Social media for professional development and networking opportunities in academia

The research reported on in this article explores the use of social media for work-related or professional purposes. In particular, it focuses on the perceptions and use of social media by academics in the UK. The purpose of the research was to explore the potential social media has to facilitate the changing landscape of higher education and support the individual academic in their role. Of particular interest is how specific social media tools are being used to enhance networking opportunities and contribute to career progression. The use of social media was explored in detail through interviews and a survey. Typical activities that are currently being undertaken were identified and user group profiles developed that articulate different levels of engagement with these tools and the motivations that each group of users have for using social media. The study found that, with increasing levels of activity, the number of motivations for using social media increase, as does the perceived number of successful outcomes, including contributions towards career progression. The main barriers to using social media were identified as a lack of time and skills to undertake these activities, as well as a negative perception of social media. Recommendations for increasing participation are to provide practical training, including the sharing of good practice, and to initiate dialogues within institutions regarding the potential career progression opportunities that social media may afford.     

Use of Facebook: a case study of Singapore students' experience

Facebook has become one of the most popular social network sites among many students. However, current research on Facebook use has focused mainly on Anglo-American students. Relatively little is known about Facebook use in Singapore. Data were collected from 83 students (ages ranged from 15 to 23). This study uses a naturalistic case study wherein the students' decision to use Facebook is a personal decision and on a voluntarily basis; their participation is not a required or graded component. The specific objectives of the study are first, to examine Singapore students' motives for using Facebook; second, to investigate the types of friends they communicated with on Facebook; and third, to examine how students manage their privacy on the social networking site. Findings suggested that the current sample of Singapore students used Facebook primarily for non-educational purposes. Specifically, Facebook was used to maintain relationships with existing known friends such as former or current schoolmates. Respondents also reported using Facebook for entertainment purposes and to vent their emotions. No respondent reported using Facebook for educational purposes. The most common strategy for privacy protection utilized by the respondents was to decrease profile information visibility through restricting access to only known friends. Educational implications of the findings as well as suggestions for future research are provided.     

Chinese parental involvement and class-based inequality in education: the role of social networking sites

ABSTRACT

Based on an ethnographic study, this article presents the class-based disparities of Chinese parents’ usage of WeChat, the dominating social networking mobile application in China, in their educational involvement. We find that middle-class parents are the privileged ones who have exploited the use of WeChat not only as a medium for communication, but more as a mode of influence. Through WeChat, their various forms of capital are channelled to catalyse changes in their children's education. In contrast, working-class parents tend to act as absent participants in using WeChat for their educational involvement. We argue that WeChat has brought forth the consequence of widening the arena for winning or losing at the educational game for parents from different social classes. We call for corrective policies and guidelines on the usage of WeChat and other SNSs technologies in home–school dynamics.     

Silences of ethical practice: dilemmas for researchers using social media

Social media, such as social network sites and blogs, are increasingly being used as core or ancillary components of educational research, from recruitment to observation and interaction with researchers. However, this article reveals complex ethical dilemmas surrounding consent, traceability, working with children, and illicit activity that we have faced as education researchers for which there is little specific guidance in the literature. We believe that ethical research committees cannot, and should not, be relied upon as our ethical compass as they also struggle to deal with emerging technologies and their implications. Consequently, we call for researchers to report on the ethical dilemmas in their practice to serve as a guide for those who follow. We also recommend considering research ethics as an ongoing dialogical process in which the researcher, participants, and ethics committee work together in identifying potential problems as well as finding ways forward.     

A critical investigation of the nature and extent of cyberbullying in two post-primary schools in Northern Ireland

This study aimed to investigate internet usage among post-primary pupils in years 9, 11 and 13 in two contrasting post-primary schools in Northern Ireland, the nature and incidence of cyberbullying among these pupils, and the ways in which their schools are currently addressing the problem. A mixed methodological approach was adopted: a paper questionnaire was completed by pupils in Years 9, 11 and 13 (n = 425) in the two post-primary schools; focus group interviews were conducted with pupils from each year group (n = 18); and individual semi-structured interviews were carried out with the pastoral care coordinators (deputy heads with responsibility for pupil wellbeing) of each school (n = 2). The findings confirm that the post-primary pupils in these two schools own a range of internet-capable media devices and spend considerable time online. The incidence of cyberbullying among these pupils was relatively low, and most often consisted of hurtful or nasty comments sent via texts or posted on social networking sites. The study reveals inconsistencies between the approaches taken by the two schools, but also generally low levels of staff training, little engagement with parents, a lack of pupil confidence in the school’s ability to discuss cyberbullying openly, and a worrying absence of any systematic evaluation of the effectiveness of the schools’ current strategies for tackling this complex issue.     

