Social Media: Don't Hate the Hashtag

For me, that is the lesson learnt after spending a year and a bit doing social media at Bodleian Libraries, the University of Oxford’s research libraries. It is a conclusion every person who does…

"A new report from the American Sociological Association suggests tenure committees consider the impact of social media engagement in review of teaching, research and service when considering a candidate."

Most research on the use of Twitter for learning has been conducted with undergraduate and graduate students. Research with teenagers, however, has found that students use social media for self-expression, communication, friendship maintenance and information.

So, recently, one of our partner teachers explored the potential of social media to promote learning. Ryan Becker, a teacher at a public middle school, wondered if Twitter might be an effective way to extend classroom learning and to link students to “real world” science.

"Even though both social learning and social media witness a lot of human interaction, social media plays a very small role in social learning in the workplace. Instructional designers need, besides real face-to-face collaboration during the learning process, a digital watercooler around which employees gather, have high quality conversations and discuss about possible solutions to business problems."

In my first conversation about Snapchat with another educator, I didn’t have a very open mind. “Let’s Snapchat each other to talk about it more!” she said. I politely declin…

Amy B. Wang writes: "It’s no secret that teenagers love social media.

Members of “Generation Z” can spend up to nine hours a day sharing photos on Instagram, consuming “content” on YouTube and talking to friends on Snapchat. (Just don’t ask them to get excited about Facebook.)

But how much do these teens understand what they’ve agreed to give up when they start an account with those sites?

Probably very little, according to a report released last week — and dense terms and conditions that are “impenetrable and largely ignored” are partly to blame."

by Briallyn Smith

The Resource for Education Technology Leaders focusing on K-12 educators.

Memes indeed have the ability to be an uplifting way to bring people together – and to pull them apart. Let's take a look at the history of the meme!