Category: Distance Education

There is no doubt that social media is ingrained in the way society communicates today, for good or bad. There is evidence that the use of social media will continue to grow as applications expand and new ones enter the market in the near future. Users are eager to try applications that offer engaging and unique ways to communicate with others. For example, today thirty percent of teens rank Snapchat as their most important social network (Oremus, 2015). This platform which was first released in 2011, today has a market of 166 million daily active users (Oremus, 2015).

The great majority of social media users access this platforms for informal, social interactions with friends, family, and acquaintances. Yet, we have also seen an increase in the use of social media for teaching and learning purposes across many different fields (Rodríguez-Hoyos, Salmón, & Fernández-Díaz, 2015). There is also a large number of social media research efforts that hope to better understand and analyze:

• The way people communicate and connect
• What is communicated in these channels
• Forms of activism and protest
• Specific groups and their online interactions
• Equality, diversity, and social issues discussions
• The affordances of the different platforms
• Cultural and country-specific forms of engagement
• Privacy and security issues

Again, it is safe to say that researchers want to learn more about the platforms, the users, and different matters associated with social media use.

A few months ago, I engaged in a research project collaboration with Dr. Royce Kimmons and Dr. George Veletsianos who are Directors of the Digital Learning and Social Media Group. The aim of the project was to understand how Instructional Design (ID) graduate programs use social media accounts. We wanted to know what type of content was posted in these accounts, how many users liked/followed these accounts, how engaged were these accounts in the content sharing process, and what kind of interactions others had with these social media accounts.

To gather the social media accounts of ID graduate programs, we took a different approach. Instead of combing the Internet and social media platforms in search of accounts associated with ID graduate programs, we created an editable Google Spreadsheet and posted it in different outlets to allow our colleagues and graduate students to share their accounts with us. We asked ID faculty members and graduate students to share the public social media sites of their ID program. This focus on public social media accounts was due to the fact that we were primarily interested on Twitter accounts for our research project. However, faculty members and graduate students gladly shared both public and private social media accounts. Here is a link to the public Google Spreadsheet: http://tiny.cc/IDTSocialMediaAccounts.

Today, there are total of forty-six different higher education institutions listed in the spreadsheet, including public and private institutions within the United States and Canada. Based on the content shared in the spreadsheet, we saw that some ID programs/departments have predominantly public social media accounts to communicate with graduate students, faculty, and other stakeholders. In a few instances, ID programs/department have both public and private social media communities. For some ID programs/departments a “hashtag” was the main form of digital togetherness (see Table 1). However, the most common type of social media account by ID graduate programs, based on the data collected via the spreadsheet, are Facebook Pages (see Table 2).

Table 1. Hashtags of Instructional Design Graduate Programs

Institution	Program or Department	Hashtag
Brigham Young University	Instructional Psychology & Technology	#iptsters
California State University Fullerton	Master of Science Instructional Design and Technology (MSIDT)	#msidt
Indian River State College	School of Education	#irscTeach
Loyola University Maryland	Master of Education in Educational Technology	#LoyolaET
Royal Roads University	School of Education & Technology	#rrumalat
The University of Texas at Austin	Leaning Technologies Program	#UTLT
University of North Texas	Learning Technologies Program	#untLT
University of Wyoming	Instructional Technology Program	#wyoitec
Wichita State University	Learning and Instructional Design	#MEdLID

We have maintained the editable spreadsheet available for others to access and edit (add other social media accounts). Although we used this editable spreadsheet as a way to crowdsource IDT program/departments social media accounts, I would hope that the spreadsheet serves as a resource for graduate students and faculty across ID programs. If you know other ID program/department which have a social media account and is not listed in the spreadsheet, please add them. This spreadsheet is opened to IDT programs across the globe.

Table 2. Facebook Page of ID Graduate Departments and Programs

Institution	Program /Department	Facebook Page
Boise State University	Educational Technology	https://www.facebook.com/edtechbsu/
California State University Fullerton	Instructional Design and Technology	https://www.facebook.com/MSIDTFullerton/
Emporia State University	Instructional Design and Technology	https://www.facebook.com/idtesu
Fairfield University	Educational Technology	https://www.facebook.com/FairfieldGSEAP/
Georgia Southern University	Department of Leadership, Technology, & Human Development	https://www.facebook.com/itec.georgiasouthern
Indiana University-Bloomington	Instructional Systems Technology	https://www.facebook.com/groups/iugist/
James Madison University	Technology and Leadership Education Department	https://www.facebook.com/JMU-Educational-Technology
Michigan State University	Educational Technology	https://www.facebook.com/MAETMSU
Michigan State University	Educational Psychology and Educational Technology	https://www.facebook.com/msuepet
Mississippi State University	Instructional Systems and Workforce Development	https://www.facebook.com/iswd.grad
Northern Illinois University	Educational Technology, Research and Assessment	https://www.facebook.com/niuetra
Pasco-Hernando State College	Academic Technology Department	https://www.facebook.com/ATPHSC/
Purdue University	Learning Design and Technology	https://www.facebook.com/purduelearningdesignandtechnology
The University of Tampa	Instructional Design and Technology	https://www.facebook.com/UTIDT/
University of California, Irvine	E-Learning Instructional Desig	https://www.facebook.com/eLearningCertificate/
University of Georgia	Learning, Design, and Technology	https://www.facebook.com/itsauga/
University of Hawaii at Manoa	Learning Design and Technology	https://www.facebook.com/LTECHawaii
University of Minnesota	Curriculum and Instruction/Learning Technologies	https://www.facebook.com/LTMediaLab
University of North Texas	Learning Technologies	https://www.facebook.com/UNTLearningTechnologies
University of South Alabama	Instructional Design Performance Improvement Program	https://www.facebook.com/South-Alabama-Instructional-Design-Performance-Improvement-Program
University of South Carolina	Educational Technology	https://www.facebook.com/EdTechatUofSC/
University of Toronto	Knowledge Media Design Institute	https://web.facebook.com/KMDI-Toronto
University of West Georgia	Educational Technology & Foundations	https://www.facebook.com/UwgDepartmentOfEducationalTechnologyFoundations
Valdosta State University	Instructional Technology	https://www.facebook.com/vsuidt
West Virginia University	Instructional Design and Technology	https://www.facebook.com/CEHS-Dept-of-Learning-Sciences-and-Human-Development
Western Kentucky University	Instructional Design	https://www.facebook.com/wku.instructional.design/

References

Oremus, W. (2015). Is Snapchat really confusing, or I am just old? Technology: Innovation, The Internet, Gadgets, and More. Slate. Retrieved from: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2015/01/snapchat_why_teens_favorite_app_makes_the_facebook_generation_feel_old.html

Rodríguez-Hoyos, C., Salmón, I. H., & Fernández-Díaz, E. (2015). Research on SNS and education: The state of the art and its challenges. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 31(1), 100-111.