A presentation at AEJMC 2012 about how ieiMedia uses social media in its study-abroad programs

1. Innovating Social Media in
the Classroom
Rachele Kanigel
Institute for Education in International Media (ieiMedia)
San Francisco State University
rkanigel@ieimedia.com

2. What is ieiMedia?
 Partners with educational institutions around the world
to co-sponsor media study-abroad and internship
programs for college students and young professionals
 Programs in Italy, France, Northern Ireland and Turkey
 New program for 2013: Israel
 Programs in Russia, China and Spain under development
for 2013 and 2014

3. ieiMedia programs
 Students study a range of media skills – videojournalism,
photography, writing for the web, international
reporting, magazine writing – as well as the local
language and culture
 Students report on the community (sometimes with the
help of local students as interpreters)
 Students create a publication – a multimedia website,
print or digital magazine, and/or a book – about the
community

7. Challenges of using social media
abroad
 Language barriers – Many people in the communities we
cover don’t speak English and generally our students
don’t speak enough of the local language to be able to
tweet in it
 Technology – We often don’t have the access to
smartphones and wifi that we’re used to in the U.S.;
data plans abroad can be prohibitively expensive and
Internet access can be spotty
 Cultural differences – In some of the communities we
cover social media are far less prevalent

8. How we use social media
Facebook group
ieiMedia students come from all over the U.S. and Canada
and from other parts of the world; they first connect over
Facebook. Students and faculty use the group to:
 Introduce themselves
 Share questions, tips and concerns
 Share information
 Arrange travel plans

10. Twitter
 Before the program we use Twitter to announce we are
coming and seek story ideas

11. Twitter
During the program we use Twitter to promote new
content on our website and announce ieiMedia events

12. Flickr and Vimeo
 Students contribute to a Flickr account for the project
where they share their photos
 Students post videos on Vimeo that link back to the
project website

14. Blogging
 In some of our programs students blog
 We encourage students to treat blogging as a
journalistic tool – a way to report on and engage with
the community
 These blogs may be vignettes about their experiences,
mini profiles of people they encounter, ruminations on
cross-cultural encounters they have
 Some students also create personal blogs about their
study-abroad experiences

15. Tumblr
 In Perpignan 2011 students created individual tumblr
blogs to share their photos, blogs posts, videos and
stories, (many of which were also posted on the class
multimedia website)
 These personal blogs gave them the chance to share
their experiences with friends and family back home as
well as the community they’re covering and potential
employers

18. For more information about
ieiMedia
 Visit our booth in the AEJMC exhibit hall this week
 Go to our website, ieiMedia.com
 Subscribe to our e-newsletter, which includes news and
teaching tips about multimedia and international
journalism
 Like us on Facebook
 Follow us on Twitter @ieimedia