New Media Resources

For more information about using new media technologies, check out the following works.

Books

Educating Educators with Social Media, edited by Charles Wankel, is brimming with case studies demonstrating social and new media implementation into the university classroom.

Web Resources

The Association for Social Media & Higher Education is a community for sharing information, learning, tools and ideas among social media practitioners, scholars and higher education officials.

New Media Literacies, a project headed by USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, is a portal for instructors interested in developing and sharing ideas for media use in the classroom.

The Pew Research Center's Millennials: A Portrait of Generation Next: "A yearlong series of original reports that explore the behaviors, values and opinions of today’s teens and twenty-somethings."

• How much do you have in common with your students? Find out how Millennial you are.

ProfHacker, a blog from The Chronicle for Higher Education, "delivers tips, tutorials, and commentary on pedagogy, productivity, and technology in higher education." Follow ProfHacker on Twitter and Facebook.

Journal and News Articles

Dunlap, J. C., & Lowenthal, P. R. (2009). Tweeting the night away: Using Twitter to enhance social presence. Journal of Information Systems Education, 20(2). 

"The future of higher education: How technology will shape learning." (2008). The Economist Intelligence Unit. Retrieved from The New Media Consortium.

Zhao, D., & Rosson, M. B. (2009). How and why people Twitter: The role that micro-blogging plays in informal communication at work. In Proceedings of the ACM 2009 International Conference on Supporting Group Work.

Please feel free to leave suggestions for additions to this resource list in the comments!

The Pros and Cons of New Media in the Classroom

New media are an accepted form of communication and learning among Millennials, the current generation of students making their way into colleges and universities. Implementing these technologies in the classroom has a number of potential positive impacts on the higher-education environment.

New media contribute to higher education by…

• …enhancing professional writing skills.
  The brevity of new media encourages students to write clearly and concisely, especially important when using these technologies as professional communications tools. Social media also help students think critically about their contributions to the online community: the ideas and perspectives they share publicly.
•  …supporting informal, interactive learning.
  Incorporated into the classroom, new media help learners participate beyond traditional channels by allowing them to create personal learning environments. New media can be incorporated into textual assignments, allow students to both produce and access audiovisual content, and facilitate collaborative work and knowledge-building.
• …helping instructors address issues in a timely fashion.
  Time-sensitive matters, including questions and clarification for assignments and notification of personal emergencies, are easily handled by logging into Twitter and Facebook. The immediacy of online communication allows instructors to sort out issues before they spiral out of control. Instructors may also use social media to disseminate information related to the course and provide students with quick access to resources on the World Wide Web.
•  …allowing students to build and maintain relationships beyond the classroom.
  Social networks are used by professionals around the world, and students using those technologies can enhance their networking skills by interacting with authorities in their fields of interest. Relationships with classmates and instructors, which often end with a semester, may be maintained through social media connections.

Applying new media to the higher-education context is not foolproof, however. Before employing new media technologies in the classroom, instructors should carefully consider that…

• …not all Millennials use technology constructively.
  Because Milliennials were raised with computers, mobile phones, video gaming systems, and the Internet, instructors often overestimate these students’ technological savvy. Some Millennials lack basic computing skills, and despite their multitasking abilities, they are easily distracted and require some formal instruction.
• …new media use may spur a digital divide among students, their peers, and instructors.
  The use of new media in a course requires students to have access to potentially costly technology inputs. Lack of ready access to computers and mobile devices may put some students behind their peers. Likewise, instructors may lag behind their students in understanding social media, putting them at a disadvantage in the classroom.
• …the Web is a free, open, and often unpredictable environment.
  Unprotected student-produced content is open for commentary and criticism from non-class-related parties. Generating two-way dialog on blogs and microblogs is a potentially dangerous proposition for students unschooled in productive online interaction. Constant change requires students and instructors alike to stay abreast of new technologies and applications.
• …social media change how students and instructors interact.
  The norms of traditional classroom interactions may not translate into the realm of social media. The essence of social media lies in sharing personal information and media content, and such disclosure may result in loss of privacy for both students and instructors.

Twitter in the Classroom: No, Really!

"Twitter's for old people."

"I hate Twitter."

"I don't think I need it."

"Twitter's a waste of time."

Twitter is one of the least popular social media among undergraduate students. Researchers know it; instructors know it; and students have no problem sharing their negative opinions about it.

Despite students' apparent disdain for Twitter, the medium has important implications as a professional-development tool. To familiarize graduate assistants and faculty with Twitter's classroom capabilities, a Twitter discussion of social media’s impact on agriculture was included as part of a group project in a graduate seminar at Texas A&M University in Fall 2010. The chat was modeled after AgChat (#agchat), a moderated conversation among agricultural producers, ag professionals, and consumers that takes place every Tuesday from 8-10 p.m. ET. 

