M.H. Beals has a terrific overview of Social Media for Researchers and Academics, based on a one-way workshop held at the Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services in Edinburgh. Her post provides a great roadmap of the different ways academics can use social media, ranging from delicious to Wikipedia, along with pointers to resources that can help them get started.
Her post includes a delightful list of ideas for how academics can use Twitter:
- asking for reading suggestions or reviews “Any recent articles on….”
- advertising a speaking engagement “In London? Come hear my paper on…..”
- searching for specialists “Looking for assistance with….”
- finding a peer reviewers “Almost ready to submit. Anyone fancy a read of…”
- locating the right room at a conference “#AHA2011 Where is Foner’s panel being held?”
- advertising an event, call for papers, or publication
- facilitating an online discussion group in large lectures
…but let me add three more to bring us to a round 10:
8. organizing a backchannel conversation during a paper or panel presentation at an academic conference by using a hashtag for that session
9. finding colleagues who tweet about a certain topic by using Listorious or a Twitter keyword search (rather than posting a general request for help)
10. identifying potential research subjects by noticing who tweets about a specific topic (for example, finding people with diabetes, single moms, finance managers, etc.)
For more great ideas about how to use social media as a research tool, read the full post.
I use Twitter, FB and blogging in my classroom all the time. SM really takes teaching beyond the confines of a classroom and engages students on another level.
I use Twitter in the classroom all the time to communicate with my students. One of the ways in which I use it is a variation of #2 – I say “I’m coming to Calgary to speak at the Canadian Association of Geographers. Anybody at University of Calgary want a seminar on wastewater governance?” 🙂