3 ways HE lecturers can use social media as a learning tool

Using social media as a learning tool has being a running theme for me this semester. As a marketer and market researcher, I find Twitter to be a valuable depository of links to white papers, conference papers, research findings and best practice guidance. LinkedIn helps me to build contacts and relationships as I grow my network as well as highlighting useful collateral I may have missed on Twitter. And of course, there are many other social media platforms that have value to the marketer too. I was guilty of assuming that the digital natives I teach are tuned into social media in the same way, but I was wrong; certainly, social media for social purposes but that professional angle wasn't as clear to them.

There is a clear rationale for using social media with business students - employability is of course key to that but I've found that they are often so focused on using text books and journal articles as references in their assignments that they forget that professional practice is just as important to business people as the founding principles.

Here are 3 ways I've used social media as a learning tool this term:

1. Students were asked to create a student-led creative campaign to promote the business school to potential undergraduates or postgraduates using social media with the message that 'learning has never been so much fun'. Key learning outcomes were for them to understand the importance of a creative idea, how promotional tools and media need to be integrated to work effectively, and the importance of marketing metrics. This was a quick and dirty one week activity but students developed a range of great ideas including a Facebook page with mini-blogs from international students; a fun set of images adopting the 'keep calm and carry on' theme; and a video for sharing featuring student life in the style of a cartoon strip. This learning by doing exercise gave students the chance to understand the limitations of their approach and the challenge of developing good content that is shareable and genuinely 'fun'.
2. Getting students to set up a Twitter profile and find 25 people or companies to follow in their field of interest. Concentrating their efforts to select useful contacts was a challenge but this helped them to understand how they could build an effective network and start to see relevant content.
3. Free blogging tools such as WordPress, Google Blogger or Weebly were used to set up an e-portfolio. Students were asked to select a marketing topic of their choice and challenged to discover 'what is best professional practice in this area?' by using social media. This taught them how to critically evaluate the quality of professional sources, how to search for the right kinds of material and how to direct their information search by setting clear objectives. This was an activity that took place over the semester partly in-class and also through self-directed learning. It required motivation, dedication, and a curiosity in the marketing topic to succeed. The jury is still out on the results but formative feedback told me that this was an activity and an alternative assessment method that they really enjoyed.

Student-centred learning and applying the theory to practice work really well for me when helping students to understand the value of social media to the marketer and to every business. What has worked for you?

 #learning #digitallearning #edtech

Don't mess with our emotions Facebook!

There are no emoticons to express how I feel about Facebook this week; it certainly isn't happy, maybe a touch of bemusement and a large dash of fury but maybe the best way to describe my feelings is utter bewilderment that a major global corporation can treat its customers' emotions and well-being so carelessly.

So why am I so hot under the collar? Yesterday my business students at Anglia Ruskin University got 'the lecture' and anyone who has studied market research or marketing with me will know the content of this heart-felt declaration. It is my responsibility as a CIM Chartered Marketer and member of the Market Research Society to send my students out into the commercial world with a strong consideration of the ethics involved in researching customer behaviour. We are governed by legislation and should follow the strict principles of research ethics to ensure that no one is ever harmed through research ever again. The principles of the MRS Code of Conduct and all other research codes stem from the 1947 Nuremberg Code and the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki to ensure that participation in research is voluntary, the rights and well-being of participants are protected, no one is harmed or adversely affected and researchers are transparent about the subject and purpose of data collection.

We follow these codes because it matters, because people died and were experimented upon, because we are human, because we know better. So where do Facebook get off thinking this doesn't apply to them?

If you've missed the news (read The Guardian's article here), it has just been revealed via a published research article that Facebook manipulated 700,000 user feeds over one week in 2012 as an experiment to see if hiding emotional words without the user's knowledge would impact upon the status updates and likes that they posted. This is now being investigated by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office. The Guardian reported that Monika Bickert, Head of Policy, claimed these experiments were necessary to enable Facebook to remain innovative and continue to improve their platform. She reportedly said, "It’s concerning when we see legislation that could possibly stifle that sort of creativity and that innovation."

I think it's more concerning that Facebook didn't consider how religiously some users follow status updates and how it can dictate their emotional state. Cyber bullying is rife. Some users may suffer from anxiety, depression or other serious conditions which mean that every emotional word is interpreted to the nth degree. If that emotion was lacking or enhanced through manipulation of the users feed, it could have had a devastating effect.

There are plenty of news articles online to say that Facebook will decline by 2017 and you can understand why they need to constantly develop and innovate. Good on them for thinking that market research plays a part in their new product development process, but doing this via stealth without consideration of the ethical issues and the moral issues is wrong, and the Information Commissioner's Office may feel it's criminal.