Student Engagement: Using Social Media
to Reach Beyond the Classroom
Andrew Wright, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of CIS
andrew.wright@louisville.edu
louisville.edu/faculty/alwrig01
(find under Presentations)
College of Business Teaching and Learning Initiative
August 26, 2011
Objectives
 Participants will:
 discuss different types of social media tools that can be used to
engage students in learning and dialogue
 apply these ideas to their teaching context and practice
 examine the advantages and challenges these technologies
present
 As we go through the presentation, feel free to share your
own experiences using these (and other technologies)
 At the end of our session, I’ll ask you to share which
techniques you think you’d like to try and why
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Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
Overview
 Student Engagement
 Clickers 2.0
 YouTube
 Facebook
 Google+
 Twitter
 Privacy
 Blackboard
 Purdue
 Your Turn!
3
Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
Student engagement
“Student engagement is perhaps the key element for almost
any learning context. When engaged, learners are
enthusiastic and excited about the subject. Their work is
informed by the enjoyment of discovery. Engaged learners
work willingly, instead of by coercion, and approach their
assignments as something that matters to them personally.
The spirit engendered by engaged learners in a course is
infectious, spreading among and sustaining all participants. It
follows that devising techniques, supported by technology, to
capture, retain, and sustain student engagement should be at
the forefront of course design.”
Brown, Malcolm, et al. A Dialogue for Engagement. EDUCAUSE
Review, vol. 45, no. 5 (September/October 2010).
4
Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
Student engagement
“Student engagement is perhaps the key element for almost
any learning context. When engaged, learners are
enthusiastic and excited about the subject. Their work is
informed by the enjoyment of discovery. Engaged learners
work willingly, instead of by coercion, and approach their
assignments as something that matters to them personally.
The spirit engendered by engaged learners in a course is
infectious, spreading among and sustaining all participants. It
follows that devising techniques, supported by technology, to
capture, retain, and sustain student engagement should be at
the forefront of course design.”
Brown, Malcolm, et al. A Dialogue for Engagement. EDUCAUSE
Review, vol. 45, no. 5 (September/October 2010).
5
Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
Student engagement
“Student engagement is perhaps the key element for almost
any learning context. When engaged, learners are
enthusiastic and excited about the subject. Their work is
informed by the enjoyment of discovery. Engaged learners
work willingly, instead of by coercion, and approach their
assignments as something that matters to them personally.
The spirit engendered by engaged learners in a course is
infectious, spreading among and sustaining all participants. It
follows that devising techniques, supported by technology, to
capture, retain, and sustain student engagement should be at
the forefront of course design.”
Brown, Malcolm, et al. A Dialogue for Engagement. EDUCAUSE
Review, vol. 45, no. 5 (September/October 2010).
6
Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
Student engagement
“Student engagement is perhaps the key element for almost
any learning context. When engaged, learners are
enthusiastic and excited about the subject. Their work is
informed by the enjoyment of discovery. Engaged learners
work willingly, instead of by coercion, and approach their
assignments as something that matters to them personally.
The spirit engendered by engaged learners in a course is
infectious, spreading among and sustaining all participants. It
follows that devising techniques, supported by technology, to
capture, retain, and sustain student engagement should be at
the forefront of course design.”
Brown, Malcolm, et al. A Dialogue for Engagement. EDUCAUSE
Review, vol. 45, no. 5 (September/October 2010).
7
Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
Student engagement
“Student engagement is perhaps the key element for almost
any learning context. When engaged, learners are
enthusiastic and excited about the subject. Their work is
informed by the enjoyment of discovery. Engaged learners
work willingly, instead of by coercion, and approach their
assignments as something that matters to them personally.
The spirit engendered by engaged learners in a course is
infectious, spreading among and sustaining all participants. It
follows that devising techniques, supported by technology, to
capture, retain, and sustain student engagement should be at
the forefront of course design.”
Brown, Malcolm, et al. A Dialogue for Engagement. EDUCAUSE
Review, vol. 45, no. 5 (September/October 2010).
8
Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
Student engagement
“Student engagement is perhaps the key element for almost
any learning context. When engaged, learners are
enthusiastic and excited about the subject. Their work is
informed by the enjoyment of discovery. Engaged learners
work willingly, instead of by coercion, and approach their
assignments as something that matters to them personally.
