The rapid expansion of blogs, Twitter, wikis, and virtual worlds has dramatically transformed the landscape of education. Through highly accessible networks, these new media can integrate students into a learning community by enabling them to create, customize, and share content online. Using Social Media Effectively in the Classroom shows educators how to:

utilize social media to best support learners

resolve potential problems

create a powerful sense of community within user-centered Web 2.0 technologies.

Moving beyond basic explanations of technologies and how to use them, this book provides research-based, jargon-free, practical examples of what works, what doesn’t, and why when it comes to social media. Organized according to the systematic process of instructional design, contributors describe innovative strategies for incorporating social media into educational settings as well as significant issues to be taken into consideration at each phase of planning, designing, teaching, and evaluation.

Contents

Unit I: Planning a Socially Enriched Learning Environment Chapter 1: Analysis in Virtual Worlds: The Influence of Learner Characteristics on Instructional Design, Aimee deNoyelles Chapter 2: Blurring the Lines: Teacher Insights on the Pitfalls and Possibilities of Incorporating Online Social Media into Instructional Design, Thomas Highley & Kay Kyeong-Ju Seo Chapter 3: Analysis of Second Life as a Delivery Mechanism in EFL Education, Kay Kyeong-Ju Seo, Noah Kreischer, & Muruvvet Demiral Unit II: Developing Powerful Instructional Strategies with Social Media Chapter 4: Designing Recorded Voice Reflection as a Pedagogical Strategy, Dana A. Tindall Chapter 5: Live in Your World, Learn in Ours: Virtual Worlds… Engaging the New Generation of Students! Elizabeth M. Hodge & Sharon Collins Chapter 6: Developing a Wiki for Problem-Based Online Instruction and Web 2.0 Exploration Teresa Franklin & Briju Thankachan Chapter 7: Learning and Teaching as CommunActions: Social Media as Educational Tool Scott J. Warren & Jenny S. Wakefield Unit III: Teaching Successfully with Social Media Chapter 8: Everyone’s All a-Twitter about Twitter: Three Operational Perspectives on Using Twitter in the Classroom Matthew Krüger-Ross, Richard D. Waters, & Tricia M. Farwell Chapter 9: Online Videos in the Classroom: Exploring the Opportunities and Barriers to the Use of YouTube in Teaching Introductory Sociology Nick Pearce & Elaine Tan Chapter 10: A Framework to Enrich Student Interaction via Cross-Institutional Microblogging Suku Sinnappan & Samar Zutshi Unit IV: Assessing Instructional Effectiveness with Social Media Chapter 11: Designing Assessments for Differentiated Instruction Using Social Media Applications Seung H. Kim & Ying Xie Chapter 12: VoiceThread as a Facilitator of Instructional Critique Jamie Smith & Teresa Franklin Chapter 13: Is There (still) a Place for Blogging in the Classroom?: Using Blogging to Assess Writing, Facilitate Engagement and E...