Do you instant message (IM) with your friends? Your family? Your students? Educators are always seeking ways to improve their communication with students, enhance engagement and increase student retention. Mobile messaging is gaining in popularity, across all generations, because of opportunities to make and sustain critical social and educational connections.
Do you instant message with your friends? Your family? How about your students? Educators and administrators are always seeking ways to improve their communication with students, enhance engagement and increase student retention. Although email often remains a school’s official channel of communication, it is often a less effective way to reach students (Straumsheim, 2016). Good communication with online students is critical for the success of online education with student engagement being a central challenge. Mobile messaging is gaining in popularity across all generations of students, from the millennials to our senior students. (Anderson, 2016) Trends are showing that the use of mobile messaging, can create new opportunities to make and sustain critical social and educational connections with educators and students.
Mobile messaging has many benefits when it comes to the educator-student communication including easy access to the instructor, comfort with the technology tool and efficient ways to reach at-risk students. Students often report mobile message is an easier way to communicate, it provides a stronger sense of community, and it allows for informal ways in which to interact with class material (Nicholson, 2002). As online educators, it is our role to adapt, explore and innovate with new methods for engaging and reaching our students.
The information and skills gained from this interactive presentation can be used by faculty, adjuncts, and administration to:
- Appreciate the pros and cons association with communication via mobile messaging apps.
- Learn best practices for implementing mobile messaging in the online classroom.
- Gain insights to manage and professionally communicate with students through mobile messaging.
Anderson, G. O. (2017). Technology Use and Attitudes among Mid-Life and Older Americans. AARP Research. Retrieved on 6/1/2022 at https://doi.org/10.26419/res.00210.001
Jeong, Wooseob. (2007). Instant Messaging in On-Site and Online Classes in Higher Education. Educause Review. Retrieved on 6/1/2022 at https://er.educause.edu/articles/2007/2/instant-messaging-in-onsite-and-online-classes-in-higher-education
Nicholson, S. (2002). Socialization in the 'Virtual Hallway': Instant Messaging in the Asynchronous Web-Based Distance Education Classroom. The Internet and Higher Education. Vol 5( 363–372).
Straumsheim, C. (2016). Read and Unread. Retrieved on 6/1/2022 at https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/03/02/study-explores-impact-social-media-texting-email-use
Tang, Y., Hew, K. F. (2020). Does mobile instant messaging facilitate social presence in online communication? A two-stage study of higher education students. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 17, 15. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-020-00188-0
Tang, Y., Hew, K.F. (2022) Effects of using mobile instant messaging on student behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement: a quasi-experimental study. Int J Educ Technol High Educ 19,. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-021-00306-6