Introduction: Before and during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook emerged as dynamic online spaces, fostering community engagement and learning. Over the years I have explored the role of social media, with a particular focus on Twitter, as a tool for engagement, an exemplar of the affordances of social media, and a means for student-centered design of online courses in higher education. However, as with all technology, social media is not without its challenges and over time, these platforms have increasingly been viewed as unsafe spaces, and both students and educators have become more hesitant to use them—particularly for academic purposes. This growing reluctance has raised questions about the value of social media in education, even as it remains deeply integrated into both personal and professional lives. In parallel, the rise of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools, such as ChatGPT, Claude, Bing, Gemini, GPT4all, llama 3, DeepSeek, Midjourney, Notebook LM, Lensa AI, and Canva Magic Write, just to name a few, introduces both new challenges and opportunities for education. These technologies cannot be ignored, and their impact on teaching and learning is already being felt across campuses. I have been having critical conversations with my graduate students who are educators and designers across all contexts, and some colleagues addressing where we have been, where we are at, and where we are going as we navigate the protean, opaque, and unstable digital landscape(see #3 below for the article that describes this). Two focus areas I will share with you and draw upon for this presentation and conversation are 1) The critical need for the pedagogical approach of the pedagogy of love with a definition for the digital era, and 2) asking the questions - Is there still hope for social media and AI tools in education during these uncertain times? How can we navigate their complexities? To address these questions, you can start with 2-3 readings as works for you:
Parra, J. (2024). Heroic Pedagogy of Love for Digital Era. In: Allison, S.T., Beggan, J.K., Goethals, G.R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Heroism Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-48129-1_364- email me at juparra@nmsu.edu for a copy of this article
Parra, J. & Chatterjee, S. (2024). Social media and artificial intelligence: Critical conversations and where do we go from here? Education Sciences, 14(1), 68. https:// doi.org/10.3390/educsci14010068. email me at
