Universities integrate social medias and mobile devices into their academic teachings, creating a more technologically advanced learning environment

           More and more educational institutions are interconnecting social medias and mobile devices via Facebook, bloggers and other forms of mass media communication with their teaching styles, allowing their students to reap the benefits of technology in the classroom.  Per contra, many universities have discovered negative repercussions of these newly incorporated methods.  Only time will tell how this new era of technology will revolutionize education.

Higher education programs are combining contemporary digital teaching mediums with traditional teaching strategies in order to bridge the gap from informal to formal learning.

             

Combining the knowledge of tomorrow's
teachers with the already successful strategies
of their mentor teachers

            According to the Contemporary Issues In Technology and Teacher Education journal (CITE), in order to establish a connection between an informal means of communication such as bloggers and Facebook to formal means of education such as traditional classroom learning, it is crucial that those with pedagogical expertise act as ‘mentors’ for those currently in educational learning programs, who have been integrated with the digital world their whole lives. This unification will allow former teaching experts to advise teachers who are just entering the field how to integrate successful teaching into digital mediums. Various methods of this integration currently include video lectures, digital classrooms and online discussion groups.  The University of Maryland is currently integrating these teaching techniques into their schooling, co-pioneering with other universities this technological-education revolution.

           Scott Wible, associate professor of english and Director of the Professional Writing Program at the University of Maryland believes that the possibility of successfully integrating social medias into academic teachings is definitely realistic and is already occurring in many institutions of higher education:

Perks of digitalizing higher education programs include creating a universal medium of communication where a student has the ability to instantly consume, produce and share intellectual content

            Live video lectures act as a primary context for observing the tie between tomorrow’s teachers and their mentors. Younger, more technologically savvy teachers are more likely to obtain the knowledge required to use video as a medium for expressing informal language, whereas their mentors can teach them to integrate structure into these videos. This method of teaching is so revolutionary because it provides students with ‘mobile learning’ - the ability to learn material in any location.  Furthermore, this strategy gives students an advantage that had never before been offered: multiple viewings of material. When video lectures are uploaded to a course site, students can view the lecture as many times as they want, giving students complete control over their own learning pace.  Too often students attend class and leave with the same knowledge they entered the room with.  An aptitude for re-watching lessons gives students the option of listening to the lecture as many times as they need to until the information sticks in their minds. Ultimately, this method of teaching has the potential to make education more personal to the individual, revolutionizing the way students take in information.  However, this tactic remains an exception rather than a standard in the classroom.

           Digital classrooms and online discussion groups provide students with similar didactic capabilities such as convenience of content, but more importantly, the ability to consume, produce and share content among an entire class.  Calum Brannan, social media strategist says “the reason why social media has become so successful is because it is driven by the consumer. Just take a look at one of the most popular social media site on the planet: Facebook. It wasn’t started by a marketing director at a FTSE 100 company, it was started by a student who wanted to connect with his friends…” It is evident that this desire and ability to connect with individuals, groups, etc. provides users with instant ability to consume, produce and share their content, whether it is useless conversation or relevant views regarding political issues.  When students are able to relate these digital tools to academics, they are then able to learn from each other in a much simpler and more efficient way than ever possible in a classroom setting.

Drawbacks of digitalizing higher education: decline in professionally of students' academic writing, insufficient amount of tech. savvy teachers, unreliable sources and expensive funding

            Although there are numerous apparent benefits to the digitalization of the traditional classroom, there are also many drawbacks that may halt this revolution.  While a direct correlation may be debatable, one evident downside of digital writing is its association with a decline in decorum of students’ academic writing style.  When students communicate on social medias or text messaging they often use informal terminology, poor grammar, and fragmented ideas.  According to a study in 2009, "In a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 64 percent of US teens admitted that some form of texting has crept into their academic writing (Lenhart et al., 2008)".  Research shows that this lack of professionalism in relaxed settings has been observed to carry over to academic writings, although students may not realize it.  Two Maryland students were interviewed on whether or not they believed social media such as Facebook messaging and texting has had an effect on their academic writing styles - both explained that no such parallel existed in their writing:

listen to ‘Student claims digital writing has no effect on academic writing style ’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Student claims digital writing has no effect on academic writing style’ on Audioboo

            Wible explains that although a poor writing style in relation to grammar and sentence structure may be apparent, it is not the larger issue at hand.  The more serious issue with current students’ academic writing is “how do we move students from the shorter, more provocative statements they would make in a Facebook post or a text, how do we teach (students) to build on that and write more extended elaborate arguments.” Wible and other experts have shown concern for a decline in students’ argumentation development skills as well as their ability to convey ideas competently.

            A lack of tech-ready teachers presents a huge barrier to the furthering of this technology integration. The United States Department of Education addresses this issue via The Department of Education's Preparing Tomorrow's Teachers to Use Technology (PT3) grant program: “a growing challenge in modern education (is that) nearly all elementary and secondary schools are now "wired" to the Internet, but most teachers still feel uncomfortable using technology in their teaching.” If our educators are not educated in these new digital means which we are attempting to introduce, we can simply not expect to have any success with this transition.

            Another concern experts have brought attention to is the unreliable sources that result from tools such as the online discussion group content sharing.  The issue with these sites and pages is that because anyone has access to page edits and content additions, often times their information can be artificial. Wikipedia serves as one prevalent example.  Wikipedia’s lack of credibility often widens the parallel between online content sharing and its academic approval.