In defence of writing: a social semiotic perspective on digital media,literacy and learning

From a learning perspective, social semiotics researchers tend to focus on the liberation latent in the multimedia options available through the new media. It is true that digital media democratise the possibilities open to the general public of a more varied and comprehensive text production than ever before, both in and outside school. Participating in this text production naturally implies a richer potential for learning. But digital technology also allows us to opt out of, and thus avoid, semiotic work. With this as the starting point, the present article sets out to highlight the pedagogical benefits associated with the written mode, precisely in an age when the digital media are making multimodal forms of expression increasingly available to us all.     

Using emotion regulation to cope with challenges: a study of Chinese students in the United Kingdom

There is increasing research on the challenges that Chinese students experience during their time studying abroad, but limited studies have explored how they self-regulate their emotions to address these challenges. This paper identifies key stressors experienced by Chinese postgraduate students during their study in academic institutions in the United Kingdom as well as the emotion regulation strategies that they employed. Understanding the emotional experiences will provide important insights into Chinese students’ learning behaviour and their choice of different emotion regulation strategies when interacting with peers and academic tutors. Emotion regulation strategies believed to improve individual student experiences and their interaction with tutors and peers are discussed.     

Studying cultural diversity using information and communication technologies in teacher education: pedagogy,power and literacy

Abstract

This article investigates the relationship between new technologies, pedagogy and cultural diversity. It is clear from the project discussed in this article that studying diversity issues on-line provides scope for developing what has been called cultural literacy following Bourdieu's (1990) notion of ‘different ways of seeing’. However, there are a number of unintended effects of power that emerge in this new cultural field which need examination. These include the importance of understanding the embodied context as much as the virtual, the need to be explicit about literacy practices to challenge the dominant liberal discourse of ‘voice’ in on-line discussion, and the effects of power that emanate from teaching and learning in this field.     

Questions from afar: the influence of outsideness on web-based conversation

This paper defines the metaphor of outsideness in relation to web-based interaction. Outsideness is conceived of as a key influence in online academic conversation. In particular, through the sharing of cultural perspectives, asking questions to resolve doubt, and collaborative writing and re-writing as a basis for shaping ideas through reasoning. An analytical framework is proposed and applied to a case study of an international wiki-based project. Key findings are that there is a tension between participants’ sense of inside and outside influences, resulting in a complex and challenging working environment. Students require support to develop nuanced questioning and conversational skills, including multi-model forms of representation and communication to enhance language skills.     

新媒介时代下大学生思想政治教育工作面临的机遇及挑战

随着信息技术日新月异的迅猛发展,整个社会已经进入新媒介时代。新媒介环境中的大学生思想政治教育工作发生着巨大的变化。新媒介的内容丰富、形式多样、快速传播等特点为大学生思想教育工作带来机遇的同时也带来了严峻的挑战。顺应时代的发展要求,高校思想政治教育者必须正视这些问题,努力探究新媒介时代中大学生思想政治教育的工作新方法,开辟思想政治教育的新途径。     

Creativity through a rhetorical lens: implications for schooling,literacy and media education

This article, which is speculative in outlook and emerges from an extended literature review on this subject, takes as its basic premise the notion that the idea of ‘creativity’– whether in relation to literacy, schooling or the economy, is constructed as a series of rhetorical claims. These rhetorics of creativity emerge from the contexts of research, theory, policy and practice. Initially, we distinguish 10 rhetorics, which are described in relation to the philosophical or political traditions from which they spring. The discussion then focuses on four rhetorics – play, technology, politics/democracy and the creative classroom – which have most relevance for understandings of literacies and the way in which these are nurtured, encouraged and expressed in different social settings. This article aims to summarise the rhetorics and their major concerns, while considering how selected ones might apply to an instance of media literacy. Key questions addressed in this article ask whether creativity is more usefully understood as an internal cognitive function or an external cultural phenomenon; whether it is a ubiquitous human activity or a special faculty; whether it is necessarily ‘pro‐social’ or should be dissident; and what the implications of a culturalist social psychological approach to creativity might be for analyses of the media literacy of children and young people.     

