In today’s digitally connected world, technology delivers instant – and seemingly constant – communication to your fingertips. You get a friend request at the grocery store, a notification that your college roommate has posted photos from their latest vacation at the coffee shop and an update from your preferred media sources on Twitter while working on a time-sensitive report.

This continuous flow of communication has caused many professors to dismiss social media as simply a frivolous distraction that detracts from a student’s ability to focus on learning.

Not so, says Nick Bowman, assistant professor of communication studies at West Virginia University.

So Bowman is headed to South by Southwest, the hub of the digital world – the place where Twitter first gained significant attention – to dispel this perception, and he is taking his research on the benefits of social media in the classroom. SxSW draws an international audience of 30,000 to the interactive conference in Austin.

Bowman is presenting his social media pedagogy as part of the “Plunging the Perils and Pearls of a Social Classroom” session on Tuesday. He is part of a four-person panel comprising from Ohio State University, University of Louisville and University of Tennessee-Knoxville.

Bowman’s objective is to present the results of his published and in-progress research to diffuse the widespread assumption that social media is a hindrance as opposed to an educational tool in the classroom – and to demonstrate how fellow educators can effectively utilize social media to promote learning outcomes and increase student participation.

“There is a lot of negative commentary in the mainstream media about social media,” said Bowman. “My research was inspired by the fact that people are making a lot of assumptions about social media without making observations to support it.”

Bowman said that technology has proven to be an effective tool in the classroom. Since students were utilizing technology as a learning medium and 98 percent of college students have a Facebook account, he said it was simply a matter of finding an effective way to combine the two to add value to his students’ classroom experience.

“People use the term ‘wasted’ to describe social media. That implies that there is no value in it; but that’s not true,” he said. “People – especially college students – are getting their news and information there. It’s part of their daily lives.”

Bowman structured his classroom experiment by setting up an instructor-led Facebook group for student interaction as opposed to using eCampus, WVU’s online learning management system. It was an optional class activity – but more than half of his class of 350 students chose to participate. And those students saw the results in their final grades.

“When we analyzed the data at the end of the semester, the students who joined the Facebook group scored six to eight points higher on exams,” said Bowman. “They got more information and received it in their own language. It also allowed me as the professor to interact more effectively with my students.”

Bowman said that ultimately, the students who participated in the Facebook group were more involved in the class; in fact, it was the most engaged class he has taught during his 10-year teaching history. And many of the students who have completed the course have stayed engaged in the group – which has grown to 1,300 members – and offer support to current students.

“We have more research to do, but we believe we’ve found a way to increase retention numbers by getting away from a more normative approach to technology,” said Bowman. “Facebook is crowdsourcing, and that’s education. It doesn’t threaten a lecture.”

Bowman said that he hopes fellow educators at SxSW will take away the message that students find the material more interesting when they can find a way to relate to it – and that social media gives professors an option to make that a reality.

“As educators, we are quick to write something off that kids are doing without giving it due process, especially when we aren’t comfortable with it,” Bowman said. “But this is a great way for students to engage material.”

-WVU-

hr/03/09/15

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