Learn with Lynda: Social Media in the Classroom

Social Media tools and platforms are increasingly being used by institutions and academics to enhance teaching, learning and the student experience.
UCISA have recently published their Social Media Toolkit: a practical guide to achieving benefits and managing risks. This toolkit provides a general overview of social media, supported by specific guidance for particular types of user and scenario. It’s a great place to get started if you’re new to Social Media – it provides several case studies on how Social Media is currently being used in Higher Education.
As you may have already guessed, this month’s Learn with Lynda post focuses on Social Media in the Classroom.

Social Media in the Classroom (1h 55m) with Kevin Kelly

This course (delivered by Kevin Kelly, an Ed Tech consultant to HE) explores different approaches and strategies for using Social Media inside and outside of the classroom. The course has no prerequisites so it’s ideal for those who are interested in getting started with social media and using it to support their teaching.  The course doesn’t highlight all of the tools available but covers some of the most popular including Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.

• Creating guidelines for learning with social media in your class
• Guiding learners in “identity management”
• Using Twitter and a Google jockey to augment lectures
• Using Twitter for polls during lectures
• Classroom assessment technique: Using Twitter for the one-minute paper
• Using Diigo, Google Docs, and VoiceThread for small group projects

Remember, you don’t have to watch the entire course. The short bite-sized videos mean you can view the sections of the courses that are relevant to you and dip in and out at your own leisure.
If you require any further help getting started with Social Media for Teaching, Learning and Assessment, please contact the Technology Enhanced Learning team.
Don’t forget to let us know what you think of the course! Was it helpful? Was there anything you would add? Any takeaways you can apply to your teaching or would like to explore further?
Daniel
PS. Finally, we will be running the next iteration of ’10 Days of Twitter’ in April. Over the ten days, we’ll be exploring Twitter together. We’ll be sharing a daily post on a small aspect of Twitter, to get you up and running and exploring what Twitter might offer you.  Throughout, we’ll be focusing very practically and specifically on what Twitter can offer you.