Does the "social media gap" matter?

by Yvonne Belanger | November 6th, 2009

In focus groups and interviews with faculty and students at Duke, it is common to hear faculty and students describe ways that they use social media tools – just usually not to facilitate faculty-student communication. This phenomenon is not unique to Duke – it even has a name – the “Social Media Gap”.

A recent national survey commissioned by CDW Government as part of their “21st-Century Campus Report: Defining the Vision” study found that many faculty and students use Web 2.0 technology outside of class but for communicating with each other mainly rely on traditional methods (if email can be considered ‘traditional’!). Fifty-two percent of students said they use social networking tools for education, but only 14 percent of faculty members do. Faculty use of social networking tools for non-academic purposes is much higher, however; 36% of faculty surveyed reported using social networking tools for non-academic purposes. Campus Technology also highlighted the some of the key findings from this study in their November 3, 2009 article, “Students unimpressed with faculty use of ed tech“, and comments on this article reflect the widely differing views of faculty on this topic.
What are the barriers to adoption for social media tools in education from a faculty point of view? From the student point of view? We will continue to investigate through our conversations and encourage your comments on this post as well.

Comments are closed.

*