Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

Eight ways social media is credited for cutting student drop-outs

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

Sean Coughlan, a BBC News education reporter, recently wrote an excellent article on how Facebook and social media platforms are reducing student drop-out rates. He sighted eight major reasons for this phenomenon.

1.) Social networking sites are successfully being used to keep students informed and connected with instructors.

2.) Using Facebook pages for information on individual courses help the students to bond with each other, work together as a team and maintain their connection with staff.

3.) Social media platforms are young-adult friendly communication tools that create a positive effect on motivation.

4.) Going to social networking Web sites is a natural for young adults and a way they are comfortable with getting their information.

5.) With social media platforms available through mobile phones, students can keep in touch with each other and be given support outside of class. It fits with their on-the-go lifestyles.

6.) Instructors can give students that often forget about class assignments a ‘gentle prod’ through social media updates.

7.) The sites are also a way to keep in touch with students that are about to start a course and to help them connect with future course mates.

8.) Coughlan, also sited the fact that social networking technologies can communicate to many students easily and quickly at almost no cost, which is important in a world with increasing budget pressures.

Steve Gatlin, founder of Gatlin International, an international leader in online learning, says his online course instructors are encouraged to use all means of digital correspondence to communicate with students.

“Effective communication is the key to lowering drop-out rates,” said Gatlin. “And, effective communication in this instance means communicating with the tools and platforms that students are most comfortable with. Online learners feel an ease and comfort level in using their social media sites to get pertinent course information.”

Want a Master’s Degree in Facebook or Twitter?

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

College News

“It’s not what you know.  It’s who you know.”

Birmingham City University is proving its faith in the renowned saying by offering a Master’s degree in Social Media.

The British university’s one-year program will offer courses will teach students how to set up blogs, publish podcast and build up their social network using Facebook, Twitter and Bebo to develop their communication and marketing skills in hopes of increasing their chances of getting hired in the future.

The man who assembled the Master’s program, Jon Hickman, said that he had received significant interest from prospective students of the course after he had described its content and will begin offering the $6,200 program in the upcoming school year.

Despite the promising feedback, Hickman has received countless emails querying about the course’s content and others deriding his new and innovative program.  “We’ve had one email saying I should be ashamed” Hickman wrote on his Twitter page.

Professor Tim Wall, head of the university’s School of Media defended the program to the Associated Press, saying that “Social media, built around new technologies, are some of the most profound changes happening to the media at the moment. We are looking forward to sharing the research we are doing in the school with media professionals through the MA course.”

According to Birmingham City University’s web site, the School of Media is hoping students will take advantage of the “opportunity to explore the emerging area of social media through scholarly research and practice.”

The page is set up as a FAQ layout and provides informative answers to pressing questions of the program.

But some students continue to feel that the program is a waste of time and resources, arguing that course’s content is so basic that most can pick the skills up on their own, instead of wasting 48-weeks and a heavy chunk of change on a MA in social media.

Still, studying social networking is hardly a new trend. In 2007, Hung Truong, a 23-year-old graduate of the University of New Mexico began studying the rise of Facebook and other social networking sites. 

How did the site function while being free for its audience?  Why did people become so concerned with fixing false Wikipedia definitions?  He enrolled in a social computing graduate program at the University of Michigan to find out.  Truong and the University of Michigan initiated the trend that may soon now trickle down to elementary schools. 

The Guardian has reported that primary schools in the United Kingdom could be adding web skills and spell check to the curriculum, as technology is becoming an essential in research and education. 

Now after years of teachers being annoyed that their students are on Facebook, they have made adjustments to incorporate the social networking sites into the classroom.