Innovating Social Media in the Classroom

Rachele KanigelInstitute for Education in International Media (ieiMedia)

San Francisco State Universityrkanigel@ieimedia.com

What is ieiMedia?Partners with educational institutions around the

world to co-sponsor media study-abroad and internship programs for college students and young professionals

Programs in Italy, France, Northern Ireland and Turkey

New program for 2013: IsraelPrograms in Russia, China and Spain under

development for 2013 and 2014

ieiMedia programsStudents study a range of media skills –

videojournalism, photography, writing for the web, international reporting, magazine writing – as well as the local language and culture

Students report on the community (sometimes with the help of local students as interpreters)

Students create a publication – a multimedia website, print or digital magazine, and/or a book – about the community

Challenges of using social media abroadLanguage barriers – Many people in the

communities we cover don’t speak English and generally our students don’t speak enough of the local language to be able to tweet in it

Technology – We often don’t have the access to smartphones and wifi that we’re used to in the U.S.; data plans abroad can be prohibitively expensive and Internet access can be spotty

Cultural differences – In some of the communities we cover social media are far less prevalent

How we use social mediaFacebook group ieiMedia students come from all over the U.S. and Canada and from other parts of the world; they first connect over Facebook. Students and faculty use the group to:Introduce themselvesShare questions, tips and concernsShare informationArrange travel plans

TwitterBefore the program we use Twitter to announce

we are coming and seek story ideas

TwitterDuring the program we use Twitter to promote new content on our website and announce ieiMedia events

Flickr and VimeoStudents contribute to a Flickr account for the

project where they share their photosStudents post videos on Vimeo that link back to

the project website

BloggingIn some of our programs students blog We encourage students to treat blogging as a

journalistic tool – a way to report on and engage with the community

These blogs may be vignettes about their experiences, mini profiles of people they encounter, ruminations on cross-cultural encounters they have

Some students also create personal blogs about their study-abroad experiences

TumblrIn Perpignan 2011 students created individual

tumblr blogs to share their photos, blogs posts, videos and stories, (many of which were also posted on the class multimedia website)

These personal blogs gave them the chance to share their experiences with friends and family back home as well as the community they’re covering and potential employers

For more information about ieiMediaVisit our booth in the AEJMC exhibit hall this weekGo to our website, ieiMedia.comSubscribe to our e-newsletter, which includes

news and teaching tips about multimedia and international journalism

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