I agree. Breaks are the perfect time for them to interact on their social media accounts, not during class time.
I need to keep the gen y students very busy or they get bored and want to pull out their phones to socialize. They do not use them to learn during classtime.
I require that my students set up several social media networks in class as part of an assignment. We create a business page and go through it as I do when I consultant with small business owners. It is important that understand how businesses use social media especially if they are majoring in Internet Marketing.
Seems so, a lot of socializing and little work. The work ethics and learning need to mend together to bring them home on the project,and sometimes that like driving those white horses. A real hand full.
Veronica,
this is a great example of how the social media can be of benefit in this class & really help the students in their professional development.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
On this subject I agree. I find students that get bored with the material often get lost in their social networks during class. I often ask them questions to bring them back but would welcome suggestions of what others do
Jonathan,
this is a great idea & technique as it helps to pull them back in with a positive question rather than a reprimand.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
Our school too is expressly against us "friending" students. In no small part, to prevent the illusion of inappropriate relations or favoritism between faculty and students. There is also the possibility of legal accusations of impropriety between an educator and a student. This does not seem to be a very well thought out statement in our litigious society.
They expect that they will be incorporated into the learning environment but see them as generational tools only for their generation.
Social networks have changed the way people learn and communicate. It is instant gratification and quick answers. Their knowledge and exposure is vast, compared to the past. Mainly due to the resources that are available. Social networking however can cause a lack of physical interaction making it more difficult for people to have good interpersonal relationships.
Social networking can help find an answer, however, it may not allow the student to actually learn the concept.
Gen Y students are truly a challenge when it come to electronic devices. The solution that I have for my students is; during lecture there will be no computer (classroom is 90% computer based)and as long as I do not see the phone on the text and them texing excessively I have no problem. When I first began teaching, I would talk to the students until I was blue in the face about texting during class time. It was a loosing battle that I would never win. I let them know that this is their time and they need to set bounderies with their family and friends during class times. It seems to work, I have not had to speak to anyone about excessive texting during class time in over 3 years.
These are very valuable tools such as texting, face book and tweeting ways to get the students going in the right direction as learning tools
Stephen,
this is a good point & one we need to consider carefully, as we want to help them but like you said, help them learn concepts not just sources of info.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
Tammy,
this is great & very true. I like the idea of encouraging them to set the boundaries as this also helps them grow up & take ownership.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
Since the Gen Y folks are so tuned into tech, they are easily able to have their tech work well for them.
Kevin,
this is a great point & so we need to understand how they approach this & not necessarily how we do.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
I have a facebook account that I started for my students. They like to communicate with me through this site,as they are always on it.
I am troubled by the overreliance on finding information and news through a social media source like Facebook, the company recently admitted to studying the response rate of subscribers to positive and negative placement of articles targeted to track user responses: without their consent.
People active on social networks are influenced by what their friends/contacts are posting about. That variety of topics can open the door to learning in new fields. Such learning, however, is probably quite random, both in topic and in follow-through.
Whether social networks can be used deliberately to foster learning is a different question! Setting up a Facebook account for a class could pave the way for some focused discussion and sharing of resources that might turn out to be very productive.
