My experience at CSSE 2017 at Ryerson University

Leading up to Congress 2017, I was getting really excited about attending the Canadian Society for the Study of Education conference at Ryerson University. I had been accepted as a CSSE Knowledge Mobilization team member, and eagerly started tweeting about #CSSE2017 right away.

 

I got instant replies to this tweet from an academic friend at the University of New Brunswick, asking about what I was presenting and when. I was happily surprised to see him in attendance during my CSSE presentation with my supervisor, Dr. Tim Goddard, and a graduate student colleague, Teresa Zhang. A new friend (and new Twitter follower, @K_Higginbottom) also attended my presentation, and even took a picture to capture the moment. Now, I have a conference presentation under my belt, as well as a tweeted picture to remember it.

 

You can’t quite tell in the picture, but the room had almost 30 people in attendance. For a graduate student (who regularly deals with imposter syndrome) it felt pretty amazing to have a large audience to share our research, and having individuals (like @K_Higginbottom and @melphuong) tweet about it made me realize that our research was getting out there, in the minds and hearts of those who attended, but also online. Because of this realization, I believe I will forever use social media at conference for knowledge mobilization. However, post-CSSE, I wonder how I could use social media to promote my research outside of a conference setting. This is something I will ponder.

Twitter also came in handy for my Faculty of Education at UPEI who happens to be hiring four new faculty positions. Those of us who tweet were able to share the links to the job advertisements, and my dean, Dr. Ron MacDonald (@RonMacDonald390) was even able to set up face-to-face meetings with those interested in the positions, all with help from social media.

 

Another cool part of CSSE2017 was Greg Rousell’s tweets! [He also created a CSSE Map and CSSE Tweets Google Doc.] This is a picture of a word network of #CSSE2017 tweets. Those with darker lines have more associations. Just taking a moment now to look at what jumps out—like research, knowledge, sharing, findings, and thinking—show that tweeting at CSSE is all about getting our research out there and making meaningful connections. If you can overcome the sheer number of tweets happening per minute at CSSE, and take a moment to read and dive in, you are bound to learn something new, meet a new friend, and possibly learn about an opportunity you wouldn’t have known about.

Now that CSSE is over, and our lives are back to normal (whatever that is), think about how you might use Twitter or social media at the next conference you attend. Also, think about how it could be used in your day-to-day work. Are you hiring and want to promote a job ad? Do you have a new paper published and want to share it? There are so many uses for social media, but a key aspect is reciprocity and engagement. Using Twitter at CSSE 2017 allowed me to feel connected and heard in a crowd of 10,000—the biggest Congress yet. I will most definitely be using it again at Congress 2018 at the University of Regina! I hope to see you there, online or in person.

Brittany A. E. Jakubiec
PhD Student, Faculty of Education, UPEI
@brijaay

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