Retrieved from http://www.businessofapps.com/snapchat-tackles-fake-posts-by-installing-content-verification-team/

Snapchat is a free Android and IOS app that is primarily used for sharing pictures and videos. I have been an avid user of Snapchat for several years now, though my previous use of it has been purely for entertainment purposes.This app is extremely user-friendly for accomplishing its main tasks: after creating a profile, one can click "Add Friends" and enter usernames to personally connect with others; simply click the large center button to take a picture, or hold down the button to record a video, and then choose a friend or multiple friends to receive this picture or video; choose "My Story" as a recipient of a picture or video, and it is posted for all friends to be able to see (similar to posting on Facebook). More advanced options such as applying filters, adding bitmojis, linking to external videos, finding friends' locations, and many others are available and fairly user-friendly for a vast majority of users. I personally love sharing videos of fun activities to my story and sending funny pictures to friends. Here is a video of someone explaining the major components of Snapchat, and giving a brief idea about why Snapchat is unique compared to other social media: 

I have only recently started considering the broader impacts of Snapchat. While I enjoy using the app for quick and easy entertainment, I am starting to realize the power it has for use as an educational and professional tool. Below is a picture explaining some of the impressive demographics of Snapchat as an explanation for why a business would benefit from joining Snapchat.

Retrieved from https://www.jeffbullas.com/snapchat-becoming-essential-small-business/

These demographics are just as applicable to education as they are to business. I have not personally used Snapchat as an educational tool yet, but the more I read about its potential, the more I become convinced of successful application/practice. Using Snapchat for educational purposes will hopefully increase student engagement, increase inclusiveness, expand availability of information to a more ubiquitous style, and lead to overall higher learning (Khan and Carroll 2017).

Technology is more popular and more accessible than ever. With an increasing push of using technology to our advantage when teaching and learning, we are seeing more and more use of various online platforms to facilitate ubiquitous learning (Webb 2010). While traditional learning is extremely limited by both time and space, online environments allow students and teachers access to material from virtually any location at any time. The video below is Colorado State University's explanation of why online learning is important and useful:

Online learning removes the parameters of the idea that one must "be at this place at this time" in order to learn, pass a class, or earn a degree. In addition to actual online class setups as described in the above video, social media platforms can be a great location for online learning and collaboration. For example, students could be tasked with using Twitter for posting short summaries of what they are learning, or collaborating on projects using platforms such as Slack or Ideaflip. Social media learning is a theory that is becoming increasingly popular in practice, and can be practiced with great success with some planning and monitoring. Snapchat is a great way of putting the theory of social media learning into practice via applications that are at the mercy of the instructors' and students' creativity.

With Snapchat being free and easy to use, instructors and students alike have the freedom to explore the app's uses and to begin developing its applications in the classroom (whether that is a physical classroom, virtual/online classroom, or a hybrid of the two). A psychology professor at Marist College in New York, Professor Michael Britt, uses Snapchat to increase student engagement in his classes. He has shared that he uses Snapchat in a variety of ways to accomplish this, such as offering reviews of course material for exams and for the course in general, sending questions to students and receiving from students feedback regarding course material, posting course material examples for students to explore and discuss, and sending students examples of course material in the "real world" when encountering those examples outside the classroom (Addyson-Zhang 2017). Below is a video and a link to another video (direct embedding did not occur). The first is a somewhat silly, ~90 second video of someone using Snapchat. The second is ~1 hour video from the U of I that discusses why the university is wanting to use Snapchat, how it thinks using Snapchat will lead to more engagement, etc.:

Video 2: https://mediaspace.illinois.edu/media/t/1_kjciwt9r

You likely watched the enitre first video, while you likely did not watch all (if any) of the second video (kudos to you if you did watch all of it!) While the second video presents some amazing information about why Snapchat can be great for student engagement, an hour-long video is difficult to sit through, especially when the first video is able to present much of Snapchat's potential with only a 90-second demonstration. This exemplifies the idea that the time limitiation of videos on Snapchat (see "Critical Review" section below) can still lead to powerful products. I think that the first video gives a great idea of how Snapchat could be used in education, such as by a science teacher who is working out in the field and wanting to share what he/she is doing.

