2013 International Conference on Social Media and Society

Parallel Sessions (15 min presentation + 5 min Q&A per speaker)

“Tweeting to learn: An exploration of Twitter-based learning during conferences”, Sarah Gilbert and Drew Paulin (University of British Columbia, Canada).

“A Comparison on using social media in a professional experience course”, Xiao Hu and Samuel K.W. Chu (University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong).

“Social media use during study from a distance: Integral experiences that counter a trend to digital dualism”, Jeffrey Keefer (New York University/Visiting Nurse Service of New York, United States).

 

Twitter is an integral part of conference activities, acting as a communication backchannel for attendees and non-attendees (Ross, Terras, Warwick & Welsh, 2011) and is often promoted by organizers before a conference begins through the creation of official conference hashtags. But why is Twitter used at conferences? This paper examines learning as a potential purpose for Twitter use and explores how Twitter might facilitate overall conference learning experiences. 

Various aspects of Twitter use by conference attendees have been explored in the literature. Ross, et al. (2011) found that conference attendees tweeted to discuss conference-related topics, share information, and build a community; through discontinuous conversations, Twitter users were able expand communication networks. Ebner, Mühlburger, Schaffert, Schiefner, Reinhardt, and Wheeler (2010) examined tweet contents to determine the usefulness of tweets to non-attendees and found that many tweets would not be helpful due to a lack of context; rather, the Twitter backchannel provided an opportunity to establish an online presence for conference attendees. Chen (2011) conducted a network analysis to identify four types of conference tweeters. 

While these studies provide a descriptive analysis of Twitter use at conferences, they provide only an introduction to potential benefits of Twitter. Gao, Luo, and Zhang’s (2012) review of microblogging in education literature provides an outline of the ways students learn using Twitter in a classroom setting, but do not extend this analysis to Twitter-based learning at academic conferences. Since one of the primary motivations for attending a conference is to learn through presentations and interactions with colleagues, the proposed study will use theories of social constructivism (Vygotsky, 1978) and connectivism (Siemens, 2005) as a basis to examine how Twitter use at conferences can promote learning through sharing information, encouraging informal learning, and establishing networks of interactive co-learners. This study seeks to respond to the question “Can, and how does tweeting facilitate learning during conferences?” 

To map learning through Tweeting, we will examine changes of three indicators of learning over the duration of a conference. We will conduct a quantitative analysis of hashtags to examine changing themes discussed by Twitter attendees; we will conduct a content analysis to examine the development of concepts learned over time and connect these concepts to conference themes; finally, we will conduct a social network analysis, mapping re-Tweets and @replies to explore the development of relationships throughout the conference—are conference attendees broadening their networks or are attendees reinforcing established cliques? (Ross et al., 2011). Data will be collected from the 2013 Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences through the use of a Twitter Archiving Google Spreadsheet (Hawksey, 2013). This conference represents a wide variety of perspectives and scholarly interests and is particularly well suited to this analysis as our conclusions will not be limited by the behavior of members of a specific discipline. 

Through the exploration and examination of Twitter-based learning exhibited in tweets associated with the 2013 Congress conference, this project will shed light on whether, and how, Twitter use can facilitate or extend learning experiences at academic conferences. 

References 

Chen, B. (April 2011). Is the backchannel enabled? Using Twitter at academic 
conferences. Paper presented at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. Retrieved from: http://www.bodongchen.com/file/Chen_AERA2011_Twitter_backchannel.pdf

Ebner, M., Mühlburger, H., Schaffert, S., Schiefner, M., Reinhardt, W., & Wheeler, S. 
(2010). Getting granular on twitter: tweets from a conference and their limited usefulness for non-participants. In Key Competencies in the Knowledge Society (pp. 102-113). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. 

Gao, F., Luo, T., & Zhang, K. (2012). Tweeting for learning: A critical analysis of research on microblogging in education published in 2008-2011. British Journal of Educational Technology, 43(5), 783–801. 

Hawksey, M. (2013). Twitter Archiving Google Spreadsheet TAGS v5. In Jisc CETIS MASHe, retrieved from: http://mashe.hawksey.info/2013/02/twitter-archive-tagsv5/ 

Reinhardt, W., Ebner, M., Beham, G., & Costa, C. (2009). How people are using 
Twitter during conferences. In Proceedings of 5. Edumedia Conference (pp.145-156). Retrieved from http://elearningblog.tugraz.at/scms/data/alt/publication/09_edumedia.pdf 

Ross, C., Terras, M., Warwick, C., & Welsh, A. (2011). Enabled backchannel: 
Conference Twitter use by digital humanists. Journal of Documentation, 67(2), 214-237. doi: 10.1108/00220411111109449 

Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: a learning theory for the digital age. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, 2 (1). Retrieved from http://itdl.org/Journal/Jan_05/ article01.htm

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological 
Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 

Social Media tools such as blogs and Facebook have been recognized as effective in facilitatingteaching and learning in higher education (Maloney, 2007). This study applies social networkanalysis and text mining to comparing the effects of using blogs and Facebook in a ProfessionalExperience course at the undergraduate level. The results indicate blogs were better forjournalizing while Facebook was more effective in facilitating communications and interactionsamong students. The results are not only consistent with students’ perceptions collected frompost-course interviews, but also provide analytic evidences in the micro-level.

