HashtagPedagogies: Improving Literacy and Course Relevance through Social Media Metaphors

In the past five years, scholars have made clear that social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have serious consequences for intellectual development and community engagement. These platforms create behavioral addictions, something that is now known as intentional and engineered. Such findings have made many faculty members reluctant to incorporate such technologies into the classroom. A a complete dismissal of such platforms means, first, that educators lose the opportunity to teach their students about cautious and disciplined engagement with current technologies. Second, such dismissal precludes educators from understanding the pedagogical potential of these platforms. Built into social media platforms are today's most advanced research technologies which can be harnessed for classroom use. More significantly still, component parts of the platforms can be leveraged to strengthen a student's research schema, the mental architecture enabling students to capture, explain, and label their surroundings. This article opens by noting similarities between social media use and the scientific research process. The comparison uses the photo-sharing platform Instagram as its primary example, which then provides a guide for reframing college-level lectures, literacy training, and course assignments.