Topics on the Page
- What are Social Technologies?
- Teens and Social Media
- Political Uses of Social Media
- Texting
- Blogs and Blogging
- Wikis and Google Sites
Social Technologies
Synchronous and Asynchronous Communications
For background, see Social Media Overview from Tufts University.
9 Types of Feedback to Boost Student Engagement in Online Courses
Teens' Social Media Habits and Experiences from Pew Research Center (November 22, 2018)
- 81% Say Social Media makes them feel more connected with what's going on in their friends' lives
Teens, Social Media and Technology, Overview 2015 from Pew Research Center (April 9, 2016)
- 92% of teens go online daily
- 24% almost constantly
- 88% of 13 to 17 year-olds have access to a mobile phone
- 75% have a smartphone
- Just 12% have no cell phone
Common Sense Media Census
- 40% of California middle school students say they are using the Internet daily to complete homework, but just 8% of teachers say they assign digital homework daily or almost daily.
According to a 2008 report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, “Teens write a lot, but they do not think of their emails, instant and text messages as writing. This disconnect matters because teens believe good writing is an essential skill for success and that more writing instruction at school would help them.”
Students' online writing outside of school thus provides a platform for teachers to use to promote student writing in school.
Webzines are online magazines. Click here for the Educause 7 Things You Should Know About Digital Magazines.
NielsenWire. (2010, October 14). U. S. teen mobile report: Calling yesterday, texting today, using apps tomorrow. Retrieved September 6, 2011, from http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/u-s-teen-mobile-report-calling-yesterday-texting-today-using-apps-tomorrow/
Political Uses of Social Media
Candidates Differ in their Use of Social Media to Connect with the Public, Pew Research Center (July 28, 2016)
- People are getting more of their political information from the Internet than ever before
- 87% of the American public is on the Internet
- 70% on Facebook
- 87% of the American public is on the Internet
Illuminating 2016: Candidate Total Message Activity: Clinton/Trump Attack, Advocacy from U.S. News & World Report
Tom Brokaw Examines Social Media as a Force in 2016 Election, NBS Nightly News (July 19, 2016)
Politics on Social Networking Sites , a September 2012 report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project indicates that about 36 percent of social networking users see social networking as an important part of their political activity.
Texting
Crisis Hotlines Turning to Text to Reach Teens (March 30, 2013)
When Smartphones Go to Class, Science News for Students (March 3, 2016)
Teens, Smartphones and Texting from the Pew Internet & American Life Project (March 2012).
- 63% of teens, 12-17, send text messages every day. 60 texts a day is average while older girls send 100 and boys about 50. The heaviest texters are also most frequent phone talkers.
- Americans and Text Messaging from Pew Internet & American Life Project (September, 2011).
Twitter
How Twitter Needs to Change, Jack Dorsey TED Talk (2019)
Sizing Up Twitter, Pew Research Center (April 24, 2019)
- 10% create 80% of tweets
So You Have a Twitter Account. Now What? Cult of Pedagogy Blog (May 1, 2016)
Guide to Using Twitter in Your Teaching Practice, KQED
50 Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom
Follow Members of Congress on Twitter
Teens, Social Media and Privacy from the Pew Internet & American Life Project (May 21, 2013)
- One in four online teens using Twitter; eight in ten use some form of social media.
- African American teens more likely to use Twitter than White teens.
- Girls more likely than boys to use social networking sites and Twitter.
10 Little-Known Twitter Tools for Connected Educators from Edudemic (June 17, 2013).
Twitter Support for Educators and Parents from Edutopia
50 Best Twitter Feeds to Follow Educational Gaming
3 People & 3 Ideas for Using Twitter to Share, Discover and Connect with Students
5 "Can't Miss" Twitter Chats from technology educator Tom Murray
A Teacher's Guide to Classroom Backchannels and Informal Assessment Tools from Free Technology for Teachers, January 29, 2013.
Facebook
10 Facts about Americans and Facebook, Pew Research Center (May 16, 2019)
Anti-Social Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy. Siva Vaidhyanathan. Oxford University Press, 2018
6 New Facts about Facebook from the Pew Internet & American Life Project (February 4, 2014).
Predicting Student Exam Scores by Analyzing Social Network Data(2012). This study by Michael Fine, et. al., from Ben Gurion University shows that online friends can build offline relationships that promote academic success in school.
Steinbrecher, T. & Hart, J. (2012). Examining teachers’ personal and professional use of Facebook: Recommendations for teacher education programming. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 20(1), 71-88.
Blogs and Blogging
Fictional Stories in Science: Using Fictional Stories as a Pathway to Science Content
List of Class Blogs from Around the World (May 13, 2019)
State of the Blogging World (2012)
- 31 million bloggers in the United States.
- 400,000 comments are made on blogs every day
Backchanneling
Wikis and Google Sites
Wiki Works: Teaching Web Research and Digital Literacy in History and Humanities Classrooms. Robert W. Maloy & Allison Malinowski. Rowan & Littlefield, 2017
Robert W. Maloy. (2016). “Building Web Research Strategies for Teachers and Students.” Contemporary Issues in Technology and Social Studies Teacher Education, 16(2), 172-183.
"A Learning Journey for All": American Elementary Teachers Use of Classroom Wikis, Lena Lee, Journal of Online Learning, Winter 2012.
Wiki Editing Recognizes Women in Science discusses efforts by researchers at Brown University to improve the Wikipedia pages devoted to women scientists on Ada Lovelace Day, October, 15, 2013. Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) wrote the first computational algorithm.
For more on Wikipedia, link to Define Gender Gap? Look Up Wikipedia's Contributor List, from The New York Times (January 30, 2011). Only 13 percent of the contributors to Wikipedia are women.
- Video Presentation on Wikis by Sharon Edwards and Robert Maloy
Using Google Sites as a Collaborative Class Tool
Here are examples of a teacher and student-constructed wikis:
resourcesforhistoryteachers, organized by Robert W. Maloy, College of Education, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Wiki Page Examples:
- History: Zheng He and the Chinese Treasure Fleets
- Science: Oil in Central Asia
- Math: Pythagoras and the Pythagorean Theorem
- English: The Iliad and The Odyssey
resourcesforenglishteachers, organized by Sinead Meaney, middle school teacher in Massachusetts