Part of the growing success of online education may be due to the increasing use of social media in online classes. Social media encompasses several types of interaction and communication web sites, including blogs, microblogs, wikis, social network sites, social bookmarking, photography sharing, video sharing, virtual worlds, game sharing, and many others. Common examples of social media are Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Online education has capitalized on the expanded opportunities offered by social media sites that allow user-created content and group interaction without a fee.
Faculty Use of Social Media
According to a recent survey, a majority of college faculty, regardless of age, say they use at least one kind of social media in their lives. Many use social media in their teaching as well, citing better learner engagement, more opportunities for creativity, and enhanced collaboration among a group of learners. Faculty have discovered that they can push information out to students on sites such as Facebook or Twitter, instead of merely posting information to a blog. The use of Twitter, a microblogging site, has entered online education as well as traditional education classes. Faculty may “tweet” reminders to students about assignments or tests, or assign students to “tweet” about assignments. Twitter users can communicate without having each other’s cell phone numbers, making group assignments easier to manage.
Student Use of Social Media
Online students already have the computer equipment and the internet access necessary for using social media, and many students have experience using social media sites. Faculty may easily publish on a blog and require students to post comments and discuss the comments of other students. Group projects can progress through web conferencing or through online software such as Google docs. Online students can produce and share slide presentations or video presentations. Online classes may also encourage the use of social media for academic research. Social bookmarking sites help lead students to literature reviews. Teams or groups can share their web findings by assigning tags to bookmarks and can also join groups of users with similar academic interests. Bookmarking sites can indicate web pages that the users feel are most important for a particular topic. Some bookmarking sites allow sticky notes and highlighting.
Making online courses interactive and collaborative has advanced by the incorporation of social media. Students communicate more easily and can experience group and team work in many ways. Colleges are also posting student projects on social media sharing sites so that they can be viewed by current students.
