The promise and pitfalls of social media use in Higher Education

Abstract

Social media is pervasive in all aspects of modern life, including health, education, parenting, entertainment personal relationships and current affairs. In Higher Education however, social media is becoming a site of tension between those pursuing connected and innovative educational practice on one hand and an increasingly constrained policy environment reacting to reputational damage resulting from subversive and risky online behaviour by students and staff on the other. Social media has polarised academics, many of whom dismiss it as time-wasting and trivialising academic work and others who embrace it as an open and evolving form of scholarship and academic practice. Students engage with it for learning despite the expected norms of traditional academic practice. This symposium will highlight and explore key issues dominating current debates around the use and misuse of social media in Higher Education drawing on the wisdom of the crowd to find solutions to such challenges.