e-Learning Ecologies MOOC’s Updates

Social Media Learning - Good and Bad

Using social media for learning is a ubiquitous learning platform that has exploded over the past decade. Learning through tools like Twitter and Facebook has opened the world up to learning leaders and industry titans. It has helped spawn movements and has been my learning method for years. Social media platforms allow people without a voice (or maybe a loud voice) to share, learn and even sometimes lead. Twitter chats allow for real time topic based discussions and are achieved for everyone to read. Social media platforms allow the disemination of text, images and video in a concise message.

A great example of using social media for learning are snow chats for teachers. It gives them time when they would typically be issolated at home (possibly with crazed children). It allows for structured questions to be asked and unstructured discussions to follow https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&q=%23ncsnowchat&src=typd

The issue with learning via social media is many people's inability to discern fact from fiction. It is likely one of the more importand skills for today's youth to learn. Dr. Mary Kalantzis speaks about this in her part of 1A: Learning in Space and Time.

One book I enjoyed on the power of social media is Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky. Social media allows for social networking to expand outside of like to like groupings of people. Social media gives access to connectors, people who help network groups together and thus expand information beyond small groups.