A Brief Thought on Social Media

As a technology consultant and a full-time educational technology evangelist, I’m often asked how to use social media as an educator. Recently, a friend and college professor wanted to know why she should use Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to stay connected with her students. I initially responded by noting it’s how teachers and students communicate, but as I researched the use of these tools by college instructors I started to realize I might be misguided. Here is an interesting article from the Chronicle of Higher Education that reviews a national survey by persons of 1,000 faculty members about their use of social media. It’s clear from this research that social media is being used as an information source and not for social interaction.

On the contrary, it appears the use of social media in K-12 is prevalent. This is also evident by the many social media tools available for this audience.

I think there is more resistance to social media in higher education because students are mostly self-motivated. In K-12 these tools are great for engagement and collaboration (locally, nationally, and internationally) and there seem to be more opportunities for the use of social media for learning.