Gamifying a course, phase 2: Onboarding

To continue from the previous post, phase 1 ....

My first step was to create a new course plan:

Now I have due dates ... which helps me organize... which helps me plan.

My next step was to review and streamline tasks, beginning with Onboarding.

Well...yes and no...   I had to multi-task, actually.   While streamlining the Onboarding tasks, I realized I needed to develop my narrative for the course...so I streamlined...then pondered my narrative, then streamlined, then threw out the narrative, then streamlined some more, then re-wrote the narrative....

Whew.... and decided to frame the entire experience from the position of each student being invited to serve as a Visiting Staff Member of the fictional Mountain View Community College.  While serving in this position, their goal was to learn as much as possible about the various units to better prepare them for an interview in May. They would be introduced by a variety of campus tour guides who would take them to the various units, proving overviews, content, even introducing them to "students."

I discovered I had to become both linear and nonlinear during this stage of creating...keeping both the big and small picture in my mind at all times.  What an exercise for me!

Trying to approach this from the perspective of being a new hire, albeit temporary, it occurred to me I needed to, once again, re-frame the experience.

Students entering the course were greeted by a Voki who provided an overview and introduction to the course.

But what else do then need to get started and not be overwhelmed and confused?

Thinking like HR, I considered most community colleges offer some sort of social for new employees, so why not Mountain View Community College? I crafted the following text for the course home page:

 So... I have set the scene...

What is the first thing that everyone does at a college-wide social?

We check in!

So will my students.  When they click on the check-in table a flip book will appear:

 What happens after we check in?   We attend the Staff  Social where we meet our new colleagues!

Clicking on this graphic takes students to the Staff Social Module in Canvas where they will participate in a forum to meet each other and have their first opportunity to earn a badge. The student view of the Staff Social is as follows:

 I want to make sure everyone attends the Staff Social and "socializes," so I am requiring students to complete all items and earn at least a score of 95 on the forum to earn their first badge.

Here is where I started re-learning Canvas.  I say "re-learn" because I considered myself extremely knowledgeable about Canvas, but gamifying a course has taken that knowledge to a whole new level.  (Wait until we get to Mastery Paths in a future blog post!)

I needed to edit my module settings to make each module item required and to set a minimum score. In the Canvas instructor view, each module has a little gear icon to the right with a drop down window In that drop down menu, I clicked on Edit and create these rules to edit my module settings.  Notice that I selected a minimum grade required and that students view a particular page. Clicking on Update Module saved this new setting, and this module is required!

Now...to add a badge.....  Gamification includes rewards, after all....

Badgr provides a lot of great resource videos to guide us through the badge creation and award process. After setting up an account in Badgr, viewing their videos,  and integrating Badgr into Canvas, I was finally able to set up the logic for automatic badge award!

Now students will automatically receive their Social Butterfly Badge once they have "attended" and completed their Staff Social Module.

Me, as a Voki

Completing this module is key as it unlocks the next component.

What comes after the Staff Social? They meet their first Tour Guide, me!

I then take them to meet James who will escort them to HR for their Mountain. View Community College Orientation. Just as in a typical work orientation, they review policies and procedures (Course Overview), they complete the requisite HR paperwork (in this case the pre-assessment mentioned in the previous blog post), and they schedule a meeting with their supervisor (Virtual Coffee Break with me).

James

Next they complete a knowledge capture - what they currently ow regarding faculty and staff  to be used later in a course project.  They watch  several videos (History of Community Colleges and Issues Impacting Community Colleges), discuss these with one another (discussion forums), and read a few chapters in their text.

James then returns to escort them to meet their next tour guide at the Student Lounge.

Completing the Orientation is pivotal, as other modules ("stops" along their tour) will not unlock until the Orientation is complete..  While part of the reason is to force students into completing all tasks to help prepare them for success in this course, the other reason is to allow me to individualize their journey through this course based on their pre-assessment scores.  I need to give myself time to score the pre-assessment and identify a mastery path for each student. This means I need to schedule the pre-assessment as early as possible to allow me the time I need to do my part.

Originally the orientation module included a lot of other tasks, such as creating a blog, Twitter account, instagram account,and so forth, but in streamlining I decided to omit some of those tasks, and others will be worked in as part of task options later.

Now...on to the next two stops:  Student Lounge and Faculty Lounge  Content in part 3.

Gamifying a course, phase 1

I have finally jumped in to gamifying a course in higher education.

Well, I am actually re-gamifying a course I last taught 3 years ago.  I was, well, OK, with that iteration, but wanted to improve it after teaching it once.  It has taken me a while to plan and re-designing is becoming very time-consuming...

So I thought I would share my process.
 
 I have been reflecting and blogging about gamification for almost two years now, so it is time I actually take the first step.  To learn more about the journey, begin reading with this post.

The original version

2015 course map

I first gamified EDU 604 during the fall of 2014 to begin January 2015. This process took approximately eight weeks from concept mapping to publishing. Although I was using our Canvas LMS, at that time Canvas did not have the ability to provide badges, so I used an external program 3-D Game Lab to house my gamified class.

