A reflection on the use of emojis by lecturers
After reviewing the ‘post-it’ comments on the course, I found my own views challenged – should I change my view on our (lecturers) use of emojis?
So, I conducted an unscientific survey of my 3 teenagers (aged 14,16&18).
In response to the question “would you want your lecturer / teacher to use emojis in any type of written communication ?” the answer was a resounding NO. Not being content with a pure binary answer of 100% no, I continued in search or their reasoning: #1 “you don’t want them to be your friend”
#2 “it’s a bit weird”
#3 ” because a lecturer/ teacher is a students superior and shouldn’t try and on their level, on the other hand a simple smiley face at the end of a message or lecture is ok but nothing too often or dramatic”
So, pretty clear from the Macdonald family then…
Stepping back from this, my view is that we do need to be careful to communicate clearly though, especially as the visual cues are lacking in most online communication. It is therefore vital that I recognise that my words may be interpreted a different way to the way in which I intend, so I must be very careful when I interact with students to minimise this.
In a different setting (for example a sports coaching forum online), I would be perfectly happy to use emojis.
So, it seems like the context of the communication is key and that the student expectation of the lecturer has to be borne in mind.