Social media are computer-mediated tools that allow people, companies and other organizations to create, share, or exchange information, career interests, ideas, and pictures or videos in virtual communities and networks.
In recent years, social media in the classroom has become a valuable pedagogical medium. Twitter, blogs, and other sites are structured to encourage collaborative discussion and creative thinking outside the confines of the classroom. Furthermore, social media is not only a tool for students, it can also allow for teachers to develop their own educational content, connect with other educators around the world, and help new teachers find jobs via networking sites such as LinkedIn for teachers.
By bringing social media into the classroom, teachers can develop these networks in ways that can positively impact the learning environment of their students. Student blogs, for example, are ways in which teachers can encourage students to collaborate on projects outside of the classroom, develop critical thinking and writing skills, learn to express constructive criticism, and foster an online learning community that allows students to individually express their creativity and thoughts in a virtual social forum.
Facebook for teachers is an example of another potentially useful tool for teachers in educational contexts. It supports the integration of multimodal content such as student-created photographs and video and URLs to other texts, in a platform that many students are already familiar with. Further, it allows students to ask more minor questions that they might not otherwise voice in class: and therefore it can function as one alternative means for shyer students to be able to voice their thoughts in and outside of the classroom. Furthermore, the level of informality typical to Facebook can also aid students in self-expression and encourage more frequent student-and-instructor and student-and-student communication. Facebook can therefore be an effective platform for teachers to engage with students of all learning speeds outside of a traditional class environment.