I really enjoyed using 3-D Game Lab from the design viewpoint, but I quickly discovered several issues I needed to address before offering this course in a gamified mode again.

 This course provides an overview of 14 different units in a community college. My goal is to introduce future administrators to as many different aspects of their community college as possible to help reduce tunnel vision and expose students to other departments. The hope is that when they are administrators, they will make decisions keeping in mind the other units in their community college and understanding the impact that each decision has on community college as a whole...not just their particular unit.

Forcing students out of their comfort zone and requiring them to network with others in their community college was the underlying focus of this course. Learning about all of these other aspects, however, can become somewhat tedious, so I thought that gamifying this course could make the subject more interesting. I also wanted to allow for previous experience, giving students an opportunity to demonstrate knowledge gained through experience and therefore opt out of specific units or portions thereof. Gamifying this course allowed me to more easily individualize the learning for each student.

Students first completed an assessment demonstrating their knowledge in these 14 areas, and I scored their responses awarding 10 XP,  30 XP, or 50 XP. I then created a badge for each of the XP earned, awarded that badge to each student, and that badge was used to unlock specific tasks or quests that students were to complete to earn the next badge, finish that unit, and move on to the next.


Students also were given the opportunity to earn additional badges, thereby being awarded points, when they set up their blog, created their first video, and for each virtual coffee chat they had with me. Earning three badges within 24 ours earned another badge, and completing and submitting tasks on weekends or holidays resulted in additinal badges and additioal XP. Positive behaviors were rewarded with badges.

Each unit could be completed at one of three levels. Students who completed the reading and for him only earned a bronze badge, equating to a grade of AC for that unit. Students who earned an additional 50 points by completing quests from a provided list received a silver badge (grade of B), and those who completed 100 points earned a gold badge (A). See below:

During their first week all students were required to videoconference with me. During this videoconference students shared their screens, logged into 3-D Game Lab, and demonstrated what they had already accomplished. This allowed me the chance to see where confusion existed and to help gently nudge them into the idea of a course as a game. My purpose in this was to make sure that all students understood the "game" process.

I was able to create all of the badges, create the pathways, design the quests (tasks),  and finish the syllabus all prior to beginning of the course that spring.  I also created a welcome video for students to watch:

What worked

 Quests/Tasks were simple to create, and badge awarding upon completion was easy! I was quickly able to learn how to use 3-D Game Lab, and linking XP earned to badge award was simple to accomplish. To keep from having unselected quests (tasks) stay in a student's to do list, I assigned all quests/tasks to expire at midnight of the Sunday when each unit was due. In my pre-planning stage I had made a list of all of the positive behaviors that I wanted to reinforce, and I created badges as awards for those. Such badges were awarded immediately without my having to do any checking or assigning myself. Very much a time saver!

Some quests/tasks earned a badge upon completion, while others had to be graded by me. When an assignment was submitted, and the assignment did not meet all of the requirements, students were required to revise and resubmit to reach their specific level of competency for that unit.

Some students loved this approach and worked hard to be on top and ahead of one another.

In theory, all students should have earned an A.

In theory . . . .

What didn't

Ah...where to begin . . . .

For some reason, not all students watched the welcome video, so they did not understand the course organization.  Several students did not schedule their first virtual coffee break (videoconference) with me until the second week of class, despite repeated gentle reminders to do so. Something this simple put these students at risk for the rest of the semester. They did not understand course instructions, did not know how to plan their time, did not understand how to navigate 3-D Game Lab, missed a variety of deadlines, and almost failed the course. I emailed and met with them constantly just trying to keep them involved and somewhat on track. Interesting enough, these students were taking another traditionally-designed course with me at the same time and demonstrated the same behaviors in that class as well...perhaps the issue was not gamification as much as a lack of preparedness for online graduate instruction and a lack of time management skills.

I set up my video conference Badge

In video conferences with several students, I discovered that several had never played games. They had never played bingo, they had played no video games, they were not familiar with mobile apps. They simply lacked experience in gameplay. Some of these students did quite well in this class despite lacking previous experience in gaming, yet others struggled throughout. Age was not a factor in experience with game play. Some of the millennials in the course had no experience while others did.

I believe the main issue here was not the gamified course as much as it was student's difficulty in planning and time management. This issue repeated itself with the students in other courses.

Another item that did not work as planned was the issue of turning off an assignment at a particular date. 3-D Game Lab did not have a setting for local time, and when I selected a time for an assignment to expire, it expired six hours before the time that I told it to expire. This meant students were trying to complete assignments that were vanishing while they were working on them. Sunday afternoons, then, were spent with me answering frantic emails from students who were trying to complete their last few expertise to earn a badge while trying to troubleshoot with 3-D Game Lab developers. Eventually I ended up having those quests expire 2 days later to make sure students had time to work on them the day they were due. Yes, I know they should not wait until the last minute, but. . . .

When a student read a quest and then decided to wait to begin that quest, that quest appeared to vanish from student's list. The 3-D Game Lab overview video that students viewed explained how to locate unfinished quests in their leaderboard. This tended to confuse students who sometimes assumed that if no tasks appeared on their screen that they were caught up, and some assumed they had completed the entire course in two weeks! Interestingly enough, these were the same students with time management and planning issues and who did not begin the course as quickly as their classmates did.