The spirit engendered by engaged learners in a course is
infectious, spreading among and sustaining all participants. It
follows that devising techniques, supported by technology, to
capture, retain, and sustain student engagement should be at
the forefront of course design.”
Brown, Malcolm, et al. A Dialogue for Engagement. EDUCAUSE
Review, vol. 45, no. 5 (September/October 2010).
9
Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
Student engagement
“Student engagement is perhaps the key element for almost
any learning context. When engaged, learners are
enthusiastic and excited about the subject. Their work is
informed by the enjoyment of discovery. Engaged learners
work willingly, instead of by coercion, and approach their
assignments as something that matters to them personally.
The spirit engendered by engaged learners in a course is
infectious, spreading among and sustaining all participants. It
follows that devising techniques, supported by technology, to
capture, retain, and sustain student engagement should be at
the forefront of course design.”
Brown, Malcolm, et al. A Dialogue for Engagement. EDUCAUSE
Review, vol. 45, no. 5 (September/October 2010).
10
Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
Student engagement
“Student engagement is perhaps the key element for almost
any learning context. When engaged, learners are
enthusiastic and excited about the subject. Their work is
informed by the enjoyment of discovery. Engaged learners
work willingly, instead of by coercion, and approach their
assignments as something that matters to them personally.
The spirit engendered by engaged learners in a course is
infectious, spreading among and sustaining all participants. It
follows that devising techniques, supported by technology, to
capture, retain, and sustain student engagement should be at
the forefront of course design.”
Brown, Malcolm, et al. A Dialogue for Engagement. EDUCAUSE
Review, vol. 45, no. 5 (September/October 2010).
11
Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
Student engagement
“Student engagement is perhaps the key element for almost
any learning context. When engaged, learners are
enthusiastic and excited about the subject. Their work is
informed by the enjoyment of discovery. Engaged learners
work willingly, instead of by coercion, and approach their
assignments as something that matters to them personally.
The spirit engendered by engaged learners in a course is
infectious, spreading among and sustaining all participants. It
follows that devising techniques, supported by technology, to
capture, retain, and sustain student engagement should be at
the forefront of course design.”
Brown, Malcolm, et al. A Dialogue for Engagement. EDUCAUSE
Review, vol. 45, no. 5 (September/October 2010).
12
Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
Student engagement
“Student engagement is perhaps the key element for almost
any learning context. When engaged, learners are
enthusiastic and excited about the subject. Their work is
informed by the enjoyment of discovery. Engaged learners
work willingly, instead of by coercion, and approach their
assignments as something that matters to them personally.
The spirit engendered by engaged learners in a course is
infectious, spreading among and sustaining all participants. It
follows that devising techniques, supported by technology, to
capture, retain, and sustain student engagement should be at
the forefront of course design.”
Brown, Malcolm, et al. A Dialogue for Engagement. EDUCAUSE
Review, vol. 45, no. 5 (September/October 2010).
13
Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
Student engagement
 Students are more engaged when:




they are knowledge creators and not just knowledge receivers
there is a feeling of producing work for a wider audience
there are alternative venues for expression
there is a sense of a learning community
Brown, Malcolm, et al. A Dialogue for Engagement. EDUCAUSE
Review, vol. 45, no. 5 (September/October 2010).
 Technology can help with all of these!
 Digital media project that gets put on YouTube
 Facebook group where students in your class may connect with
one another (and you) beyond classroom interaction
 Using a blog for journaling about their studies and discoveries
 And many more!
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Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
Clickers can add engagement but…
 Students have to buy them, and remember to bring them to
class, and have a working battery, etc.
 They all seem to have cell phones with them at all times…
 And they seem quite adept at texting on them…
 So, why don’t we let them use their cell phones to participate
in polls in class?
 We can!!!
 And we will in this session!
 There are many tools available online that allow you to set up
polls that use text messaging but I’m going to use
PollEverywhere
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Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
How To Vote via Texting
TIPS
1. Standard texting rates only (worst case US $0.20)
2. We have no access to your phone number
3. Capitalization doesn’t matter, but spaces and spelling do
How To Vote via pollev.com
TIP
Capitalization doesn’t matter, but spaces and spelling do
Poll Everywhere Plans
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Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
What about YouTube?
