Can a professor be a social media expert?

Posted on | June 2, 2010 | No Comments

www.gapingvoid.com for the image!

Social media is an important part of our education, communication, political and economic environments today.

I have seen the writing on the wall for a bit over 2 years and the writing is in neon paint!

The problem we are confronted with is academia really has not been listening, walking around without its hearing aids in if you need a picture painted.

Sure that is really a generalisation but it speaks to the fact that many education institutions have simply not been keeping up with the times.

But are we shooting ourselves in the foot if we embrace all this new tech stuff, the gen y environment?

I mean education on one hand is about pedagogy, theory, paradigms and good hard learned truths contained in textbooks.

Social media recasts not only what we learn but how we learn it and even interact with it!

But social media is new, evolving at a hyper speed, and just now making it into the textbooks, and as we read about it it is outdated!

For over 2 years I have been pushing my students to experiment, in an academic fashion, with social media.

Facebook, Vimeo, Twitter, YouTube,blogger,wordpress and the list is ever growing.

In the process I have applied social media tools from  class lessons to practical projects, some have worked and some have not.

Here are a few examples.

Global Media Ethics Roundtable

#menalab3

ZU60

And of course there are the ongoing in class projects that have fed my understanding of social media, both its creation and distribution.

But academic exercises are one thing I have also been using social media in the corporate world of UAE radio.

Nightline

Nightline podcasts

Nightline TV

And then there is this blog, my Vimeo videos of my classes and my Qik videos of events as well as attempts at Audioboo.

So what is my point?

I have not written a book on these experiences and becasue of that I have zero credibility as an expert or specialist when it comes to social media in the academic world. Maybe the corporate world for that matter!

Just today a colleague looked me in the eye and told me that what I do with social media does not count it is the IT people that have the real value!

Yesterday I met a colleague responsible for publication issues and this person talked about contracting a service to teach them about social media, a DIY service of sorts.

In both cases I thought I must be invisible, or what I have done with social media must be invisible! Nope it is a credibility issue!

Maybe the problem is we still live in the old paradigm world believing that professors are detached from the real world?

Social media changes everything are we ready for the change?

I am and have long been working at the rebranding of Me, clearly I have a way to go!

Comments