Social Media Week Panel: The Future of Social Media in Higher Education View Comments
CLICK HERE for key takeaways from the panel, videos, pictures and quotes
On Friday, February 5th, I moderated a panel discussion as part of Social Media Week New York titled, “The Future of Social Media in Higher Education.” We brought together students, academics and social media experts to share their thoughts on how social media is changing the way students learn, instructors teach and institutions adapt to innovation.
The following key topics were discussed:
- Geo-tagging will be a powerful tool for higher education as it can be used to target locations and get information about those locations, whether students are working on sociology, science, etc. Adam Ostrow, editor in chief of Mashable.com, cited FourSquare’s partnership with Harvard University as an example.
- The Apple iPad will have a significant impact in the education market by giving students the ability to have all their textbooks and notes on one device coupled with social media and collaborative capabilities
- The “smudging” of technologies: Augmented reality, mobile computing and crowdsourcing. Collaboration will turn into a mix between online and offline environments through augmented reality, mobility and the ability to bring in the wisdom of crowdsourcing with physical environments. Vineet Madan of McGraw-Hill Education said, “We need to develop the educational analog of these technologies to deepen engagement among college students.”
- Social media can help solve the student engagement crisis. Of the more than 20 million higher education learners, more than half will not earn a degree within 6 years. The reason most cited for this is lack of engagement. Social media has an opportunity to engage students in a manner that not only compatible with the way students already communicate with their peers, but can foster more open, collaborative conversations between students and instructors.
- In order for both students and instructors to engage in social media, there needs to be a level of incentive. In terms of student incentives, McGraw-Hill is experimenting with status, reviews and rewards models, similar to those used by Amazon and eBay. GradeGuru.com is leading this charge with its Status Badges for top contributors to its site.
Thanks to all those who attended and a special thanks to our panelist:
- Adam Ostrow Editor in Chief, Mashable.com – @adamostrow
- Dr. Kathleen P. King Professor, Fordham University; President, Transformation Education LLC – @drkpking
- Greg Verdino VP Strategy & Solutions, Powered; author of microMARKETING – @gregverdino
- Mary Casey NYU Student and Founder of Jatched.com
- Vineet Madan VP Learning EcoSystems, McGraw-Hill Education
Click here to watch the full version of the panel discussion on uStream
A special thanks to David Berkowitz for the pictures and coverage of the event