I used completion of the bronze badge in one unit to unlock the following unit. To me this made sense. To many of the students it made sense. Unfortunately for the students who dropped behind and their tasks expired, they were unable to proceed to the next unit because they did not meet the prerequisites to that unit. So part way through the course I had to create a special key badge to unlock a unit and manually award that badge to those students who were behind to keep them from becoming even more behind. Figuring out how to fix this took some time on my part as well as much discussion with the program's developers.

This resulted in a bifurcated class with students at opposite ends of the XP spectrum. Some of those who were behind felt as though they would never catch up, so I was constantly working with them to cheer them on, keep them engaged, and try to make sure they were successful in this course.

Forum completion badge

I like to use forums as a place for students to discuss their readings and their experiences as they can really learn from one another.  In 3D Game Lab, the forum option was open to all with no security settings, and students are unable to locate each others forums to post. To provide a safe place for a forum, I posted forums in Canvas. To try to make this less confusing for students, I created a quest in 3-D to for each forum. The quest specified what the forum was and directed students to go to a specific forum number in Canvas. The quest also told them to respond to two of their classmates in canvas and once they have made their initial post in canvas and responded to two of their classmates, they were to return to this quest in 3-D Game Lab and record the names of the students to whom they responded when they clicked on submit. While I hated to have them toggle from 3-D Game Lab to Canvas, I felt they needed the safety and privacy of a Canvas for when they were talking about their community colleges and their experiences. Some students neglected to return to 3-D Game Lab and complete the forum quest. Unfortunately, completion of the forum quest resulted in a bronze badge for that unit which, in turn, opened up the tasks for silver and gold badges along with the opening quests for the following unit. I found myself contacting some students several times to remind them to return to Game Lab to submit that quest. Eventually all of the students caught on to this, but it took some students several weeks.

Some students were two weeks ahead of other students which, again, impacted forum posts and discussion.

Quest Creator Badge

Providing choices is an integral part of games, and giving students choices in assignments gives them some independence and freedom and makes assignments more interesting for me to grade as I am not grading the same assignment completed and submitted by several students. These choices generated some interesting results. While some students consistently selected different choices within each unit, other students chose similar assignments each time, resulting in them not having as full of an exposure as I had intended. Throughout the course students had opportunities to create infographics, digital storytelling videos, proposals, narrated PowerPoint's, blog posts, reports, course syllabi, Facebook and Twitter posts, and many more. Some students, however, selected the same tasks over and over. I also provided a Create-your-own task where students had the opportunity to suggest to me a task they wanted to complete. Not a single student chose that option.

My mid semester, all students were caught up, or at least working in the same unit at the same time.  Some students,however, chose only to complete the bare minimum for each unit, resulting in a lower grade than their classmates.

Learnings

10 tasks in 10 days badge

Good habits are good habits. Students with strong time management and planning skills did well. Students lacking those skills did not. Students lacking those skills struggled in more traditional courses just as much as they did in the gamified one, so finding a way to strengthen those skills is vital to their success as a graduate student. I have considered adding a time management task to the course where students need to create a schedule demonstrating time allotted for the course.  Students completed a survey at the end of the course where they responded to questions about the gamified course, comparing their learning, engagement, and such.  I was fascinated to see that all students - despite their grade and their timeliness in the courses - said they preferred this course format to a more traditional format and that they felt they learned just as much this way. Go figure.

5 tasks in one day badge

Students need deadlines. At first I tried to not provide deadlines, but students stopped working.  Deadlines are very important to keeping students on task, particularly in an online course.

Early Bird Badge

Onboarding is key. Students need to be "on board" ASAP.  They need to understand the concept of a gamified course and their responsibility in saying on task. I am not sure how to "make" them watch a video or meet with me during the first week, but somehow that simply needs to happen to increase the chance of success.

Next Steps

 So...what's next?

To reduce confusion in moving back and forth from one program to another, I want to recreate the entire course in our Canvas LMS. while Canvas does now integrate with 3DGL, I had to pay yearly for using that program, so I copied and downloaded all quests and activities and have them stored, ready to use in Canvas.

In 2015, while Canvas did have a badge function, it was clunky and seldom worked. Now, in 2017, Canvas has integrated with Badgr to award badges, so I just need to learn the format and the functionality of the two.

I need to create a new course plan, and I want to streamline tasks, still allowing for some choices, but not as many.

More to come, so stay tuned!  On to phase 2....Onboarding!

Using an Audio Slideshow

A new semester means a chance to experiment...and I have decided to experiment with audio slideshows.....and give my adult students a chance to experiment with them as an alternative to a  recorded PowerPoint presentation.


An audio slideshow is an audio track (speech and/or music) with a sequence of  photographs (slides) which change as the track progresses. This self-running slideshow, then, could be used in a variety of ways.

