Abstract

Social media use is pervasive, especially among college students. When it comes to integrating social media in the classroom, some instructors may be hesitant on how to achieve such a goal. This study reports the results of undergraduate students’ experiences creating socially-mediated texts, assignments that integrate text with social media examples as support. Students completed a research-based text, one that examined a third party’s use of social media, and a metacognitive one, where students examined their own participation on Twitter. The assignments then were analyzed for word count and number/types of social media examples used. Additionally, students completed a survey that gathered their feedback and attitudes about each of the assignments. Findings indicated that students created longer research-based texts than metacognitive ones. They further reported positive experiences creating both texts, expressed critical judgements as to the value of information from different types of social media platforms, and recognized the value of the metacognitive approach in terms of understanding their own learning process.