 One way to use YouTube is simply by linking to relevant
videos on the site
 Sometimes, can make a point far more effectively with a video
 The Machine is Us/ing Us, Did You Know 3.0, Did You Know 4.0
 Selective Attention Test
 There is an EDU area in YouTube: youtube.com/edu
 Don’t forget the Research Channel
 Another way is as an outlet for student projects
 Instead of always having students write a term paper, I let them
choose more creative outlets including digital media projects
 Security Video Contest Winners – my students participated but
didn’t win 
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Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
With PowerPoint 2010
 You can embed YouTube and other web videos directly onto
slide
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Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
YouTube Poll
Why is everyone talking about
Facebook?
 Students (and everyone else, it seems) spend a lot of time
using Facebook
 According to the Pearson Social Media Survey 2010, just over
80% of surveyed faculty are social media users and 30% use
social media to connect to students (with FB leading the way)
 LinkedIn is for professional networking but far fewer use it
 Facebook reports more than 750 million users, with 50% of
active users logging in daily
 Over 200 million users access through mobile devices
 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States
 More than one million developers and entrepreneurs from more than 190
countries
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Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
How can I use Facebook for class?
 Break down barriers between you and your students and get
to know each other (virtually)
 Need to have an account first!
 Should I use a separate profile? Probably
 Unless you are a FB privacy ninja, it can be hard to keep track of which
group/list can see what items… Oops, I just let my students see my
drunken Vegas pics!
 That said, I don’t use a separate profile
 Students that friend me (I don’t initiate friending of students) get to see
some of my personality
 I don’t mind them seeing that I like obscure Japanese anime or the
Louisville AIDS Walk or a random post about my parents’ health
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Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
How can I use Facebook for class?
 Set up separate groups for each of your classes
 The new Group settings make it easy to selectively share
information with a set of people
 Supports group chat, docs (a shared notepad), and mailing list
notifications
 Easy to add new group from FB left navigation bar
 I set up a FB group for a Dine and Discover session
 I’ve added some resources already and I hope you all will join me and add
some more
 At start of semester, publish URL and invite students to join up
 Remind them about FB’s ever-changing privacy settings!
24
Schaffhauser, Diane. The Super-Secret, Never-Before-Revealed Guide to
Web 2.0 in the Classroom. Campus Technology, vol. 44, no. 2 (October
2010).
Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
How can I use Facebook for class?
 Set up an icebreaker in your class’ FB group
 Give them a format with specific questions you want to see but
also let them share their personality
 Study group organizer
 Suggest that students post to the class FB group page when they
are looking for some help
 Reflections on learning
 Informal reflections, not for assessment (don’t confuse with
Blackboard!)
 Virtual office hours
 Shout-outs!
25
Schaffhauser, Diane. The Super-Secret, Never-Before-Revealed Guide to
Web 2.0 in the Classroom. Campus Technology, vol. 44, no. 2 (October
2010).
Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
Facebook Poll
What about Google+ ?
 Google+ is one of the fastest growing social networking sites in
history
 Interesting features include Circles, Hangouts, and Sparks
 Circles make it easy to create groups among your friends and
colleagues and share information selectively
 Hangouts lets you easily create a group video chat
 “Reactions in higher education circles to Google's latest foray into
social media have been mixed. There's a skepticism out there
engendered by Google's earlier failures in the social media arena,
as well as concerns about how the search giant will use the
personal information collected on the network. But there's also a
real enthusiasm for the social network's potential.” – John K.
Waters http://campustechnology.com/articles/2011/08/24/google-inspires-excitement-hesitation-ininstructors.aspx
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Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
Google+ Poll
What is Twitter?
 Twitter is a microblogging site – each post (or tweet) is a
maximum of 140 characters
 Part blog, part social networking site, part cell phone/IM tool
 “After creating an account, you can personalize your profile
page and enter tweets into a text field. Unless your tweets
are protected, they appear on a “public timeline” page, which
displays all public tweets in reverse chronological order, like
a series of “micro-blogs.” Each tweet identifies the Twitterer,
whose screen name links to that person’s profile page,
showing all of her previous tweets and her friends’ tweets.”
