Support Files for My Module of DevLab Social Media Pedagogy and Assignments Workshop

As part of DevLab’s 2014 Workshop Series at Georgia Tech, Valerie Johnson and I will be leading a discussion today about the use of social media strategically as a part of our pedagogy and tactically in our assignments. We encourage Britts to share their approaches to social media use during the workshop, raise questions about the use of social media pedagogically, and brainstorm new approaches for social media use in the classroom (repurposing, developing literacy, collaboration, asynchronous discussion, participation options, etc.). I am including my workshop notes and files below.

Notes

• I use Twitter in the classroom for collecting thoughts before discussion, reflecting on reading before writing formal summaries, encouraging discussion/backchannel between students, and demonstrating ways of turning social media to our own purposes (collecting individual thoughts/dataset, professional discussion, and transforming/translating compositions from one media form to another).
• Discuss WOVEN (written, oral, visual, electronic, and nonverbal) potential for social media platforms including Twitter.
• William Gibson, “the street finds its own uses for things,” from “Burning Chrome” in Omni, July 1982.
  • Repurpose social media for our needs, purposes, and use.
  • Use social media to collect data, build a data set, and cite data in future self-focused research projects.
• Develop digital literacy–understand how the technology works, use the technology in different ways, see models of different uses of the technology, and critique how others use the technology.
• Audience awareness–public facing, multiple audiences, and unintended audiences.
• Ephemerality and permanence.
• Examine how the medium effects/shapes/is the message. Mention Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media and “the medium is the message.”
  • Transform compositions from one medium to another, share these transformations with peers to observe reception, and discuss how the message might change, lead to misunderstandings, or be more effective (e.g., Twitter > Storify > poster > essay).
  • Explore how we can use rhetoric to maximize each medium’s possibilities to persuasively communicate our message to audiences.
• Bridging discussion across sections of the same course–especially for students on-campus and off-campus (Summer Online Undergraduate Program–see LMC3214 syllabus below).

Files

• ellis-jason-2014spring-engl1101-syllabus
• ellis-jason-engl1101-01-assignment
• ellis-jason-poster
• ellis-jason-teaching-demo
• ellis-jason-lmc3214-syllabus-full