Uses for an Audio Slideshow

How about crafting an audio slideshow to present a topic as part of a larger lecture? This approach would also work well to archive a meeting while providing audio narration. Students could use this technique to capture an  internship project...or practicum..or a study abroad opportunity. Audio slideshows could be used to present an interview project or poetry reading or musical  composition....There are so many different and creative ways to use this technique!

Why use an Audio Slideshow?

We know how to narrate PowerPoint presentations and how to turn those into videos for posting in youtube or vimeo for embedding in an LMS, so why should we use an audio slideshow? 

Photographs tell a story, and often we have stories to tell about content ..... or about events ... or we want students to share their stories. Photographs capture a specific point in time - and what can be more important in communication than seeing and understanding one's perspective?

Strong audio can pack as punch too  as shown by the many road dramas of the past.


Putting these two mediums together can result in an extremely powerful product.

Weaknesses of an Audio Slideshow

Although audio slideshows are growing in number, they are still not very popular.

Why?

Well, it's not video, and for those of us who are used to fast moving video and activity, an audio slideshow can feel downright slow. For example, one image will stay on screen for 5 or more seconds, before slowly dissolving into another. In video, we see images lasting just a matter of frames.

Another issue is that many  audio slideshows are just not very good and have mismatched audio and video.....or the slides move too quickly.....

Examples of Great Audio Slideshows

The audio slideshow of Bronx grandfather Joseph Cotton  is part of series by the New York Times entitled 1 in 8 Million. This slideshow tells the story of Mr. Cotton using black and white stills depicting average family routines that make up the fabric of everyday life...narrated by grandfather Cotton.

 Dreams Come True by Colin Mulvany makes extensive use of natural sound, resulting in an  extremely effective piece of storytelling. This slideshow  tells the story of a young woman named Amber Green who has cerebral palsy and yet works as a paid teacher’s aide.

Surf Town Canada by Evan Mitsui demonstrates how still photography can be more interesting than video. Utilising multiple photos shot at a high shutter speed  adds a dimension to the sport of surfing that you cannot see on television.

How to's

What makes a good audio slideshow:do's and don'ts provides a great lesson in how to design your own slideshow, including tips on photos, timing, and narration.  Popular Photography's How To: Create an Audio Slideshow from Start to Finish focuses on taking photos and how to capture the perfect soundbite. ABC.Net's Tip Sheet on Creating an Audio slideshow looks at te nuts of bolots of the process.

Have fun! Create! Tell a story!

6 FREE methods to create narrated presentations or lessons

As an online instructor, I try to make sure may students have the opportunity to develop oral as well as written communication skills....and what better way to do this than by assigning presentations? Many students do not have access to expensive video and audio recording software, so I have created a list of 6 ways they can make class presentations - for FREE!

1. Recording a slide show in PowerPoint

Probably the  most comfortable approach for many, creating a slide show with a voice-over narration is very simple. Equipment needed includes a sound card, microphone, and speakers. ... and Microsoft PowerPoint, of course.

The finished file an then be saved and uploaded...but this finished file may be too large for many email systems to handle or to upload into an LMS (Learning Management System). The work-around here is to export the video to YouTube, resulting in a link or a video to embed. 

Following is a list of websites to assist in adding voice-over to a PowerPoint slide presentation and exporting it to YouTube:

• Record your Slide Show in PowerPoint
• Save your Presentation as a Video
•  Post your PowerPoint Presentation as a Video to YouTube

2. Office Mix

Have you heard of Office Mix?  One of my students cued me into this program.

Office Mix is a downloadable PowerPoint extension that allows users to turn presentations into interactive online lessons to be shared on the web, in OneNote, or in one's LMS. Integrating audio and video narration, real-rime digital inking, screen captures, quizzes and polls, simulations, videos, and live web pages are now possible. 


The following video provides a brief overview of this extension and how it can be used:

3. Infographic - Thinglink - Just add video/audio

Tired of traditional presentations?  Try something a wee bit different.  This approach involves a few more steps, but the results can be very creative and  interesting.

First, create an infographic using a program that allows you to save the infographic as a jpg or png. I tend to use Piktochart but Easel.ly  and Visme work well, too.  Once you have your information presented on your infographic, publish and download it as jpg.

Once the infographic is finished, decide where video or audio should be added to further explain and explain specific topics, images, ideas..... then, create those video or audio files being sure they each have a url.  Programs that allow you to save the files to your google drive where you can share them as a url will also work. Free programs that will allow you to create short audios or videos online include Screencast-o-matic, Free Webcam Recorder Software, Jing, Screenr, and many others.

Having the video or audio url is necessary for the next step.

Now, sign up for free Thinglink account. Thinglink allows members to create interactive graphics.  What does this mean for you and your presentation?  You can now embed a video or audio file, an image, or even a website into the infographic that you previously saved as a jpg. Click HERE to see an example of  an interactive syllabus I designed using this same method. Simply link several videos to expand upon your infographic.

The Thinglink video below provides a quick overview of how to use it :

4. Infographic with Embedded videos

This approach requires more pre-planning on your part, but you might consider creating an infographic and embedding your videos directly into it -WITHOUT the use of Thinglink. Piktochart  and Venngage will allow users to embed a Youtube or Vimeo video directly into an infographic.

