92%), (p=0.01). Almost 93% want to see SMP used at institute level in medical education. Female students (52.4%) are significantly more willing for active participation than male students (43%), p=0.04. First-year students (56%) are more ready for active participation followed by third (48.4%) and second (43.7%) year students, p=0.08. Conclusion: Most students are willing to include SMP in medical education as a learning tool and ready to participate in different activities if they get the required training. As all students have smartphones and efficiently utilizing different services on their devices, SMP can become an effective learning tool in medical education.


10.2196/13076 ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (12) ◽  
pp. e13076
Author(s):  
Sara Melvin ◽  
Amanda Jamal ◽  
Kaitlyn Hill ◽  
Wei Wang ◽  
Sean D Young

Background Social media data can be explored as a tool to detect sleep deprivation. First-year undergraduate students in their first quarter were invited to wear sleep-tracking devices (Basis; Intel), allow us to follow them on Twitter, and complete weekly surveys regarding their sleep. Objective This study aimed to determine whether social media data can be used to monitor sleep deprivation. Methods The sleep data obtained from the device were utilized to create a tiredness model that aided in labeling the tweets as sleep deprived or not at the time of posting. Labeled data were used to train and test a gated recurrent unit (GRU) neural network as to whether or not study participants were sleep deprived at the time of posting. Results Results from the GRU neural network suggest that it is possible to classify the sleep-deprivation status of a tweet’s author with an average area under the curve of 0.68. Conclusions It is feasible to use social media to identify students’ sleep deprivation. The results add to the body of research suggesting that social media data should be further explored as a potential source for monitoring health.


Author(s):  
Brian C. Harrell

This chapter explores the idea, and offers three real-life, classroom tested assignments, of using the rules of social media, specifically Twitter, to teach students the rhetorical moves needed to write essays of college length and quality. The assignments provide first-year composition students the tools necessary to read an academic article, understand the rhetoric behind it, and apply rhetorical strategies it to his or her writing. The three assignments: 1) rhetorically analyze Twitter and create a formula for an effective tweet; 2) rhetorically analyzing an academic article 140 characters at a time; and 3) rhetorically analyzing a student's own paper using these same 140-character sound bites, have shown to put students in a position to be successful in the academy. Each assignment has been fully vetted over three years, with a myriad of student examples. This paper shows that the rules of Twitter can be used academically to provide a knowledge base and scaffolding for student writers.


2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 388-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brandon Boatwright

Chris Yandle is in his first year as the director of communications at the University of Miami, joining the Hurricanes program on July 14, 2012. Yandle serves as the Hurricanes’ primary football contact and also oversees day-to-day operations of the athletics communications office. Since arriving in Miami, he has implemented a communications style guide for clean, consistent style usage across all platforms and a streamlined social-media approach that has seen Hurricane sports Twitter followers surpass 30,000 and its Facebook page reach 200,000 likes. He also oversees social-media education of Hurricanes student-athletes, coaches, and staff.


2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Katri Kerem ◽  
Dietmar Sternad

Subject area Marketing, branding, strategic management, online retailing, and entrepreneurship. Study level/applicability Postgraduate courses in: strategic management; marketing management (branding); and entrepreneurship. Case overview The case describes the founding and the first year of an Estonian internet start-up, the “deal-of-the-day” web site Cherry.ee. The focal topic of the case is the analysis of alternative scenarios for the further development of the company after the first year in business: selling the company, entering into a merger with similar businesses, or continuing to develop the brand independently. The case gives an example of creating a new market, introducing a new business model and launching a brand with substantial use of social media marketing. The successful business model was quickly copied by a lot of followers creating a fierce competitive environment and raising a question of sustainability of the competitive advantage. The case provides an opportunity to discuss how to strategically handle the development of a growing start-up company in an increasingly competitive market environment. Expected learning outcomes Understanding the critical success factors and potential pitfalls for an internet start-up; developing skills to critically analyze the concept of sustainable competitive advantage; comprehension of the main factors influencing the strategic decision on whether to follow a growth, cooperation, or exit strategy; and awareness of the relative advantages of online and offline marketing and understanding how social media strategies can be used to build a brand. Supplementary materials Teaching note.


