Presentation in IMSCI conference

1. Developing Social Media Communication
Skills of Students in Higher Educational
Institutions Reflections from conducting
an Online Course
Irma Mänty & Kit Srinivasan
Laurea University of Applied Sciences
Finland
IMSCI 2012, 17. – 20.7.2012

2. Finland Interesting Facts
Area: 338,424 km2
Population: 5.4 million
Capital City: Helsinki – Population
588,941 (capital region 1.4m)
Largest City: Helsinki
Population Density: 16/km2
Official Language(s): Finnish, Swedish
Recognized Regional Language: Sami
Currency: Euro (€)
Time: +2 UTC Summer (DST): +3 UTC
Finland has 187,888 lakes and 179,584
islands

3. Symbols of Finland

4. In a Nutshell
• A R&D based UAS
• 7 branches in the Greater Helsinki Metropolitan
Area
• 8000 students & 500 staff
• The most awarded (Centre of Excellence) UAS in
Finland
• Learning by Developing (LbD) – R&D&I based
pedagogical model
• 11 fields of study

5. Programmes in English at Laurea
Bachelor Programmes
• Social Services
• Business Information
• Tourism
Technology
Master Programmes
• Business Management
• Health Promotion
• Facility Management
• Service Innovation and
• Nursing
Design
• Security Management
5

6. Development Manager – E-Learning
Interests in Social
Media, Virtual/Mobile learning &
Education using social media tools
Irma
Senior Lecturer – Business
Management
Interests in Social Media & Education
&International Project Management
Kiruthika

7. Background
• Summer course (May
– Aug 2011)
• 8 Weeks
• 50 Students
• ‘Social Media Tool Kit
FUAS – Federation for Effective
of Universities of Communications’ – 5
Applied Sciences ECTS

8. Learning Objectives
1. Knowing about various social media tools that exist for
communication
2. Personal and professional use of selected tools for
communication and collaboration
3. Awareness on information security and copyright issues in
content creation in social media and
4. Evaluation of the new methods of social communication and
collaboration

9. Learning Objectives Learning tasks
1.Efficient personal Creating personal profile using an online tool &
communication sharing
2. Making use of publishing Wiki/Blog entries on social media for
platforms professional communication
3. Efficient use of Interviewing friends on their social media usage
Video/Photo sharing tools & presenting in the form of videos or photo
stories
4. Interaction using video Evaluating the social media strategy of an
conferencing tools organization & presentation through video
conferencing
5. Learning about bookmark Bookmarking with tagging using a shared
sharing tools bookmarking tool
6. Understanding of virtual Essay after visiting the virtual worlds & sharing
worlds using document sharing tools
7. Evaluation of Learning diary entries with personal
communication tools & communication tool kit
presentation

10. Implementation
Survey on E- Survey on
7 Online
Learning social media
sessions
skills awareness

11. Results & discussions

12. E – Learning Skills
Audio, video, picture sharing Information security & copyright
Privacy & ethics in social Online team working
media
E-library services E-book readers & Web
conferences

13. Awareness & knowledge
Self identity
Virtual worlds
LinkedIn
E-portfolio
Wikis/Blogs
Information sharing
Content generation
Web 2.0 tools
Social networks
Social media
0 1 2 3 4 5
After Before

14. Skills in using social media tools
Word clouds
Online resume
E-portfolio
Virtual collaboration
Video conferencing
Virtual worlds
Mind mapping
Multimedia sharing
Document/slide sharing
Blogs
Wikis
Tagging
Profile creation
Photostories
Bookmarking
Online presentations
Video slide show
Audio podcasts
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
After Before

15. Best Practices Worst Practices
• Learning on the move • Too many
• Approximately 70 social tools, passwords & time
media tools consuming learning tasks
• Socialization with a • Lack of mandatory group
learning objective assignments & attendance
• Adobe online sessions + • Lack of social interaction
recordings among students
• Facebook communication • Lack of a motivating
with the teacher grading system

16. Conclusions
Need to
SM Skills Vary improve SM
understanding
FB – not used Need guidance
for interactive for social
learning interactions

17. Recommendations
Social networks Well Designed
for professional Pre assess ICT online
development skills teamworking
More
Project based
Peer Support & E-portfolio skills
assigments
Guidance
Social media
SM & SM
interactions to
Entrepreneurship understanding
meet a goal