About This Course

Social Media Literacy

Social media is here to stay. We have seen its use in political campaigns, national uprisings, social movements, marketing campaigns, data collection, and content delivery. Social media can serve as an invaluable resource for communicating and obtaining information but, it can also be riddled with questionable and inaccurate content; sometimes with damaging consequences. This one-semester course will help students develop skills to become educated “consumers” of social media as well as responsible, active “participants” in social media.

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• develop skills in blogging

• discuss the development of social media and how it has changed the way in which our society communicates and shares information
• evaluate the credibility of various social media “authors”
• develop a plan for their social media “digital footprint”
• develop strategies for “reputation management”
• use social media as a method to “expand their voices”
• write concisely – with purpose and credibility – on various social media platforms - practicing both collaborative and individual writing
• evaluate how companies and advertisers are using social media to promote their business
• discuss and display responsible use of social media 

This course will focus on guiding students as they "build their personal brand" on social media. It will also help them to develop skills to obtain useful information from social media and, just as importantly, how to contribute meaningful content.

About Blogging

Students will develop and maintain a blog (using Google Blogger) throughout the course. Students can expect to update their blogs at the end of every unit (at a minimum).

This class will focus less on actual social media platforms and more on the overall characteristics of social media especially as it pertains to visibility, communication and behavior. 


As of now however, students can expect to actively participate in the following Social Media platforms:

• Twitter 

• Instagram

• Google Blogger (via the DS Google Apps for Education account)

• Google Classroom (via the DS Google Apps for Education account)

• Facebook 

• YouTube (students will post their YouTube videos to their DS Google Apps for Education account YouTube Channel)

• Course Units (including deliverables and class participation): 10 possible points each unit

• Blog posts: 50 possible points each post

• Blog post comments: 10 points each

• Digital media creation (videos, charts, storify, etc.): 40 - 120 possible points each (depending on the assignment)

• Overall blog development (visual design, developed according to instructions, etc.): 100 possible points

Grading Guideline:

Flexibility:

With new developments in technology and social media happening at warp speed, it requires that this course syllabus be flexible enough to accommodate these changes. And as such, I admit that I am not an expert on every type of social media platform. However, no matter what the technology "in vogue" happens to be, the students (and I) will learn how it shapes our communication and behavior.

Creating Accounts:

In most cases, students, as well as the instructor, will create accounts (on the various social media platforms) to be used solely for this class. Neither the students nor the instructor will use any personal accounts for class purposes. Students will only reference Facebook for research purposes - we will not use it to communicate as a class - therefore, neither the student nor the instructor will need to create an account for use in our class. As with most content posted on social media, students should expect that the content that they post (for our class) can be viewed by the public. This includes teachers, school administrators, parents and other interested community members.