Molly E. Daniel

This research interest is rooted in social and collaborative pedagogy and the pursuit of interrogating the publicness of writing. I focus on two major theoretical frames in study of twitter in the classroom: collaboration (Bruffee) and participation (Haas, Losh & Jenkins, Rose, Shirky). Therefore this research is driven by the following questions:

 

1) How can we meaningfully engage with technology in the classroom?

 

2) To what extent do social media platforms allow for meaningful engagement?

 

3) How does twitter, as a community, foster collaboration?

 

This pedagogical research interest explores interesting boundaries between personal and professional identities as well as provides a space for an in-depth study of how rhetorical situations take shape in digital spaces. Often social media falls victim to fear narratives that surround technology; however, my research through pedagogy generates an understanding of these spaces that highlights the value of this particular mode of communication as we examine ways through which information, or knowledge travels, how users negotiates conversations, and what exigencies surface. On this page you will find a link to a #Writingteachers interview, my most recent presentation handout on social media in the classroom, and a live Twitter feed of from my twitter handle @TheMollyD; there will be a range of tweets balancing the personal and professional. One major component of my scholarship on incorporating twitter is my own active tweeting. Students, I have found, are more apt to buy into this classroom component when they see me engaging with the media in the ways in which we discuss in class.