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Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
How might I use Twitter for class?
 As with Facebook, might want to have separate account to
follow your students’ tweets
 Learn the Twitter shorthand
 @username: creates a link to that user in your post
 Retweet: to copy someone else's post in a new update
 #hashtag: helps to organize your tweets into categories for
easier searching
 You, too, can follow me: @alwrig01
 You’ll be disappointed… I tweet once every 6 months 
Getting started with Twitter (video)
30
Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
How might I use Twitter for class?
 UT-Dallas, The Twitter Experiment – use in large lectures to
engage more students in discussion
31
Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
How might I use Twitter for class?
 Have students tweet about things that they find related to class
topics
 News items, blog posts, etc.
 Suggest #hashtags to organize
 #InfoSec, #Database, etc.
 Can help create a learning community
 Have students follow leaders in their discipline
 @BillGates, @jack_welch, @fastcompany, @timoreilly
 Tweet about your experiences while at a conference
 Some conferences have setup #tags, such as #EDUCAUSE10
 Teach literature?
 Have class tweet in character for a day
 Teach a foreign language?
 Have students follow some native speakers to learn (see @iVenus)
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Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
How might I use Twitter for class?
 David Green summarizes his use of Twitter:
 “I typically send a discussion ‘tweet’ each week, read and
summarize students' responses, and begin the following class
with a thirty-minute group discussion in which I incorporate
the students' responses (Table 2).” – A Dialogue for Engagement
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Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
Twitter Poll
Should I have privacy concerns?
 Privacy should be a real concern for users of social networking sites
 Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg – “People have really gotten
comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but
more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that
has evolved over time.”
 We talk about privacy extensively in our first course for CIS majors
 Learn the privacy settings yourself and lead by example
 FERPA raises many questions
 “Should graded or optional work be posted on public sites? May peers post
feedback on other students’ work? Is it acceptable to leave any kind of
evaluative comments on public sites containing student work? Should access
to student work be limited to those in the course? The answers to these
questions may vary by institution, but FERPA places the burden of ensuring
the privacy of the education record on the institution.”
7 Things You Should Know About Privacy in Web 2.0 Learning
Environments, EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative.
35
Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
Maybe I should stick to Blackboard?
 Blackboard would seem the best spot for primary course
content and assessment activities
 Clear boundaries between professional and personal
 Fewer issues with privacy concerns
 Blackboard does offer some tools for the Web 2.0-curious
instructor within its walls
 Currently, UofL is using a third-party tool (Learning Objects’
Campus Pack) to provide blogs and wikis
 New version of Blackboard has built-in support but (as I understand it),
we are sticking with current tools until contract is up
 Delphi offers Getting Started guides for using blogs and wikis
 See Campus Pack’s Quick Start Guides and User Guide
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Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
Maybe I should stick to Blackboard?
 Blogs in Blackboard are often used for personal reflection (private
journals) and community discussions
 May set up in any content area
 May also set up a course level blog used by instructor to
communicate with class
 Think Announcements with student comments
 ProfHacker suggests using a blog for independent study
 For more examples, see BlogsForLearning
 Reflective writing exercises in a blog are an excellent way to
engage students in metacognition
 In simple terms, metacognition is thinking about thinking, knowing
what we know and what we don’t know
 Studies indicate that increases in learning follow from direct
instruction in metacognitive strategies
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Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
On metacognition
 “When students have knowledge and control of their own cognitive
processes, learning is enhanced; this assertion holds regardless of the
domain of learning, whether reading, writing, science, mathematics, or
any other activity that involves thinking.” – Linda Baker
http://www.education.com/reference/article/metacognition/
 Strategies for developing metacognitive behaviors
 Ask students to identify “what you know” and “what you don't know” at the
start.
 Ask to students to keep a “thinking journal” in which students reflect upon
their thinking and how they have dealt with difficulties throughout the
process.
 Ask students to debrief the thinking process with closure activities that focus
on thinking processes to develop strategies that can be applied to other
learning situations.