There are many features of Snapchat that allow for a variety of applications. The ability to form groups allow for easy communication and collaboration from anywhere and at anytime. Multimedia sharing allows students to share pictures, videos, and links with each other and with the instructor, and vice versa. Since there is really no limit to the groups that can be formed, Snapchat could be used to create, for example, a group that connects biology students from different universities, or a group that connects business students with different corporations. In short, while increasing connections of students with each other and with their instructor is great, developing these kinds of connections with entities from the "real world" would surely help students see their lessons in the broader scheme.

While Snapchat shows some great potential for being a tool for education, I can envision some possible concerns, of which I will attempt to counter-argue when possible.

• First, Snapchat videos are limited to a maximum length of 60 seconds. It could be argued that learning from such short videos would be a challenge not worth facing when other options allow longer videos to be shared. I do agree that there are situations where a 60-second video would be unlikely to benefit student learning. However, I can present multiple counter-arguments here. 1) Short videos like these are likely easier for students to remain focused on, compared to a long, "boring" video. 2) In many cases, being concise is a great skill; challenging both instructors and students with sufficiently addressing a topic in 60 seconds or less would likely facilitate creativity and succinctness. 3) Though it might be somewhat less ideal, instructors and/or students could simply take multiple 60-second videos. As described in the first video, a Snapchat story is played in chronological order, so students and instructors would see the oldest posted video first, and the most recently posted video last.
• Second, Snapchat stories and postings within groups disappear after 24 hours, which could open the argument that time is still a relatively limiting factor in this type of learning. However, the option to save is available, so snaps within groups could be remain viewable indefinitely, and saved stories could be reposted (if desired) after they disappear.
• Third, students could become distracted by the other snaps and stories. This is definitely a legitimate argument, and I cannot think of a solid solution to this issue. However, distraction is likely to be a possibility with any platform or setting. Watching Youtube videos to learn could result in getting sidetracked by other, more interesting videos. Working on an online class at home could result in getting sidetracked by food or TV. Even students listening to a teacher in person could be distracted by a car driving by the school. Students may become distracted while using Snapchat for learning, but they will likely eventually accomplish whatever task they are trying to accomplish if the task is required.
• Finally, the ability to add friends and join groups without the ability for an instructor to monitor student activity presents the risk that students could be cheating. Here, I would argue that it will be up to the instructor to decide how he/she wants to use Snapchat for teaching/learning. For example, having students post a short video of them explaining a topic would not likely have cheating as a big issue, while sending a picture of an exam and asking students to send back answers would probably result in a significant amount of cheating.

As with most ideas, there are pros and cons of using Snapchat for learning. While the arguments against its use listed above are respectable, there are so many positive applications of using this app. Student engagement can be increased in both in-person classrooms and virtual/online ones, and material is much more accessible than in traditional learning environments (Hurst 2018). Here is a video of an ISTE conference presentation about why Snapchat is a great and unique tool (Snapchat has been updated since the video was published, so a couple points mentioned in the video are not necessarily limitations anymore, as I described above):

Overall, Snapchat is likely a highly undervalued application that has the potential for significant use in education. Using social media for education is a relatively new theory that is gaining momentum in practice (Rodriguez 2011). Many students are actively using social media for entertainment purposes, so they already have an understanding of how the platforms work, and a majority of students connect use of their mobile devices to their success in academics (Chen and deNoyelles 2013). This likely presents an advantage of using popular social media for learning, as students do not have to spend as much time trying to understand how the platform being used for the course works.

Though there are some limitations to the use of Snapchat, students and instructors alike are able to use creativity to find innovative ways of using it to learn and collaborate. This is also an app/tool that students can, and likely will, continue to use beyond the scope of the course. Many online course platforms are no longer used by students once they complete the course. Snapchat would allow students who form connections through a course to stay connected for years following the completion of the course.

As someone who has enjoyed using Snapchat for entertainment purposes for several years now, I can say that I personally would love to try using Snapchat for educational and professional purposes as well. I can already envision sharing ideas with my co-workers and collaborating with my classmates on group projects. I will surely be looking to use Snapchat for increasing student engagement and creating a more ubiquitous learning environment as I begin my career as an educator.

Retrieved from https://www.litmos.com/blog/articles/snapchat-a-possible-future-for-learning-and-development