Using “Global” Social Media to Teach World History at Bronx Community College

The “Arab Spring” exemplified the power of social media like Twitter to spread ideas and teach the world about revolution. That same technology can be applied to world history courses taught at community colleges all across the United States and works particularly well in multi-ethnic urban classes such as those in New York City. This paper proposes to examine current research on the classroom use of social media tools including Twitter, blogs, podcasts, Pinterest, and wiki and report on their usage over the last two years to teach world history at the very diverse Bronx Community College (CUNY). If employed alongside traditional teaching methods, pop culture social media works well to create, critique and analyze world history and encourage a forum for students from diverse backgrounds to share their unique ‘global’ history.