Remember - several of these infographic generators also offer other formats such as posters or presentations, so experiment!

Learn more about Piktochart below:

5. Prezi: Just Add Video

Prezi is yet another option for a presentation. Prezi is a cloud-based presentation software often used as an alternative to PowerPoint. Where PowerPoint uses slides, Prezi uses a large canvas where users zoom in and pan to various parts to emphasize ideas presented.   Video files can be embedded, but users need to note hat when the video plays the rest of presentation my be hidden, so plan accordingly. Also, I have had some students with motion sickness when they watch a prezi, so keep that in mind when planning and building. As before, plan out the videos and embed where needed.

Learn more about using Prezi by watching this video:

 

6. VoiceThread 

VoiceThread may provide another free option for presentations. A free account is available but with a limit of 5 presentations.  

New to VoiceThread? VT is an interactive collaboration and sharing tool that enables users to add images, documents, and videos, and to which other users can add voice, text, audio file, or video comments.

Users can up load images, slides....and add voice to each one, with the ability to add text or to draw, making this a great  method of presenting material for discussion.

The following video provides a very quick overview of VoiceThread:

8 Ways to Build Community Using Twitter

Did you know that Twitter can help build community in higher education settings?

While we tend to think about using Twitter  - also known as microblogging - to develop an online community or a professional development community, Twitter can also be used to build online community in higher education.

With Twitter we do not just have conversations, but our conversations are tweeted and retweeted, bringing perfect strangers into the discussion, while allowing others to remain silent, simply "listening" and lurking in the background. While some higher education institutions have been early adapters and use Twitter easily, others either have not entered the Twitterverse or are floundering in their usage.

A earlier blog post explored the importance of institutions using technology to build community to increase student success and persistence, but basically...institutions and staff can use Twitter in their technology toolkit to help attract students and retain them, and faculty can use Twitter to engage them in classes while helping them build community and increase their commitment to the class.

Why use Twitter?

In this time of decreasing budget and increasing needs, a free tech tool is ideal, and Twitter is free.  Faulty and staff simply need training in how and why to use it.

According to Pew Research Center, 23% of online adults use Twitter, an increase from 16% in 2012. Moore (2013) reports Twitter claims 200 million users send over 400 million tweets daily, with nearly 60% of tweets sent from mobile devices. (Imagine an institution with online programs reaching out to 200 million possible students.) Note that these numbers do not include those Twitter members who follow (AKA lurk) but never tweet. Those Twitter members are reading tweets, just not tweeting on their own...but they are reading those tweets.

Baer (2015) suggests

"49% of monthly Twitter users follow brands or companies, compared to just 16% of social network users overall. Put another way, Twitter users are 3 times more likely to follow brands than Facebook users. Combined with their above average income and above average education, Twitter users’ propensity to interact with brands make them a huge potential source for Mass Influencers."

Institutions certainly have brands to be followed....and those with above average education may need advanced degrees or have children who need associates and bachelor's degrees. Sounds like a perfect match!

Further Twitter demographics (Apuzzo, 2015) report 18-29 year-olds comprise 35% of Twitter users, with 20% of Twitter users being 30-48 year-olds, 11% are 50-64 olds, and 5% are over the age of 65.

So, now that we know how many Twitter followers are out there, how can we use Twitter effectively to build community in higher education?

 Institutional use of Twitter to build community

#1. Develop an institutional personality and voice. Rather than thinking of Twitter as a marketing tool, try using it build community.  This building of community helps to build your institution's brand. Twitter is about conversations, so spend time developing a conversation with your followers. Follow your followers, and provide content. This content, however, should not be, "Look how great we are here at ABC University," but more about how to be successful in college, or how to locate scholarships. Twitter is not about recruiting, per se, it is about conversing.  Once followers become comfortable with an institution's personality, they may apply.  They also may not. But, in the meantime, the institution is developing an institutional community of engaged followers.


When institutions need to make announcements about campus evens or deadlines, they should use a separate Twitter account, one entitled ABC University News.  This separates the news from the content.

Institutions need several accounts - one for admissions, for financial aid, for athletics, for student development, for each program. Keep the main account for building conversation and voice and the others for more specific announcements.

Following those who follow the institution is vital to developing a community and the institution's personality, so urging all of the institution's Twitter accounts to follow back and engage with their followers is very important.

On to faculty - who can continue to engage students while both in and outside of class.


Using Twitter in the higher ed classroom 

#2. Course housekeeping. A way to ease into using Twitter involves handling issues related to course housekeeping. Faculty can set up a class hashtag to tweet class reminders and retweet tweets with class-related information and campus activities. To re-emphasize the first tip....faculty need to develop a twitter personality as they begin to form their own class communities.

#3. Book and course content-related discussions. Now, to get into the fun aspects of using Twitter! Faculty tweeting a question about a course reading can engage students not only in the course material, but as students respond to one another's tweets, they start forging interpersonal networks. With a faculty nudge, students can form study groups and organize service learning opportunities, creating a culture of engagement. These interactions have been linked to increased levels of student engagement, resulting in the development of a strong learning community (Evans, 2014; Junco, Heibergert, & Loken, 2011).

