21st Century Scholar

This is the first of a two-part blog where I discuss the use of social media in research and practice. Today’s blog emphasizes methodological concerns. Next week, I will discuss social media in schools. As regular readers of the blog know, I am conducting an ethnography that focuses on the lives of 17- and 18-year-old [...]

by Randy Clemens Last year, after attending AERA’s conference in Denver, I wrote about the need for a digital makeover. I made several suggestions for the meeting: (1), provide free wifi, (2), embrace microblogging, and (3), stream symposiums online. My blog was mainly focused on uses of technology to not just improve the experience but [...]

by Randy Clemens Last year, Bill and I tried using Twitter in our graduate-level class. It failed miserably. Only a few students tweeted and the others thought it was a chore to re-route their online traffic patterns. Halfway through the semester, we returned to full-time email use. What’s the lesson? We tried and we learned. [...]

by Randy Clemens I am sorry to inform you, but the American Educational Research Association’s annual meeting is going the way of the dodo bird. It’s time for an upgrade. Throughout the meeting, I was continually struck by a lack of innovation despite countless opportunities. As I waited in a ballroom for a session to [...]

The Library of Congress acquires Twitter archives.

Poetry has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I do not come from a family of avid readers. If my father has read one book, that is one more than I would have guessed. He says The Executioner’s Song is his favorite, but I inherited his copy and, [...]

The erosion of the English language in classrooms is not a new topic. One hundred years ago it was immigrants; now it is still immigrants, plus a few new threats. The polemic has dulled in recent times, or at least the attacks have assumed more cunning guises. Individuals, for instance, support either bi-lingual or immersion [...]

One of the potential hypotheses of my dissertation is the impact of social technologies on academic engagement. The thought is that when teachers and students use a technology like Twitter or a social network site, they have more opportunities to provide interpersonal support, know more about each other, and share information. These activities might incease [...]

Here are two links I came across with my morning coffee. The first comes from Miguel over at Around the Corner, and outlines a successful use of Twitter in a college classroom. All of you university instructors out there, check it out: [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WPVWDkF7U8] The second article is a recent report about the cost-effectiveness of online [...]

Tweet Tweet Tweet! Those are the sounds of human communication in this day and age when Twitter has become part of the everyday lexicon. While Twitter is on everyone’s minds, I often get the question “Why would I use it? I just don’t get why I’d want to tell people when I am going to [...]