Mapping the social side of pre-service teachers: connecting closeness,trust, and efficacy with performance

This exploratory study foregrounds the important, but often understudied social side of pre-service teacher development and its relation to teaching performance in one university-based teacher preparation program in the US. We examine the extent to which pre-service elementary teachers’ social relationships and perceptions of peer trust and efficacy are associated with performance on a high stakes mathematics teaching assessment. Findings suggest that social and emotional support through close social ties, peer trust, and self-efficacy are significantly and positively associated with pre-service teachers’ teaching performance. Our work further contributes to the development and discourse about teacher education in university-based teacher preparation programs.     

Social mapping and environmental education: dialogues from participatory mapping in the Pantanal,Mato Grosso,Brazil

Abstract

This article illustrates the steps taken to enact a new methodology for participatory social mapping by the Environmental Education, Communications and the Arts (GPEA) Research Group of the Federal University of Mato Grosso (UFMT). The aim of Social Mapping is to record the identities, territories and socio-environmental conflicts experienced by social groups, based on their own namings and narratives, rather than relying on those more typically generated or provided by researchers or theorists. As such, it offers an important dialogical pathway for environmental education practices, in that it highlights the intrinsic relationship between culture and nature, and reinforces the understanding that the loss of one implies the disappearance of the other.     

The building blocks of digital media literacy: socio-material participation and the production of media knowledge

This article outlines the knowledge and skills students develop when they engage in digital media production and analysis in school settings. The metaphor of ‘digital building blocks’ is used to describe the material practices, conceptual understandings and production of knowledge that lead to the development of digital media literacy. The article argues that the two established approaches to media literacy education, critical reading and media production, do not adequately explain how students develop media knowledge. It suggests there has been too little focus on material practices and how these relate to the development of conceptual understanding in media learning. The article explores empirical evidence from a four-year investigation in a primary school in Queensland, Australia using actor–network theory to explore ‘moments of translation’ as students deploy technologies and concepts to materially participate in digital culture. A generative model of media learning is presented with four categories of building blocks that isolate the specific skills and knowledge that can be taught and learnt to promote participation in digital media contexts: digital materials, conceptual understandings, media production and media analysis. The final section of the article makes initial comments on how the model might become the basis for curriculum development in schools and argues that further empirical research needs to occur to confirm the model’s utility.     

Critical information literacy as core skill for lifelong STEM learning in the 21st century: reflections on the desirability and feasibility for widespread science media education

Grace Reid and the late Stephen Norris argue in this issue the urgent need for widespread Science Media Education (SME) as an integral part of formal and informal science education. SME is to achieve two goals: First, allow learners to critically evaluate any media as a source for scientific information by understanding the socio-economic and socio-cultural context of how and why news and entertainment media are created, and secondly, utilize media as a legitimate and productive source for science education and science learning. While laudable, I will argue that SME as an integral part of STEM education is unrealistic, and offer instead that the broader concept of Information Literacy might be more easily achieved within the current strong movement to conceptualize STEM education via science and engineering practices and within the broad goals of strengthening learners’ 21st century skills.     

Twitter,cyber-violence,and the need for a critical social media literacy in teacher education: A review of the literature

Multiliteracies and new literacies pedagogies advocate for expanded ideas of literacy, which focus heavily on the use of digital technologies within the classroom. Yet there is little discussion within the discipline regarding the ethical implications of using social media in teacher education. This is of particular concern given the potential for online spaces to be unsafe. In particular, the social media site Twitter, used and promoted by many educators to collaborate within professional learning networks, is rife with misogyny and racial violence. Through a review of the current literature on social media use in teacher education, and a multi-disciplinary perspective on issues of cyber-violence, I will discuss the ethical implications for teacher educators who want to use Twitter as a pedagogical tool and offer strategies to develop critical social media literacy practices.     

Knowledge and transformative social action: the encounter of selected traditions of participatory (action) research

The argument in this paper is that action and participatory research developed within the context of social and political movements aimed at promoting democratic relationships and institutions represents a methodological strategy for deconstructing and reconstructing the hegemonic perspective of knowledge and knowledge production. After a brief reflection about the place of social transformation in today's social practice, especially in education, the paper looks at selected traditions of action and participatory research from Europe [England (Tavistock), Scandinavia and Germany] and Latin America (Colombia and Brazil). These experiences, whilst attending to particular social conditions, can be seen as attempts to develop knowledge that promotes and strengthens a shared world view that aims at social justice and recognition of differences.