I require my students to set up a Twitter account and post reflections on their readings, sharing  videos, articles, and blog posts...all while commenting upon each others' posts...and using a class hashtag. Because my students will eventually become community college administrators, this assignment has several purposes: they share content with others, they begin developing their own professional network, and they see, first hand, how Twitter can be used in their jobs. Since my courses are all fully online, encouraging students to network with one another and to engage with the content is a very important part of community building. Sometimes those outside of our course interact with students, further emphasizing the importance of their work.

#4. Specific Twitter account for each course. Those concerned about privacy can still integrate Twitter to add community to their courses: faculty will just need to set up a specific Twitter account for each class, then check the account's setting to ensure the twitter profile is set at "Protect my Tweets." Protected Tweets are only visible to one's approved Twitter followers, allowing faculty and students to maintain some control over their tweets' visibility, fostering a level of professionalism, while allowing students to network and engage. Unfortunately, this involves using multiple email accounts, but consider the benefits of separate Twitter accounts as opposed to separate hashtags.

#5. Live Twitter chats during lectures. How about encouraging students to tweet while in class? Faculty who teach face-to-face classes might want to try displaying live Twitter chats during lectures. As students tweet their questions,  a live stream appears on a screen, encouraging students to pay attention to the questions AND to the discussion. Students tend to feel more of a part of the discussion, increasing their engagement with the material and with each other.

#6. Professional development. Encourage students to develop their own professional network on Twitter, using it for professional development. Teach them how to locate the hashtags associated with both class topics and their career as well as conferences in their field. They can identify known professionals in their field, follow them, and interact.

#7. Office hours. One task I am going to try next semester is offering Twitter office hours. Using a course hashtag combined with my twitter name, students will have to keep their posts to less than 140 characters, requiring they be succinct in posing their questions. My thought is twitter-based office hours would encourage students to ask a question without the encumbrance of logging into university email or our LMS to send a message.  They can tweet directly from their phone or office computer, hopefully making the process quicker and easier. Their questions - and my responses - will also be available for their classmates to review.... a different type of "water cooler." Any way to foster engagement and community in an online course!

#8. Posting course materials. Scheduling tweets is easy with a variety of free programs (HootSuite, SocialOomph, TweetDeck, and Buffer, for example), so why not schedule tweets providing links to course content? Videos, websites, even articles can be shared this way, so establish a time frame for your students and post away!  Organizing tweets to where they appear at a specific time keeps you from clogging up your students' accounts, decreasing the likelihood of them overlooking something important.....while keeping them engaged.

Challenges of Tweeting

We now have some ideas of how to use Twitter to build community, but what else should we consider?

1. Institutions need designated employees to tweet for their various departments and entities, and the choice of personnel needs to entail writing skills, authenticity, and creativity, as well as technology skills. while tempting to give such a job to a grad student worker, the idea of developing a consistent Institutional Voice is too important to assign to a position that may change every year. The key here is consistency in developing the voice.

2. Twitter - as with all social media - can be distracting, so care needs to be taken to integrate it into courses. Faculty need to be certain that Twitter is enhancing community and engagement, not detracting from it.

3. While Twitter is a great way for students and faculty to connect, users can open themselves up to harassment.  Faculty incorporating Twitter and other social media into their courses need to be aware of the pitfalls and be ready to intervene  with minor incidents.  Training students in proper nettiquette is a must as is instilling the importance of respectful behavior.

4. Teach students about their digital footprint. Remind them that they are responsible for what they tweet...and what they tweet can - if one does not think through the ramifications of a tweet - land them in hot water.   A case in point is detailed here: How One Stupd Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco's Life.  Whether or not you agree that what happened to her after her tweet should have happened is not the issue - the isue is that she did not think before she tweeted..... and another: 10 People Who Lost Their jobs over Social Media Mistakes.... and 13 People Who Got Fired for Tweeting.


 5. Issues regarding confidentiality and boundaries may surface when using social media. Faculty need to consider their own boundaries as well as those of their students to determine - ahead of time - how to handle such issues, laying our guidelines. Students can use pseudonyms and avatars instead of posting personal information, and twitter accounts have various privacy levels to adjust. Being aware of these concerns allows faculty to prepare for them.


It's not - or shouldn't be - about the technology.   This should be about learning.  Using Twitter because it's new and interesting  is not the purpose.   The purpose should be to enhance learning, engagement, and community. Twitter should not substitute for teaching.

References

Apuzzo, R. (2015). Social media user statistics and age demographics for 2014. retrieved June 5, 2015.
 
Baer, J. (2015). 7 surprising statistics about Twitter in America.  Retrieved June 5, 2015.

Evans, C. (2014).  Twitter for teaching: Can social media be used to enhance the process of learning? British Journal of Educational Technology, 45(5), 902-915.

Junco, R., Heibergert, G., & Loken,E. (2011).  The effect of Twitter on college student engagement and grades. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 27, 199-132.