Professional Experience is a core course in a Bachelor Program in Information Management(IM). It requires students to work full-time for at least 6 weeks in organizations in the IM sector.A major assessment of this course is a reflective journal written by each student during thecourse. One of the two student groups considered in this study used YouBlog in 2008 forjournalizing (n=16) and the other group used Facebook (private group function) in 2011 (n=20).Besides writing journals, students were required to comment on others’ posts as well. Byanalyzing the patterns and content of students’ posts and comments, this study aims to comparestudents’ behaviors in using the two social media tools in a course focusing on experientiallearning.

730 messages (433 original posts and 297 comments) and 504 messages (181 original posts and423 comments) were collected from YouBlogs and Facebook respectively. Social networkanalysis (Borgatti et al., 2002; Gruzd, 2009) revealed that students using Facebook were moreconnected than those using YouBlog, as indicated by lower network fragmentation, higher totaldegree centrality and higher betweenness centrality (Table 1).

Text mining was applied to identify patterns in the messages. Figure 1 shows the most frequentwords contained in messages posted to the two social media tools. While most of the words werein common and related to the students’ subject of study, the top word, “today” among YouBlogmessages suggests an evidence of the journalizing function supported by this tool.

The distributions of frequent words across timeline disclose that both groups of students talkedmore about “working” and “work” at early stages of the course, indicating a possible excitementabout experiencing real-world professional environments. Facebook users talked more about“experience” and “knowledge” at late stages of the course, while YouBlog users only used thesewords infrequently. This evidences that Facebook was probably more effective in facilitatingexperience and knowledge sharing, especially when the course approached to its end.

Both groups of students were interviewed after the course and YouBlog users reportedly postedentries more often than Facebook users (p=0.02) while Facebook users perceived higher level ofsupports from peers (p=0.03) (Chu, 2013). This is consistent with the above results from socialnetwork analysis and text mining.

This study provides empirical evidence that social media can be effectively used in facilitatingdeep reflections and collaborative learning. Both blogs and Facebook have their own advantagesand it is therefore suggested that future social media tools should combine the strengths of blogs(organization of content) and Facebook (collaborative features).

References:
Borgatti, S.P., Everett, M.G. and Freeman, L.C. 2002. Ucinet for Windows: Software for SocialNetwork Analysis. Harvard, MA: Analytic Technologies.
Chu, S.K.W. (2013). The Application of Blogs and Facebook in Scaffolding the InternshipLearning Process. Center for Information and Technology Studies Research Symposium,May 2013, Hong Kong.
Gruzd, A. (2009). Studying Collaborative Learning Using Name Networks. Journal forEducation in Library and Information Science 50(4).
Maloney, E. (2007).What Web 2.0 can teach us about learning. Chronicle of Higher Education,vol. 53, no. 18, p. 1, 2007.

This work expounds on findings from a doctoral thesis that examined the experiences of doctoral students who studied at a distance and who passed through troublesome or problematic liminal periods during the course of their studies. It was a qualitative design using narrative inquiry and informed by an actor-network theory analysis of the twenty-three interdisciplinary, international doctoral researchers and graduates. As participants detailed their pain prior to the transformative thresholds and aha! moments during their studies, they all experienced some support or encouragement from human and non-human actors while overcoming their struggles. While distance was found to be a contentious term amongst the participants, it was their use of social media and technology, and how they were seamlessly integrated into their studies, that became striking. 

Counter to the perspective of Turkle (2011), who seems to lament a lessening of our “real” offline lives while we increasingly navigate online personas and relationships, the participants in this research echo the recent work of Jurgenson (2011; 2012), who propose a challenge to a digital dualism that posits online and offline aspects of our lives as separate, and not quite equal, parts of ourselves. Social media such as Twitter or Facebook for conversations and encouragement, blogs for developing thoughts and getting feedback, Skype for video or audio connections, the internet itself as the gateway to the possibilities of distant presence, and even humble and ubiquitous communication via email—all were used as seamless resources to facilitate support and community during the dark periods over doctoral study. 

Participants did not seem to consciously reach out to social media to connect with others in a somehow less-than-real way, but rather used them as any other tools to meet their academic, professional, and personal needs. These were not online or offline needs, nor needs that came simply as a result of eLearning, physical, or psychological distance, even through the myriad of ways distance was used or considered by the participants. Social media and technology aided the learners in communicating and encountering support through their academic work, and while none of them at the time actively discussed the aspects of their experiences that they later classified as liminal ones, they did not characterize or differentiate their experiences as being online or offline ones. Rather, they were digital monists (Vial, 2013) in that they simply had experiences. Very difficult and troubling ones that needed support to face, but experiences equal to any other ones they lived through, regardless of the technologies they used to facilitate them (Oliver, 2012). The online or offline did not matter insofar as the needs were met, due in part to the integration of social media and its connections as another aspect of their lives, just as real as anything, or anybody, supportive of their work. 

References 
Jurgenson, N. (2011). Digital Dualism versus Augmented Reality. Cyborgology. Retrieved from http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2011/02/24/digital-dualism-versus-augmented-reality/ 
Jurgenson, N. (2012). The IRL Fetish. The New Inquiry. Retrieved from http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/the-irl-fetish/ 
Oliver, M. (2012). Learning technology: Theorising the tools we study. British Journal of Educational Technology. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8535.2011.01283.x 
Turkle, S. (2011). Alone together. New York: Basic Books. 
Vial, S. (2013). Digital Dualism and Lived Experience: Everyday Ontology Produces Everyday Ethics. Cyborgology. Retrieved from http://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2013/04/09/digital-dualism-and-lived-experience-everyday-ontology-produces-everyday-ethics/#more-15140