Using Social Media in the College Classroom

I recently had the honor to speak at our Faculty Development meeting at Northwest Mississippi Community College on how instructors can use social media to enhance the college classroom. As a marketing professional who works in communications and social media, it was a pleasure to share my expertise to over one hundred instructors. Here are a few notes from the presentation which you can read, share and download below. 


1. Create a closed Facebook group for the class.
By creating a closed Facebook group, the instructor does not have to friend their students. Groups also provide numerous features such as creating events (exams, project due dates), ability to upload files up to 25MB, ask poll questions, integrate DropBox and upload photos & video.

2. Create a hashtag on Twitter for the class.
85% of college students use Twitter on a weekly basis. I see Twitter as a way for an instructor to help promote supplemental discussion outside of the classroom. With 140 characters per tweet, this will also help students learn to be more concise with their thoughts/ideas.

Ways to integrate social media within the classroom are as endless as the constantly evolving platforms that are available (Tumblr, Google+, Storify, Pinterest, etc.). 

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