social media and teaching12 Aug 2007 09:46 am
Classes start on Thursday & that is the day my syllabus for my new class on social media goes public. I’ve spent the summer reading tons (including the 2 text books Cluetrain Manifesto and Naked Conversations) & think I’m just about ready.
But wait! Blogs are conversations, right? So give me your 2 cents.
Here are the general topics I have in mind:
- history of social media
- theory (uses & grats, interactivity, network theory, parasocial interaction)
- blogs
- Second Life
- imagery (YouTube, Flickr, etc)
- social networking (MySpace, FaceBook, Pownce, social bookmarking)
- interpersonal relationships
- politics
- conflict (i.e., war)
- crisis (i.e., natural disaster)
- organizational adoption
I’m breaking the class into two parts: tools then content.
Anything big you think I’m leaving out? Deadline approaches …
Kaye,
Robert and I always feel honored when we learn the blogs are being used to teach a class. Thanks you. I think you have a good outline, but I would make some changes: (1) Facebook is becoming much more important than MySpace. (2) 2nd Life is declining in significance, although there are new virtual reality sites on the way, one from the BBC.(3) Social media is not so much about content generation so much as it’s about starting conversations. Good luck with the class.
Great feedback. I’ve been teaching blogs & integrating them into classroom assignments since 2003 but this is the first class I’ve done DEDICATED to the topic!
The tech within each topic will all be covered but I agree & think that my students relate much more to FB than MySpace. They feel MySpace is for their younger siblings!
One thing I forgot to mention was Twitter! We’ll discuss that as well within the social networking section. I am even planning a Twitter assignment for them to tweet their little hearts out.
Kaye,
Looks good and should be a great class! I wish I had something like this when I was an undergrad.
Only thing you might want to add is a discussion on co-creation. For this, I’d recommend Wikinomics as reading. It is a bit more dense than Naked Conversations, but if they can handle Cluetrain, they can handle Wikinomoics.
Great suggestion - I actually had wikis in the course description but wasn’t sure if I should keep them in. I’ll make sure we talk about them.
Kaye,
Not sure if you saw this about Myspace vs. Facebook being a class war.
http://www.forbes.com/technology/cionetwork/2007/07/20/facebook-myspace-internet-tech-cz_ccm_0723class.html