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Presented at the 2011 Conference
(In alphabetical order)
Conference11/Papers/thumbs/legere.jpgThis study analyzes the use of social media technologies to balance the somewhat conflicting institutional goals of many off-campus studies programs which can include establishing parameters to ensure a significant level of coursework and rigor as expected in academic environments, ensuring a reasonable level of safety for student attendees, and offering a relative level of individual freedom for participants to pursue their own individual learning goals. Conducted in March 2010 at the South by Southwest Music Conference, the author leveraged such social media and Web 2.0 resources as Twitter, Facebook, and Wordpress to know the location and current activities of all of 17 student participants despite the fact that we were often separated by significant distance. These tools also offered students an accessible platform for content production and learning demonstration. As support for off-campus activities can always be difficult, these social technologies helped facilitate a comprehensive system by which to monitor both student safety and learning for an almost negligible cost. Furthermore, the global nature of the resources used allowed home administrators to remotely observe student progress throughout the event further building interest for such programming in a transparent and efficient manner. While social media platforms can not eliminate all of the challenges inherent in off-campus programming, the potential of leveraging social networking technologies to enrich both student learning and academic rigor in off-campus studies programs could be significant as Web 2.0 tools and emerging geo-locating services become more ubiquitous. (view session)

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