Memphis Social Media: J4801

The Twitter Scavenger Hunt was a random brainstorm I had in the spring of 2011 when I taught our social media class at the University of Memphis for the very first time. Universities from all over the country and even world joined together in conducting the hunt on their campuses, including but not limited to American University in Cairo, Lehigh University, West Virginia University, University of Oregon, Drury University, Indiana University, and many more. Here is a link to the assignment last year. I just modified it slightly and put it in an editable Google Doc for spring 2012. I think we are all pretty open to ideas to modify the items somewhat. We could discuss that in the comments here as well as any other details, just be sure to come back before you send out your students! 

Last time we each used individual class hashtags. I'm wondering if we need a common tag for this year, or possibly ask students to use both, although as we all know, that's a bit cumbersome and consumes lots of characters. Hmm. 

Common hashtag for those that choose to use it will be #JRLWeb. You can use your own class hashtag instead, or use both. Up to you. I will try to maintain a list. 

(P.S. How much do you love how international this is? Four countries! Woot.)

University of Memphis #j4801 Professor: @brizzyc

                                          #UMPR Professor: @enwillis

West Virginia University: #WVUBlogJ Professor: @thebobthe

Lehigh University: #J230 Professor @jeremylittau

Brigham Young University #comms238 Professor @cressman

Oregon University #J361 Professor @SuziSteffen

Drury University #DU221 Professor @grovesprof

American University in Cairo, Egypt #AUC202 Professor @KimFoxWOSU (Starts school after us so will be doing it a little bit later)

Southern Methodist University #j2380 Professor @jbatsell

Grant MacEwan University in Alberta, Canada #J256 Professor @KarenUnland

Valencia College #vcj Professor @KenCarpenter

Auburn University #J2310 @AuburnJProf (will do later week)

Texas State University in San Marcos #mc4382s Professor @cindyroyal

San Jorge University in Zaragoza, Spain Professor #PW2  @jmcmahonztown

University of Portsmouth, UK #pompeyhacks Professor @Lartonmedia

Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois #BU360 Prof @michkj

St. Edwards University, Austin, TX. #comm3309 Prof @corinnew

Have more to add shortly or add to comments pleeze. 

If you are going to do it a different week, also let us know. My students followed others on into the semester last time. 

Open to ideas for how to work this into a friendly competition, too. 

My students will create a Storify at the end and will be required to respond to at least five students at other schools, as well. 

The hunt may lead us naturally into Twitter chats and other group activities. I know it did last time. 

We are gearing up again for the hunt this spring with several professors already on board, and all schools are welcome to join us. Ideally, we will do the scavenger hunt the week of January 23. Obviously, we don't have to all do it at the same time or have exactly the same items on our list to "collect,"  but we have found from past experience that if you do, it works pretty darn well.

The assignment link above explains some of the goals we had, but in brief, the idea is to get students' feet wet using Twitter, and to practice using it like a reporter, with strong observational skills and the ability to find relevant or interesting tidbits of information and get them out quickly. There's also a certain amount of promoting your school/generating buzz angle for the advertising and public relations students in the classes. Finally, it helps show students the power of engagement, community and conversation.