Photo credit: Christine Lenihan
Last Tuesday, August 14, Social Media Club Vancouver hosted a meetup about the use of social media in the education and non-profit sectors. Here are some highlights from the night’s presentations.
How to use social media to educate students
Kimberly Voll’s talk on the use of social media in education gave a nice overview of where social media is currently at, specifically within the context of post-secondary education.
She argued that social media is not new and exciting anymore and that it is already mainstream, but she also pointed out that educators are not using these tools yet to their full advantage.
So, how can educators best use social media? Here were some of her suggestions:
- Teach students how to use the tools. Not just the technical know-how (because they’ll likely figure this out themselves), but also the consequences of what they put on their profiles.
- Create learning communities. For example, show students how hashtags can be a powerful learning tool in connecting with professionals in their field.
- Create safe learning environments so that students won’t hesitate to ask educators via social media.
- Train students for employment.