Using Social Media to Support Presentation Skill Development in Traditional Classroom Environments

Social media has become widely adopted in both society and business. However, the academy has been slow to leverage social media as a learning tool. The purpose of this study is twofold. First, this study explores student perceptions about the use of social media in face-to-face classroom environments. Second, this study examines how social media, as a learning tool, supports presentation skill development. Using a proprietary social media application, we conducted a sequential mixed method study using students enrolled in undergraduate introductory information systems courses that included a student presentation project. One hundred seventy-seven students responded to a survey based on a facilitator and inhibitor model of social media use and an open-ended questionnaire to understand how social media impacts presentation skill development. The implications of the results from this study are discussed along with directions for future research.

iPhoneography in the Secondary Classroom

In this chapter the author describes a qualitative study aimed to explore how secondary students used smartphone technology to capture and share images via social media. The findings of the study include: digital identity construction, image sharing and social media, the perception of public vs. private, image sharing as critique, and iPhoneography as visual communication. Pedagogical implications of incorporating iPhoneography into existing visual art curricula are explored, and include suggestions for utlilzing iPhoneography to enhance skills in thematic development, as well as an effective tool for formative assessment. Finally, ways to challenge students creatively by using prompts inspired by contemporary photographers are proposed.

Examining the Benefits of Integrating Social Media Into the Classroom

Technology is ever-changing in the society we live in. Social media is one of the most popular technologies used fervently among our youth. Educators must recognize the opportunity to utilize familiar resources to engage our students in the learning process. In addition, social media can enhance collaboration, communication, research, discussion, and critical thinking skills. Furthermore, social media can provide educators the opportunity to model and teach the importance of digital citizenship. This chapter supports the benefits of integrating social media into the classroom as well as provides information on how to overcome concerns associated with implementing social media.

Social Media and the Rhetorical Situation

Recognizing that students develop rhetorical skills on social media, this chapter presents a number of writing assignments that ask students to engage with social media and complete a variety of tasks online. These tasks range from taking and posting a photograph, to revising social media posts for honesty, to creating memes. Each assignment then requires students to reflect on these experiences in formal written assignments. This reflective component encourages students to consider writing conventions, processes, and genres in order to develop “high road” and meta-cognitive transfer skills. These assignments have three primary goals: (1) they help students engage with course content, (2) they build student confidence, and (3) they ask students to practice transfer.

#WordUp!

In this chapter, the author argues that although integrating online social media networks into a traditional writing classroom seems timely, cutting edge, and apropos to students' current past-time activities, teachers have the opportunity to create more meaningful classroom activities with social media if they first: consider students' trepidation regarding such non-traditional classroom activities; and second: realize socially-networked students don't necessarily translate into career-ready students. By way of two in-class Q&A sessions, the author discovers that her Technical Writing students need less instruction on how to use social media academically, and more instruction on how to use social media to brand and market themselves professionally. In a chapter grounded in student response, readers receive her student feedback about the effects of integrating social media networks into their writing classroom in an effort to assist teachers more purposely integrate social media into their traditional classroom spaces.

Translation Competence

After Kiraly (2000) introduced the collaborative form of translation in classrooms, Pavlović (2007), Kenny (2008), and Huertas Barros (2011) provided empirical evidence that testifies to the impact of collaborative learning. This chapter sets out to describe the collaborative forms of learning at different stages in the translation processes in the Trans-Atlantic and Pacific Project, a long-term cross-cultural virtual team. It describes the forms of collaborative learning practised in this multilateral international project in technical communication and translator training programmes and explores the empirical data that the project may provide for future research into learning translation.

A Model for Mobile Social Media Integration in Constructivist ESL Classrooms

Social media, with its ability to create opportunities for interaction, presents a platform for applying technology into social constructivist learning contexts in innovative and meaningful ways. This chapter proposes a model for integrating mobile social media in a content-based ESL curriculum. Newly-arrived international art students were introduced to popular social media platforms and were trained on how to use these tools to conduct research and document their experiences in the field during a summer intensive program. Results are discussed in terms of effects on students' academic English knowledge and abilities, knowledge of local academic and creative cultures, and technology literacy. Finally, limitations and implications for future studies are explored.

An Ongoing Journey to Foster Urban Students' Online “Public Voices”

Digital participatory media offer urban social studies teachers a unique opportunity to foster students' civic skills and public voice while enhancing their understanding of social justice within a democratic society. This article addresses the continuation of a New York City 8th grade U.S. history teacher's journey to use digital tools to foster his students' collaborative and communication skills and to help them learn social justice oriented content. While doing so, he overcame challenges related to technology integration, curricular alignment, selection of appropriate digital tools, and the need to cultivate his students' online academic norms. In doing so, he confronted Livingston's query about whether the use of technology necessitates a “fundamental transformation in learning infrastructure” and the need “to rethink the relations between pedagogy and society, teacher and pupil, and knowledge and participation” (2012, p. 8). He ended this part of his journey with these new challenges: how to enable his students to become navigators of their learning; ways to align the curriculum with his students' thinking; and, managing a dynamic instructional support system guided by his students' learning. His goal is “to forge a bridge between [his students'] media production and civic engagement' (Kahne, Lee, & Feezell, 2012).

Utilizing Social Media to Engage Students in Online Learning

There is a large body of research suggesting that online students feel disconnected from their academic institutions. This sense of detachment may elicit feelings of frustration and isolation, as well as contribute to academic failure. Students' success and satisfaction in the online learning environment may be contingent upon the type of interaction between the student, faculty member, and their classroom peers. Online instructors are challenged with finding the means to bridge the gap of physical space to create authentic relationships. Social media, especially social networking, holds much promise for creating a space where emotional engagement between the instructor and students can be facilitated beyond the virtual classroom. The aim of this chapter is to share best practices in social media to engage the online student in a manner that is both productive and efficient.

Using the Motivational Aspects of Productive Persistence Theory and Social Media Motivators to Improve the ELA Flipped Classroom Experience

This chapter discusses the need to expand upon the pedagogical components of the flipped classroom model to include what is known about motivation as it relates to Productive Persistence Theory (PPT) and social media (SM) in order to increase student success in the English language arts. Motivational incentives suggested, in part, by the PPT literature, are identified and organized by its three non-cognitive aspects of grit, growth mindsets, and belonging. Motivators for SM use are identified in the literature and categorized as seeking, expressing, and engaging. Implications drawn are that student learning is personal, developmental, and social, all operating simultaneously. Also, that this multidimensionality is involved in motivating each individual student and that SM inherently supports such motivation. A conceptual framework is presented that demonstrates how both PPT and SM allow teachers to meet students where they are in their learning and in their personal and social growth and development.