From tweeting test tips to sharing news related to class topics, some professors at The University of Alabama have been able to enhance their classrooms with the integration of social media.
Dianne Bragg, an assistant professor in the department of journalism, said practicing with social media while still in school can help students know how to use it later in their careers if it becomes applicable.
“I just think that if you’re going to be a journalist [today], you have to be engaging with social media,” she said.
She uses the hashtag #BamaMC401 on Twitter to keep in touch with her students. She said she retweets posts that are relevant to her mass communication law and regulation class and encourages her students to do the same.
“It’s like, ‘If you see something, tweet that to me,’” Bragg said. “It might be something we want the whole class to see and know that’s happening.”
Classes outside of the College of Communications have also joined the social media scene. Steven Ramey, associate professor in the department of religious studies and director of Asian Studies, has created an assignment for his Survey of Asian Religions course (REL 220) based on Twitter. Each week his students must find and tweet a news article about Asian religion with their commentary and the hashtag #AsiaNewsUA.
Waverly Jones, a sophomore majoring in social work, is in a Survey of Asian Religion class this semester. She said she thought she was getting the chance to learn by participating in Ramey’s Twitter assignment.
“I think that this is a really interesting way to submit assignments,” she said. “I liked being able to go and see the articles that other students had submitted while I was researching mine.”
Michael Altman, an assistant professor in the department of religious studies, also uses Twitter. He said students can tweet questions during lecture with the hashtag #REL100UA, which show up on the screen in real time.
“If it only helps four or five people who use it a lot, who would not speak in class otherwise, then that’s a success for me,” Altman said.
Jones said one challenge of using social media in class is trusting students to use it professionally.
“I think it is interesting, but I don’t know if I would want this to be a regular thing,” Jones said. “A lot of students don’t really know how to separate their personal and academic or professional lives.”
Some faculty members share Jones’ concern about keeping professional and personal social media usage separate. Amy Chen, a Council on Library and Information Resources postdoctoral fellow, manages the social media accounts for the Division of Special Collections (Cool@Hoole).
“Posts or tweets or status updates that are just educational can be dry and fail to find an audience, but those that are just entertainment don’t really fit the mission of an educational institution like UA,” Chen said.
Bragg said collaboration is key when first testing out social media for classes.
“Go to someone who is successfully incorporating it into their class and see what they’re doing, and then start small,” she said.
Chen added that different departments and even colleges might be able to use social media differently depending on various factors.
“I think social media has a role in the classroom, but I think faculty members need to find what works for them and try one approach at a time,” Chen said. “Plus, every class is different – subjects, instruction styles, class sizes all dictate what works and what doesn’t.”