Moore, H. (September 12, 2013). Twitter heads for stock market debut by filing for IPO. The Guardian. Retrieved June 5, 2015.

Pew Research Center. (n.d.). Social networking fact sheet. Retrieved June 5, 2015.

Using Facebook to build community

Facebook?  In higher ed? How - and why - should faculty and institutions use Facebook?

Facebook is just one of many techniques we can use to create a community, whether in a traditional, F2F classroom, an online classroom, or at the institutional level. [See the previous post for an explanation of community and its importance to the higher education institution and in the classroom.]

Facebook is free (I am all for free!), and most of our students already know how to use and have their own Facebook account. In fact, according to the Pew Research Center, 71% of all online American adults use Facebook, including 87% of 18-29 year-olds and 73% of 30-49 year-olds.

 So, how do we as faculty and as institutions make use of this technology - and why should we?

Institutional use of Facebook

Institutional commitment. University and program-sponsored Facebook pages tend to foster community and commitment. Student registration at a university's Facebook site has been shown to influence student post-registration social networks, helping new students to make friends and keep in touch with family at home (Madge, et al, 2009). Facebook has even been used to help PhD students adjust to their doctoral program and new culture by encouraging knowledge exchange, nurturing socialization, and building community among students (Ryan, 2011). Facebook can help build school pride as well - and school pride and institutional commitment go hand-in-hand. Lenoir-Rhyne University updates Facebook during games (see left).

 College choice. Institutional use of Facebook even impacts college choice. Tucciarone (2009) found that students  doing their college selection research often look for links from university websites to university-sponsored Facebook pages, using this as a point in their decision-making. Facebook can be a great place to post virtual tours as well. Stanford's Facebook page houses Summertime at the Farm: A Walking Tour to show off its 8,000+ acre campus. Services such as Yourcampus360 will even create a virtual campus tour to be used on Facebook or on University websites.

Keeping in touch with current students and alumni.  Facebook ages can share useful information with current students (see Arizona State University o the left). Connecting with alumni for reunions and fundraising is easier using Facebook and other social media (Bennet, 2010; Halligan, 2010), allowing alumni to interact and even plan events. The College of William and Mary has an Alumni page with a variety of alumni events, shown to the right.

Department, unit, and program pages are also useful ways to engage prospective and current students.  Click here to see a very successful Trinity College of Music's Library Facebook page.

Resident Advisor and resident connections. I remember living in a dorm with an RA..... and around 50 other first-year females. Imagine if we had had Facebook then! Kacvinski and Moreno (2014) suggest RAs using Facebook to identify college students at risk for academic issues, depression or  problem drinking. This could then lead to in-person discussions to address any issues. 

 Faculty use of Facebook

I'll begin with how I use Facebook.

 I teach graduate level students in a fully online Community College Administration program, and one of the first assignments in each course is to join our program Facebook page.  Now, it's not that I don't  want to be "friends" with my students, but I feel the need to set some professional boundaries, so I have created a Facebook program page where students make their posts. They simply have to "like" the page to join, and I serve as administrator.  They cannot see my personal posts as I have set the privacy level for my account to where someone has to be on my friend list to see my posts..... so students only have access to what is posted on our program FB page.... and, of course students are free to "friend" each other...and often do.

Some courses require students to make a specified number of posts on the program page, linking to specific topic-related articles, blog posts, videos, and such, making a substantive comment that draws folks in  to to read their posts. They are also required to respond to each others' posts, sometimes sharing additional articles or videos for the other students to view in response. The post to the left shows a link one student provided to an article on Cultivating town and gown Relationships. NOTE: Student identity removed.

I also post to the program Facebook page providing links to free webinars on program-related topics and program announcements, including links to course syllabi, photos, recruitment event announcements, and infographics for upcoming courses.
 

In still other classes, posting on Facebook is an optional assignment, yet is seems to be one that students often choose. They post links to events  at their community colleges as well as promotional articles about their work.

Some classes have a blogging component, and I will - with student permission - post links to some of their posts but always after obtaining their permission first.

Other assignments may have students critiquing and discussing articles with one another, and a future assignment has them exploring the various ways THEY can use Facebook in their current community college positions.

Course Facebook pages. Joosten's Social Media for Educators suggests creating separate Facebook pages for each course to post announcements, news, and course updates. Others have experimented with using a closed Facebook group page as a Learning Management System. Although Facebook can only post links to webpages, photos, and videos, using a resource such as google docs would allow faculty to share readings, and even group documents through Facebook (Wang, Woo, Quek, Yang, & Liu, 2012).

Asynchronous discussion forums. Dyson et al. (2014) suggest posting a contemporary news story related to the week's topic urging students to read the material, comment, ask questions, and discuss prior to the week's lecture. During class time, they review the materials with the students to establish real-world relevance of the topic being introduced.  In this way students discuss the material outside of class before the in-class discussion. Using Facebook brings the content to the students rather than the students having to come to the content hosted in a learning managements system.

Facebook study groups. Students can also form their own study groups through Facebook, using this as a small group discussion, project planning, information exchange opportunity (Gray, Annabell, & Kennedy, 2010).

