Experiences With Social Media

From LiteracyTentWiki

Subject: [PD 4843] Two experiences with social media
From: Richard Sebastian
Date: Thu Jul 15 09:54:05 EDT 2010

I'd like to share two experiences I have had using social media in the field of adult basic education.

The first involved research I did for my dissertation (I promise this post won't be dissertation length). Basically, I studied a class of adult GED students who used personal blogs to help develop their writing skills. This was a class of low-income, inner-city adults students most of whom had very limited tech skills or access to computers at home. A couple of interesting things happened. First, they wrote more. They didn't write more GED essays, but they did comment in a more social way by posting to each others' blogs. This is important because they began to see writing as a tool for communication and identity rather than an obstacle to passing the GED. Also, they were able to read each others' essays online and consider how other students answered the same GED prompt. A teacher can certainly do this without blogs, but it made so much easier to pull off. Another interesting thing that happened was that a couple of students continued to post to their blogs and complete the writing assignments after the stopped coming to class. One female student was in a car accident, but she continued to post and comment and participate.

Finally, when that class ended and another began, all of the essay prompts, comments, and personal blogs of the previous class were still there and could be used as resources for the new students. Each class added to the class content.

OK. So, that was one use of social media in the classroom. Another experience involved using social media for professional development during last year's Summit on the Future of Adult Education in the New Digital World (http://newdigitalworld.ning.com/). The summit, which took place at VCU in Richmond, involved a small number of invited guests and local participants. The goal of the summit was to create a list of recommendations to address the changing meaning of literacy and promote the use of technology in the field of ABE. Since this was an issue that involved the entire field, we wanted to secure the participation from as many ABE/ESOL professionals as we could. So we developed a parallel virtual summit using Ning (see the link above). Online participants could view the keynote addresses, which were live-streamed and recorded, and contribute to the discussions of the working groups through chat and discussion forums. It was a really successful two days, with lots of online interaction and input. Online participants contacted us to say how valuable the experience was. What didn't work, I think, was sustaining the conversation through the Ning site. Once the summit ended, the forums and chat went silent.

This is an important issue of social media that probably deserves its own post.

Richard Sebastian
Instructional Technology Specialist
Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, VA

Subject: [PD 4861] Ning experience and Summit
From: LHarlow
Date: Thu Jul 15 13:26:56 EDT 2010

Richard,

I just went to the Ning site to check out the details of the Summit, including who joined on through Ning. You are right the site went quiet right before the first of the year.

Many of these people I know, some I am or have been in classes with and others I know through an interest in literacy for adults. Do you have any interest in getting the site active again? If you do, don't you think that some additional information or speeches to generate dialogue would help? What about periodically redirecting the site to sites of high interest so that there is always something to learn and discuss?

I did not sign up when I went to the site because it is inactive. I will gladly do so if you are considering some changes. I know other professionals in education who might pay some attention if there was something like twitter embedded so they could have a preview of what's going on.

What do you think Richard?

Laura

Laura Harlow
grad student, VCU
Richmond,VA

Subject: [PD 4862] Re: Ning experience and Summit
From: Richard Sebastian
Date: Thu Jul 15 14:01:06 EDT 2010

Laura:

I think you bring up an important issue of using social media tools, namely, once you introduce them, how do you sustain them? Especially dispersed communities that aren't formed around an already-established face-to-face group. Honestly, the reason the Summit site went quiet was because it wasn't actively moderated. By me, I guess. Usually large online communities are driven by only a handful of active users. The same thing happened with a TappedIn group. Lots of sign-ups and lurking, but little active participation.

If there was interest, and some folks willing to take a leadership role, I would be happy to keep the Summit Ning site active (I plan on paying the monthly fee for awhile until the VALRC officially decides its fate). It can be used to continue the summit conversation, or expand it to include other issues of import to ABE. Or perhaps we could move the content to another resource, like the ALE wiki.

Thoughts?

Richard Sebastian
Instructional Technology Specialist
Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center
Virginia Commonwealth University
Richmond, VA

Subject: [PD 4864] Re: Ning experience and Summit
From: Victoire G Sanborn/AC/VCU
Date: Thu Jul 15 14:12:24 EDT 2010

Richard, I support the idea of moving the content of the Summit Ning site over to a resource that has already been developed, like the ALE wiki. We could announce additions and changes on our VAELN twitter account or on Facebook.


Victoire J. Gerkens Sanborn
Literacy Specialist
Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center
Richmond, VA
www.valrc.org

Virginia Literacy Foundation
www.virginialiteracy.org

Subject: [PD 4868] Ning Experience and Summit
From: LHarlow
Date: Thu Jul 15 16:17:39 EDT 2010

Hi Richard and all,

About keeping the ning site open, why not expand it to include more content and move it if necessary. Is there enough work going on in this subject at VCU or other VA institutions to keep people interested? Is it possible to connect and include material from other institutions of higher learning? I will volunteer to assist if that helps.

Although the discussion this week is primarily about utilizing social media in the classroom (in the States), I have just watched a talk that raised some very good points about social media in general.

Ethan Zuckerman (www.ted.com/talks) has a youTube video where he speaks about imaginary cosmopolitanism and the very real problems with media infrastructure in the world. A very important issue that he raises is that we need to look at the data of who is using these various tools. This is important if we don't want to only end up learning and sharing with people who are just like us.

Something he said really spoke to me about an additional important aspect of education and social media - using the tools to help create serendipity.

Laura


Laura Harlow
VCU
Richmond, VA

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