Thursday, May 17, 2012

The Psychology of Social Media (and Politics)

 At the 12th Annual Enhancing the Teaching of Psychology Conference 2012 at UW-La Crosse, I discussed the topic of "The Psychology of Social Media in the Classroom."  With the backdrop of Wisconsin politics, the presentation illustrated how real world events can enhance the curriculum making it more relevant and thereby engaging students. Tools that were highlighted included Tweetdeck, YouTube, CNN iReports and web streaming. More information about social media can be found at The Learning Space blog.

The conference brought faculty together from around the UW-System to talk about active learning, teaching activities, psychology in international opportunities,  research in "Understanding Socio-Cultural Grounding of Cognition", and classroom assessments. There were also short demonstrating on student response systems and library research tools.  It was a good venue to bring technology into the traditional realm of psychology teaching and learning.