Recent Publications Related to Social Media in Education

It feels like I have not blogged in a while, so I decided to take a break from other social media and give some love to my blog. In this post, I want to share some research that I have co-authored and published this year on the use of social media in education:

“A Syllabi Analysis of Social Media for Teaching and Learning Courses“
You can access this journal article here.

Earlier this year, my former student (Linlin Li) and I published this journal article. It was a really neat experience doing the syllabi analysis. It helped me understand some of the topics that are often overlooked when we teach about social media. It also allowed me to see what books and sources are used in the curriculum. The reality is that we have so much literature related to social media and it understandable because the experiences, the environment and the individual using them are constantly changing. This was an open access publication.

“An Exploration of a Social Media Community: The Case of #AcademicTwitter“
You can access this conference proceeding paper here.

This was my first collaboration with colleague Lina Gomez-Vasquez, a fellow Latinx researcher. It was a high level analysis of the #AcademicTwitter hashtag and those who often post to this online community. Love that we can look at how faculty (and other academics use social media). As the abstract stated: “This paper examines participants and communication patterns in the #AcademicTwitter community. Using content analysis and social network analysis techniques, the researchers examined tweets including the #AcademicTwitter hashtag to discover the community’s network properties, roles of the participants, sentiment, and conversational themes.” We have other follow up projects related to the #AcademicTwitter hashtag, so stay tune.

“Most versus least used social media: undergraduate students’ preferences, participation, lurking, and motivational factors“: You can access this journal article here.

In this paper, we surveyed 769 undergraduate students and asked them about their social media preference and participation. Snapchat and Instagram were their preferred social media. We also asked questions related to lurking. As we mentioned in the paper: “It is equally important that as part of the research focused on the use and participation of undergraduate students in social media, we also address lurking behaviors. In comparison to the large number of research efforts focused on active users of social media, very little research has focused on lurkers in online environments or even consider lurking an important form of online behavior (Edelman, 2013). The 90-9-1 rule states that amongst members of an online community there are ninety percent lurkers who never contribute, nine percent who contribute very little, and one percent who actively create new content (Sun, Rau, & Ma, 2014). There are multiple reasons why people lurk.”

A sabbatical during COVID-19

Where do I start?

I guess I can start by writing that a few months into my sabbatical the world turned upside down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, I was able to use my time to complete the tasks that I had outlined for my sabbatical period. April and May did require a significant adjustment since we had to manuoiver a new work schedule without child care. Maneuvering this new schedule required being realistic about what I could accomplish and saying “no” to some invitations for new collaborations.

The first two months of my sabbatical were as planned. I worked on writing two chapters for the book “Research Methods in Learning Design and Technology.” Book chapter authors submitted their completed and revised book chapters to me by the end of January and I worked on doing final reviews of each book chapter. I initially had planned to submit the book to the publisher by mid-March, but I switched the format of the last chapter, and this required giving extra time to my co-authors to complete their writing. This meant that I had to delay the submission of the book documents to the publisher until mid-April. Thankfully, by the time the world turned upside down in mid-March, all my co-authors and book chapter authors had turned in all required documents to me.

One of the elements of my sabbatical that was partially affected by the COVID-19 pandemic was work-related travel. I was scheduled to attend the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Convention in San Francisco in mid-April and the conference was canceled. I am glad it was canceled, I am also glad it was not held virtually. April was a month of re-adjustement, tension, and stress for many. I was also scheduled to travel to Florence, Italy to present at the DEPIT Annual Meeting at the University of Florence. This event was re-scheduled for an online format.

I had some personal travel plans changed because of travel restrictions. I was scheduled to spend all of March and a portion of April in Panama City, Panama, where I was going to work while spending time close to my family. So, I traveled to Panama at the end of February and was monitoring all the news related to COVID-19. Due to the way the virus was spreading, my family and I decided it was best for us to travel back to the United States, so we changed our flights to travel back on March 22 (which is the day Panama was scheduled to close their international airport). On the evening of March 20, I received an email from COPA airlines letting me know that our flights had been cancelled. I was shocked and extremely disappointed. However, we all stayed calm and determined that we would just ride the storm in Panama. That same evening, as a last attempt, we figured we would see if there were any flights on March 21 to Tampa with a different airline. Thankfully, we did manage to fly back to Tampa on March 21. My dad was in Panama with me and we were also able to find a flight for him to fly back to Toronto (within one hour difference of our flight), which gave peace of mind. I would not have left Panama without my dad.