Students and department faculty were informed one week before the class session that Twitter would be implemented in the class discussion and were encouraged to open an account and familiarize themselves with the application. Discussion leaders set up a TweetChat room with a class hashtag (#681chat) prior to the start of the discussion and invited Twitter users outside the class to contribute. In the classroom, participants logged into TweetChat, entered the tag, and were able to join in the conversation, which was shown on a SmartBoard for class members who did not or were not able to participate online. 

The moderators posed a series of questions to the group and received responses from class attendees, students and faculty who were absent, and an out-of-state communications professional.One A&M professor - known for his outspoken dislike for social media - encountered snappy remarks from one student, and their TweetChat banter provided a humorous counterpoint for the lively face-to-face discussion.

Overall, we considered the chat a success in familiarizing some students and faculty, who were previously unaware of Twitter's educational or informational capabilities, with the medium. Technical difficulties - an inability to connect to a wireless network and platform crashes - hindered the participation somewhat, but the experience provided participants with a real-world picture of Twitter interaction.

At the conclusion of out #newmediaclass presentation, we'll be using the hashtag to facilitate discussion on Twitter. You can log into TweetChat, search for #newmediaclass, and follow the conversation in real time! 

You want us to do WHAT?

Oh, boy, they don't look excited about this. Well, I guess excited might have been a little much to expect, but interested would have been nice. This could be a long term ... then again, maybe it's because I'm talking about technical communication at 2 p.m. in a small room on a summer day.

I'm not sure that's exactly what I was thinking, but that's probably pretty close to what was running through my mind as I introduced the course assignments to my undergraduate summer technical communication students. I put a lot of work into my class prep, since I added a new unit to the course - new media - so I was hoping for something more than 11 "you want us to do WHAT?" looks.

Since that first day, the students have come around a little. We've talked more about the media I expect them to create by Aug. 4, and a couple of them even have asked why we're doing more than writing papers and fact sheets. That explanation was simple - new media is here, guys, and it's not going anywhere. You need to know the basics of how to use Facebook for something other than posting your 21st birthday pictures and stalking the cute guy in the front row. You need to be prepared to embrace Twitter and blogging as a professional, even if you swear now that you'll never use them. And, you need to be comfortable with the technologies and media available now so that you're prepared for what is coming, the things we haven't even thought of yet, that you'll have to learn on the fly as a big kid.

Most of them pretended they understood what I was saying.

Even if they didn't understand, maybe they will by the end of the summer, after they choose a topic to research and write about, and an organization to represent. Based on their topics and organizations, they will create a strategic communication plan that has to include tweets, blogs and a Facebook page (among other, more archaic publications, like memos, fact sheets, press releases and reports). And - because I'm one of those instructors that expects way too much sometimes - all 11 of my students will have to observe and participate in streaming conversations over Twitter ... if they can keep up.

I'm trying to keep the assignments fairly simple. Tweets and blogs have to be about the topics they choose. That shouldn't be rocket science ... but we'll see. Their Facebook pages are supposed to represent their organizations/topics, and be connected to their tweets and blogs. I want those Facebook pages to be hidden - here's to hoping they follow directions - which isn't ideal, but the idea is to give them the experience of creating something professional on Facebook without starting a Facebook fan page battle that they may not be prepared to deal with.

Keeping the assignments simple also will allow me to include a few basic things about content development and management. We'll see how that goes.

So, one last question that I had to answer for myself, when we decided to share this info: Why does it matter to us - the faculty members, the graduate students, the professional communicators? That was simple. SAAS ... ACT Professional Development ... Western ... AAAE ... ACE ... NACTA ... AMS/NACT ... seven conferences, seven ongoing conversations about using and teaching new media.

Blogging is hard?

Last semester I tried to incorporate blogging into an undergraduate agricultural technology class. After all, we talk about current, past and future innovations that are related to agriculture. The Internet and more specifically, Web 2.0, falls into that category. I hear from students all the time they do not want to be "lectured to" but rather want "to do." So, how could encouraging students in a technology class to blog go wrong?

It did. I asked students (not all were agricultural media and communication majors) to do a feature story on a local innovator. Rather than turning the paper in through tradition methods, I wanted them to post it to the class blog (which I created). Simple enough, right? This assignment was not a new assignment in the class, but the way it was turned in was.

I assumed college-age students were familiar with blogging. After all, they do it everyday right? Wrong. Most of the class knew what blogs were but had never read a blog nor had they ever commented on one (not even a news story).

