When it comes to social media, Auburn University students are all in. The world around us is changing and technology is sculpting the way we communicate.

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Michael Fuhlhage, a journalism professor at Auburn, is pushing his students to interact in new ways and become more familiar with the shift in culture by having his students participate in a multi-university Twitter scavenger hunt.

Carrie Brown Smith, a professor at the University of Memphis, first came up with the idea of a scavenger hunt and shared it with other universities. The results spread like wildfire and the students began tweeting several times a day about their lives and campuses.

Auburn University quickly caught on and is taking part in the scavenger hunt this semester. Auburn uses #j2310 as a class hash tag, and #JRLWeb is used as the overall hash tag by all of the universities. The other schools participating this semester include, San Jorge University, #PW2, Bradley University, #BU330 and Valencia College, #VCJ.

The students participate in the hunt and tweet discoveries to a website called Storify. Each student is responsible for being aware of what is interesting, important, relevant, unique and immediate. They are learning to double check facts, think like a storyteller and interact with other schools through social media.

Christin Colquitt, a senior at Auburn University says the scavenger hunt is pushing her to use social media outlets to not only think like a reporter but learn from other universities how the cultures can vary from one campus to another.

Fuhlhage stresses to his students that even though a tweet only includes 140 characters, you can say a lot in a few words or by using and image. It is a way for Auburn students to get involved with the social media culture and use it to further their education and interaction with other college students. As his class participates in the hunt, they discuss their discoveries of what they have found and how to best tell a story in a limited space.

“Most of the students I have in the class have been using twitter in one way or another, but they haven’t thought about it as a reporter would use it,” Fuhlhage said. “This requires the students to do what reporters do and become comfortable with interviewing complete strangers.”

Auburn students are expanding their education with the help of social media. The Twitter scavenger hunt is simply one of the ways students are using new social media outlets for education and experience.