The weeks after returning from Panama, were weeks of adjustments as mentioned at the beginning of this post. In addition to all the tasks for the book, I was also scheduled to write a manuscript (with a deadline) that I had not even started. It took discipline to stay focus. I admit that there were many emotions related to what was happening in the world with the pandemic, leaving Panama, and experiencing the “new normal.” I felt like I had to work hard on my “emotional intelligence” to get the paper written and deliver all the book materials to the publisher.

I am thankful for the sabbatical term. In addition to the tasks mentioned in this post, I also used the time to work in revisions to several manuscripts and continue mentoring my undergraduate student (we presented at a conference in February and are currently working on a few writing tasks). Of course, I spend time with my family (even more than planned due to the lack of childcare).

Since my sabbatical ended, I am back to serving as the Graduate Coordinator of the Instructional Design and Technology program and I taught a six-week summer intensive course on Learner Motivation in June. I definitely missed my students and the joy of our convos.

Instructional Design Practitioners, Students, and Faculty: Social Media Groups

I am putting together a list of social media groups, specifically Facebook and LinkedIn groups, to share with the students in the UT IDT program. I thought it would be a nice resource that would allow them to be expose to diverse groups of instructional designers in different settings, levels of experience, and locations. I remember when I first started my IDT master program it seemed like there was hardly anyone else who knew what was instructional design. In any case, I know it can feel like just you and your classmates are learning about instructional design. In reality, we have large communities of instructional design practitioners, students, and faculty. This is a work in progress list, I will add more groups as I come across them.

Florida Suncoast Chapter: Association for Talent Development:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1476417/
Association of Educational Communications and Technology (AECT):
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/55502/
- AECT Graduate Student Assembly:
  - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/aectgsa/
  - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1225417/
- AECT Teacher Education Division: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AECT.TED/
- AECT Division of Distance Learning: https://www.facebook.com/groups/aectddl/
- AECT Culture, Learning and Technology: https://www.facebook.com/groups/aectclt/
- AECT Division of Organizational Training and Performance: https://www.facebook.com/groups/aect.tandp/
- AECT Design and Development Division:
  - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/aectdesignanddevelopment/
  - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1844190/
- AECT Research and Theory Division: https://www.facebook.com/groups/aectrtd
American Educational Research Association:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/105053/
- AERA Division C: Learning & Instruction: https://www.facebook.com/groups/19010695699/
- AERA SIG Instructional Technology: https://www.facebook.com/groups/aerasigit/
- AERA SIG Design and Technology: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/3704774/
Other Facebook and LinkedIn Groups:
Social media accounts for 46 different Instructional Design & Technology programs:
- Crowded source Google Spreadsheet

Photo Blog: IFDS in Tunisia

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit the beautiful country of Tunisia in June as part a faculty member participating in the international faculty professional development (IFDS) seminar titled: “The New Tunisia: Migration and Democratic Consolidation” organized by SIT abroad. My participation in the seminar was sponsored by an IFDS grant awarded to faculty members at The University of Tampa by the Office of International Programs and the International Programs Committee. I was honored to received this grant. Participation in this seminar gave me the opportunity to learn more about topics related migration in the African continent, specifically the Maghreb region. Several of our meetings with experts and NGOs focused on conversations that allow use to learn more about the social, political, and economic effects of migration in the Maghreb region, sub-Saharan Africa, and European countries. I plan to write more about the seminar in the near future; however, for now I want to share some of the photos taken during the seminar.

One of the many reasons I am sharing this photo blog is that in the months prior to my departure to Tunisia, I mentioned to a few colleagues, friends, and family members the destination of my IFDS. I was amazed by the number of people who do not know where Tunisia is located or that it even a country. So, I feel that it is important to let others see (even if just through the lens of my camera) a bit of Tunisia.