Author(s):  
Vickel Narayan ◽  
Jan Herrington ◽  
Thom Cochrane

Mobile and social media over the last decade has created significant shifts in society: how we communicate and collaborate, and in learning and teaching. This paper discusses a study that investigated how mobile social media tools and affordances could be harnessed to facilitate a student-determined learning experience (heutagogy). A design-based research (DBR) approach was utilised to analyse and investigate a set of draft design principles that was established in collaboration with a group of teachers and literature. The draft design principles guided the design of a first year course that was iteratively implemented and evaluated over 2 years with two different cohorts of students. As a key outcome of the DBR, a set of refined design principles is presented. These principles are capable of guiding other practitioners in designing and facilitating student-determined learning in authentic contexts using mobile devices, and social media affordances.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorna Ginnell ◽  
James P Boardman ◽  
Rebecca Reynolds ◽  
Sue Fletcher-Watson

Children born preterm (before 37 weeks of gestation) are at risk for several adverse childhood outcomes. Parent priorities for research into these outcomes, and preferences for receiving information about these risks, have not previously been established. 149 parents of preterm children between the ages of 0 and 12 years from around the UK completed an online survey, circulated through social media. Parent priorities for research centre around prevention of difficulties and development of interventions. The majority of parents would prefer for communication to begin within the first year of the child’s life. Parents reported a knowledge gap among health visitors, early years educators and schools. Training for these professionals could improve the experiences of families and children.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-97
Author(s):  
Sarah Bartlett Schroeder

A Review of: Evanson, C., & Sponsel, J. (2019). From syndication to misinformation: How undergraduate students engage with and evaluate digital news. Communications in Information Literacy, 13(2), 228-250. https://doi.org/10.15760/comminfolit.2019.13.2.6 Abstract Objective – To determine how new undergraduate students access, share, and evaluate the credibility of digital news. Design – Asynchronous online survey and activity. Setting – A small private, liberal arts college in the southeastern United States of America. Subjects – Participants included 511 incoming first-year college students. Methods – Using the Moodle Learning Management System, incoming first-year students completed a mandatory questionnaire that included multiple choice, Likert scale, open-ended, and true/false questions related to news consumption. Two questions asked students to identify which news sources and social networking sites they have used recently, and the next two questions asked students to define fake news and rate the degree to which fake news impacts them personally and the degree to which it impacts society. The end of the survey presented students with screenshots of three news stories and asked them to reflect on how they would evaluate the claim in the story, their confidence level in the claim, and whether or not they would share this news item on social media. The three items chosen represent certain situations that commonly cause confusion for news consumers: (a) a heading that does not match the text of the article, (b) a syndicated news story, and (c) an impostor URL and fake news story. Researchers coded the student responses using both preset and emergent codes. Main Results – Eighty-two percent of students reported using at least one social media site to access political news in the previous seven days. Students reported believing that fake news is a worrying trend for society, with 86% labelling it either a “moderate” or “extreme” barrier to society’s ability to recognize accurate information. However, they expressed less concern about their own ability to navigate an information environment in which fake news is prevalent, with 51% agreeing that it has only somewhat of an effect on their own ability to effectively navigate digital information. Of the three news items presented to them, students expressed the least confidence (an average of 1.55/4) and least interest in sharing (12%) the first news item, in which the heading does not match the text. However, only 14% of respondents noted this mismatch. In evaluations of the second item, an AP news item on the Breitbart website, 35% of students noted the website on which the article was found, but fewer noted that the original source is the Associated Press. Student responses to the third article, a fake news item from a website masquerading as an NBC website, show that 37% of students believed the source to come from a legitimate NBC source. Only 7% of students recognized the unusual URL, and 24% of respondents indicated that they might share this news item on social media. Conclusion – The study finds that impostor URLs and syndicated news items might confuse students into misevaluating the information before them, and that librarians and other instructors should raise awareness of these tactics.


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