Children may not be learning the “three R’s” (reading, writing and arithmetic) but you can be sure they know all about the “three T’s” (texting, typing and tweeting).

TRU has filled its first “Postdoctoral Fellow” research position to work with Canada Research Chair Dr. Norm Friesen to study this change. Together they will be exploring the benefits and drawbacks of these rapidly evolving technologies for education.

“A common message is that social media like Facebook and Twitter represent a new paradigm in information – that they create a sort of democratic system where users dictate the content” explains Friesen, director of the New Media Studies Research Centre at TRU.

This has led some educators to adopt networking technologies, with their built-in restrictions, as an educational platform. In fact, Friesen suggests that social media are most often not about connecting people with each other in the first instance, but about connecting people with advertising, and that an uncritical approach to its use as an educational medium could have troubling consequences. “Education ought to be a market-free zone that encourages open debate,” Friesen says, “rather than one that connects students with advertisers”.

The concern is that social media create and control (as with Facebook’s ‘Like’ button) very particular kinds of interactions that promote “conviviality” or agreement rather than provoking debate and investigation of issues.

Dr. Shannon Lowe has joined Dr. Friesen at TRU through the financial support of a prestigious fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC) to investigate these concerns, and look into the ways that increasing use of social media are impacting the way we learn and construct meaning.

Dr. Lowe is a researcher with an outstanding academic track-record that has taken her from Armstrong, BC via SSHRCC and British Council funding to Lancaster University’s Institute for Cultural Research, in the UK, and has now brought her to TRU.

As a post-doctoral researcher, Lowe’s presence is indicative of the institution’s increasing profile on the academic stage, and its growth as a research-based institution. “I look forward to being part of an active, interdisciplinary research environment at a vibrant, growing university” says Lowe of her appointment.

Dr. Nancy Van Wagoner, the Associate Vice President of Research Innovation and Graduate Studies is delighted at Dr. Lowe’s appointment, explaining that “Post-doctoral positions are important for TRU and for Canada. Her work will help to expand the research capacity of TRU through her collaborations with faculty and students.”