Professional Resources on Facebook. Many professional groups have Facebook pages just a click away from your students. Locating these for your students - or having them locate organizations, join their pages, and perhaps write a review of those pages would help students not only to begin developing professional networks, but to access a wealth of information outside of the classroom. Check out the following resources available through Facebook: American Association of Community Colleges, Reading Rockets,  National Council of Teachers of English, and the American Counseling Association.

Points to Consider

 Do I "friend"?  That is truly up to you and your comfort level. I have chosen not to friend my students until they graduate, mainly to allow us some separation in our personal lives.  Years ago I accepted a friend request from a student  after repeated attempts on the student's part to ask me to "friend" him. He missed class one night, emailing to say he was not feeling well. Later that day, a series of photos of him on his ski vacation appeared, all date stamped for that day....There are some things I just don't want  or need to know. If you are comfortable having a student as a "friend," then do it. Otherwise.....

How much should I share?  How much of your personal life do you really want to share? This is a question to consider whether you want to "friend" your students or not. When I first started using Facebook in 2008, we were told as faculty to have two separate accounts - one that was personal and one that was professional. Well, that is just too much work for me. Instead, I use my privacy settings and be sure that only my friends can see my posts...and I am still careful as to what I post because of my digital footprint. If you decide to "friend" your students, consider carefully what you post...just how much you want your students to know about you and how much you want to know about your students.

What is a digital footprint and why is it important? A digital footprint is data that users leave behind on digital services.  There are two main classifications for digital footprints: passive and active. A passive digital footprint is created when data is collected without the owner knowing, whereas active digital footprints are created when a user deliberately releases personal data for the purpose of sharing information about oneself by means of websites or social media. Click HERE to watch a  video I created for my students regarding digital footprints and job world.

What about privacy for my students? Along with your privacy concerns,  we need to be aware of our students' privacy needs. Will you set up a Public, Closed, or a Secret group Facebook page? The graphic to the right gives an overview of the three settings., but a much more detailed comparison is available through the Facebook Help Center. Your choice may depend upon the content matter. Students in a counseling program, for instance, may need the secret setting due to confidentiality requirements established by CACREP accreditation.  My program group page is fully open, and people I do not know have joined it. This way the group page can serve as a marketing tool, but it also allows students to practice thinking about how to be a higher education administrator in a digital world as they deal with issues of privacy and ethics in their own posts. A closed group might be a good in-between choice. If you post photos of students, ask their permission before tagging them in those photos as those tagged photos will then appear on their individual Facebook pages and in their feed as well as on your group page. If you want to share a link to a video, blog, or article they have written - obtain their permission first.

Tying it all together

Facebook is a free social networking tool being used by 71% of all online American adults. Higher education institutions can use Facebook to foster institutional community and classroom community. University-based Facebook pages can impact college choice along with increasing institutional commitment. Pages can provide information and serve as  support for students as well as alumni.

Faculty can use Facebook within their classroom from simple postings to serving as their course LMS. Pages can be designed for programs, individual classes, and even study groups with a variety of privacy levels available. Student interaction can be as little as "liking" a post or as much as presenting unit content.

There are some issues to be considered, including professionalism, privacy, and digital footprints. 

At this point, however, the positives outweigh the negatives, and negatives can be avoided with solid planning and preparation.  Do you see a place for Facebook at your institution? in your classroom?

References

Bennett, C. (2010). Cast a wider net for reunions. Currents, 36(7), 28-31.

Dyson, B., Vickers, K., Turtle, J., Cowan, S., &  Tassoe, A. (2014). Evaluating the use of Facebook to increase student engagement and understanding in lecture-based classes. Higher Education, 69, 303-313.

Gray, K., Annabell, L., & Kennedy, G. (2010). Medical students' use of Facebook to support learning: Insights from four case studies. Medical Teacher, 32, 971-976.

Halligan, T. (2010). The social media evaluation: Online tools drive opportunities for alumni outreach, fundraising. Community College Journal 80(4), 30-33.

Joosten, T. (2012). Social media for educators: Strategies and best practices.  San Francisco: Jossey- Bass.

Kacvinski, L., & Moreno, M.  (2014). Facebook use between college resident advisors and their residents: A mixed methods approach. College Student Journal, 48(1), 16-22.

Madge, C., Meek, J., Wellens, J, & Hooley, T. (2009). Facebook - social integration and informal learning at university: It is more for socializing and talking to friends about work than for actually doing work. Learning, Media, and Technology, 34(2), 142-155.

Ryan, S. H.,  Magro, M. J.,  & Sharp, J. K. (2011). Exploring education and cultural adaptation through social networking sites. Journal of  Information Technology Education, 10, 1-16.

Tucciarone, K . M.  (2009). Speaking the same language: Information college seekers look for on a college website. College and University, 84(4), 22-31.

Wang, Q., Woo, H. L., Quek, C. L., Yang, Y., & Liu, M. (2012). Using the Facebook group as a learning management system: An exploratory study. British Journal of Educational Technology, 43(3), 428-438.