Did you do your homework?

Here is another piece on using social media in the classroom.  I see that looking for a chance to bring social media channels in the classroom is the trend for 2010. It has its pros and cons. This article from our local newspaper of Hamilton: Hamilton Spectator.

The teacher reminds the homework on Twitter, posts updates about the class in his Facebook page.One student says using social media for class is not a good idea, as it threatens its privacy.

It is a hot topic, and we will wait and see what is going to happen in the classrooms of the world…

You can read the article at the Hamilton Spectator by clicking on the image below:

Use of social media in the classroom

Principal Investigator/Leader of the Research Team

Susan Barnes,  Department of Communication, Liberal Arts; Associate director of the Lab for Social Computing, Rochester Institute of Technology

Susan.Barnes@rit.edu

May 2010

The research, conducted as part of a course on social media tools, examined the use of course management systems and discussion groups to enhance classroom instruction, improve communication and connections between students and translate the benefits of social media interaction to the classroom. The results indicate that the educational use of social media may not counteract poor social connections that are seen in face-to-face communication or elicit the same impacts seen in the use of social media sites such as MySpace and FaceBook.

Of course, this is one study only. On the other hand, it is exciting how this group of researchers are planning to find a good of way to use social media channels for the use of better interaction in the classroom (please see the news release of the university on the study where you will see the “future plans”). This line of studies might have more than one single implication; anti-bullying, increased emotional intelligence, more social employees in the future are only some of them.