Where I failed was not properly training students on the technology. I assumed digital natives knew enough about web applications to post to a blog. And most did. From my observation, the idea of blogging, its significance to the course and real-world, the steps needed to post (creating an account, finding the blog, attaching files to a server, etc.), and its relationship to agriculture were foreign to students. Thus, my failure was in preparation. I assumed students knew the importance of new media to the overall cause and promotion of agriculture, its people and its products. However, when students do not see personal gain in a technology, how (without assistance) will they see professional gain in a technology?

Identification of New Media for Educators

Are we as far from robot teachers as we think? In the movie, “Class of 1999,” robots are secretly substituted for human teachers. Today’s classroom usually contains a human instructor, however, instructional methods and/or course materials often rely on technology in order to access, deliver or supplement lecture. Human educators are constantly searching for new and innovative ways to reach their audience, the digital native. Whether it be facebook.com to coordinate discussion or twitter.com to create a course resource database, students are using new media to learn or enhance learning. So should educators.

Facebook.com is a social network, but lends itself to multiple learning components. In agricultural media and communication, facebook.com is being used by media professionals in various ways from coordinating public relations campaigns to disseminating educational materials to negate crises. Utilizing facebook.com in the classroom allows students to gain experience in using an otherwise social tool to communicate to pertinent audiences in a professional manner.

Twitter.com was originally used as a micro blogging site by users interested in knowing where their social network was and what they were doing. In recent years, twitter.com has been a pivotal communication tool for agricultural industries and news outlets. In addition, consumers and advocates of and for almost every agricultural product have created groups and #hashtags to discuss trending issues or to show their support. Respectively, groups against agricultural practices are also using twitter.com to form groups and discuss trending issues. From an educational component, bringing in twitter feeds and/or trending topics on twitter.com allows educators to bring the most current and trendy topics about agriculture to the classroom.

Prezi.com as a freeware version, enables students and faculty to create an interactive, text-based presentation and share with students. The sharing of presentations creates a database for classroom materials and encourages students to view lectures outside of class. Also, this presentation tool allows students to get excited about layout and design for professional audiences and encourages presentation skills through the use of supporting materials. From an educators’ stand point, prezis create a new and innovative way to create lecture materials that adds motion and movement to notes.

Youtube.com is one of the fastest growing websites in the world, and for good reason. The concept of posting videos to a centralized server has endless benefits for personal gain (record deals, acting gigs, etc.), personal entertainment and education. Students are utilizing this media to serve multiple needs. Educators may find youtube.com important for supporting materials such as a how to video of the 4-cycle engine or a 3:00 minute clip on gerunds.

Second Life or other virtual reality worlds play a new role in society and this role can be extended to education. These worlds are fluid and constantly change based on the dynamic of the users. Scenarios play out and can be created, directed or observed by educators. These virtual worlds provide endless opportunity for students to gain hands-on learning without leaving the comfort of their own reality.

Blogs and/or vlogs (video blogs) are becoming ever popular with college-age students both as a form of entertainment and expression. From an educators stand point, blogs are a great way to disseminate course information, create topics for discussion and/or to strengthen writing and critical thinking skills.

Skype.com has allowed the world to be more global. Students are slowly adapting this technology, and industry is too – perhaps at a quicker pace. Not only can skype.com be used to communicate to global experts from the classroom increasing students’ global awareness, but also can be used by educators who are absent from lecture. Live video feeds to the classroom from other areas will allow faculty to be more available to student learning as well as more available to industry support.

Free website development software is available in almost every corner of the web. Sites such as Joomla allow students and web users to create interactive sites with little to no knowledge about design or technical code language(s). This technology paired with guided instruction could allow students to interactively learn design skills, promote critical thinking skills, promote skills to potential employers and/or provide students an online “portfolio” of course assignments or work. No more excuses about the dog eating your homework!

Podcasts are not just for NPR anymore! Podcasting now incorporates audio and visual cues to produce an array of content. Again, students use podcasts for entertainment but also as a supplemental learning tool. With free software such as Audacity or freeware programs pre-installed on most platforms (Microsoft Movie Maker and Imovie), students have new, more interactive ways to learn.

Introduction

Finding innovative ways to implement new media into undergraduate and graduate courses can encourage interaction among students and increase students’ engagement in coursework. Encouraging students to become familiar with new media platforms in a professional environment also helps to better prepare them as representatives of agriculture—online and in person—and provides a foundation for relationships with agriculture professionals around the world. Access to course materials, particularly those created by students, can increase professionals’ awareness of course content and encourages professionals to provide informal feedback to students. In this session, instructors from Texas A&M University and West Texas A&M University will share innovative uses of new media, such as conducting class sessions via streaming Twitter conversations and creating a class blog as a portfolio of feature stories. Professionals, faculty, and graduate students are invited to contribute their experiences with and ideas for incorporating new media in agricultural communications courses, with a particular emphasis on building relationships among students and professionals. The advantages and disadvantages of new media assignments also will be discussed.