- Elaine Blakely and Sheila Spence
http://www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Dev_Metacognition/
38
Using the Latest Instructional Tools for Teaching
Maybe I should stick to Blackboard?
 Wikis in Blackboard are often used with team projects
 Members of the team collaborate to produce online site
 Also empowers the instructor with assessment details such as
student submissions and percentage of participation within the
group
 Exam question wiki
 This semester, I’m adding a wiki to each course to let students
add and edit potential test questions
 I’ll choose some from the ones that they have created
 Built-in review!
 For more examples, see The Power of Wikis in Higher Ed
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Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
Assessing a blog or wiki
 The Assessment tool built into Campus Pack provides
transparency into assignments
 Instructors can see student contributions to blogs and wikis,
as well as gain a better understanding of student progress
 Click the Assessment link in a site for item statistics
40
Using the Latest Instructional Tools for Teaching
Assessing a blog or wiki
 Instructors can click on a
student and Evaluate Participants
individually
41
Using the Latest Instructional Tools for Teaching
Maybe I should stick to Blackboard?
 New version of Blackboard makes it easier to incorporate
YouTube, Flickr, and SlideShare content into your course
 Find under Build Content, Mashups
 Can embed video directly in content area as below
42
Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
How Purdue is doing IT
 Purdue is going beyond just using tools and has started
creating them
 Hotseat
 Lets students to comment on a class and then enables other
participants to view those messages
 Students can use their Twitter, Facebook or MySpace accounts
to post the messages or use the HotseatWeb directly
 Mixable
 Lets students create online study groups and participate in them
from within Facebook
 Also lets users sync and share documents via Dropbox
43
Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
Your turn!
 What are some ways you are using social media to increase
engagement and improve upon your best teaching practices?
 Which of these techniques do you think you might
incorporate?
44
Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
References and Resources
 Brown, Malcolm, et al. A Dialogue for Engagement. EDUCAUSE
Review, vol. 45, no. 5 (September/October 2010).
 7 ThingsYou Should Know AboutYouTube, EDUCAUSE Learning
Initiative.
 7 ThingsYou Should Know About Facebook II, EDUCAUSE
Learning Initiative.
 Pearson Social Media Survey 2010
 Schaffhauser, Dian. The Super-Secret, Never-Before-Revealed Guide to
Web 2.0 in the Classroom. Campus Technology, vol. 44, no. 2 (October
2010).
 7 ThingsYou Should Know About Twitter, EDUCAUSE Learning
Initiative.
45
Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
References and Resources
 Walsh, K. 100Ways to Teach with Twitter, EmergingEdTech.
 7 ThingsYou Should Know About Privacy inWeb 2.0 Learning




Environments, EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative.
Orlando, John. Using Polling and Smartphones to Keep Students
Engaged.
McCrea, Bridget. Purdue U Brings Social Networking to the
Classroom. Campus Technology (November 18, 2009).
Kolowich, Steve. MixingWork and Play on Facebook. Inside
Higher Ed (October 6, 2010).
Schaffhauser, Dian. Purdue Students Hook into Facebook for Study
Groups. Campus Technology (October 5, 2010).
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Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
References and Resources
 Boyd, Danah. Streams of Content, Limited Attention:The Flow of
Information through Social Media. EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 45,
no. 5 (September/October 2010).
 7 ThingsYou Should Know About Microblogging, EDUCAUSE
Learning Initiative.
 Johnson, L., Levine, A., Smith, R., & Stone, S. (2010). The
2010 Horizon Report. Austin, Texas: The New Media
Consortium.
 Sample, Mark. A Framework for Teaching with Twitter.
ProfHacker (August 16, 2010).
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Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom
References and Resources
 Rheingold, Howard. Attention, and Other 21st-Century Social
Media Literacies. EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 45, no. 5
(September/October 2010).
 Hodges, Charles. IfYou Twitter,Will They Come?. EDUCAUSE
Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 2 (2010).
 Forty-five Percent of Employers Use Social Networking Sites to
Research Job Candidates, CareerBuilder Survey Finds,
CareerBuilder.com (August 19, 2009).
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Student Engagement: Using Social Media to Reach Beyond the Classroom