by Staff Writers

Social media may have started out as a fun way to connect with friends, but it has evolved to become a powerful tool for education and business. Sites such as Facebook and Twitter and tools such as Skype are connecting students to learning opportunities in new and exciting ways. Whether you teach an elementary class, a traditional college class, or at an online university, you will find inspirational ways to incorporate social media in your classroom with this list.

Ideas for K-12 Classrooms

Implement these great ideas in your K-12 classroom to have students learning in a dynamic new way.

Make literature real. Have students create a Facebook page for a character from literature you are studying like this class did.

Follow famous people. Many famous people are on Twitter. Have students follow someone related to what you are studying, such as following President Obama when looking at government.

Twitter treasure hunt. Use GPS treasure hunting to send students in search of educational clues as one teacher did. (Skip to number 22 in the slide show.)

Learn probability. This elementary teacher uses Twitter to teach the concept of probability.

Study geography. Use a combination of Twitter and Google Earth to help teach geography-based lessons. This teacher used his network of Twitter followers to create an interactive lesson for his young students. Use her idea to spark your creativity for ways to use these two resources.

Connect with other classrooms. Collaborate with another classroom, no matter where they are in the world, to expand learning opportunities.

Recent public updates. The recent public updates on Twitter shows the most recent posts from all users and is a great tool to use when studying current events.

Field trips. Use Skype to bring the field trip into the classroom when it is difficult or impossible for students to go to the source.

Conference with parents. Stay connected with parents through social media to communicate their child’s progress.



Ideas for College Classrooms

Integrate these suggestions into college classrooms for engaging learning opportunities.

Window to daily life at school. Create a website like the one at University of Chicago Law School. that allows visitors to hear from students and professors about their daily life at law school. This can have applications across a variety of subject areas, from business studies to psychology.

Take a challenge. Look for challenges like this one held by Microsoft and Direct Marketing Educational Foundation.

Create apps. Follow in the footsteps of this class at Stanford and create your own Facebook apps. This exercise would be great for a computer programming class.

Research social media. Social media is a topic itself worth studying. Students are researching and even writing dissertations about social media. Some computer science classes even include course work over social media.

Help in developing countries. Create a project like a joint venture with MIT and a Mexican university, ITESM Zacatecas, that created a Twitter network that has saved small farmers in the area.

Follow mentors. Follow professors, mentors, or other important people in your field of study to find out about their research and professional activities.

Grassroot opportunities. Social media provides opportunities for students to work together on grassroot movements such as the one at the University of British Columbia where students fought to keep the weight room at their aquatic center open.



Ways Students Can Use Social Media

From practicing a foreign language to finding scientific research, these tips will have students using social media to enhance their education.

Find scientific research papers. Check out the Tweprints project that collects abstracts on any scientific paper archived at arXiv.org and mentioned on Twitter.

Tweet famous conversations. Have students tweet imagined conversations between famous literary figures such as Romeo and Juliet, Sherlock Holmes and Watson, or Dante and Beatrice.

Attend lectures remotely. Have students attend a lecture or presentation at another campus via streaming. Campuses often stream lectures in subject areas like accounting and criminal justice.

Practice a language. If students are learning a foreign language, they can practice with native speakers through groups on Facebook or by finding native speakers on Twitter or Skype.

Watch citizen journalism in action. World events unfold immediately on Twitter, so invite students to follow citizen journalism along with the mainstream news.

Track a word or phrase. Track a word or phrase to see how it is being used< by others to learn the nuances of language.

Learn personal responsibility. Students can learn personal responsibility when they find out about how to use social media sites responsibly.



Ways Instructors Can Use Social Media

No matter what level class you teach, there are ways for you as an instructor to use social media for the classroom, your career, and beyond.

Offer a class. Offer a class featuring social media such as this one featuring Twitter.

Collaborate with other professionals. Learn from and share with other instructors around the world by sharing ideas, tips, and techniques through Twitter or Facebook.

Use Twitter to teach journalism. Have students use Twitter to report news in 140 characters or less to practice communicating important information succinctly.

Answer questions. Be available for answering students’ questions via a Facebook page or Twitter feed.

Prospective students. Monitor Twitter or Facebook for specific key words to connect with potential students like how one man did at Queen’s School of Business in Ontario.

Conferences. Find out what’s going on at professional conferences through Twitter.

Have fun at conferences. If you are attending a conference, give BackChatter a try–a game that uses Twitter and makes attendees interactive participants.

Teach Twitter. Teach students how to use Twitter by offering assignments such as this one designed by Barbara Nixon of Georgia Southern University.

Post notes. Post class notes on Twitter so students who missed a class can find out what they missed and instructors can refer back to any notes they left.

Tweet lesson plans. Teachers can tweet their lesson plans, or links to them, to keep students updated and provide inspiration for other educators.

Faculty or staff forum. After you’ve gained experience using social media in the classroom, host a presentation for fellow instructors to share what you have learned.

Live blog. When you use Twitter to live blog a conference or lecture, you provide a transcript for others of what was discussed and keep awesome notes for yourself.

Instant feedback. Have a student tweet about your class to receive instant feedback. This is especially helpful for those teaching a large lecture class.

Take attendance. Have students tweet one thing you discussed in class as a great way of taking attendance.

Test new technology. Recruit help testing new apps or other technology from social media resources.

Recruit guest speakers. Recruit guest speakers for your class from social media contacts such as colleagues or past students.



Communication

Social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter offer a great way to enhance communication among students and teachers.

Post homework. Teachers can post homework assignments through Facebook to provide easy access for students and to put the assignment and due date in writing.

Classmate connections. No matter the size of your class, having all the students on a social media outlet brings them all together.

Provide direct communication with instructors. When teachers and students can easily contact each (as through Facebook or Twitter), they create better working relationships.

Send messages and updates. From unexpected absences to reminders of upcoming tests, Facebook and Twitter both offer great ways to stay updated on any occurrences.

Brainstorm. One benefit of social media is the ability to write down thoughts any time they occur. Encouraging students to brainstorm on class topics outside class time provides more opportunities for sharing great thoughts.

Schedule events. Easily schedule events for the entire class using Facebook or by posting on Twitter.

Create groups. You can create groups for entire classes or for smaller subsets such as study groups on Facebook and Twitter.

Help shy students. Shy students who may feel uncomfortable approaching their teacher in person can use social media as a way to communicate.

Share interesting websites. Both students and instructors can share interesting websites related to class topics via social media.

Multimedia. Share multimedia content easily with the entire class on Facebook.

Asynchronous class conversation. When something relevant to class happens during a time when class isn’t in session, students can discuss it through social media.



Class Projects

Assign class projects using social media to have students participate in dynamic learning opportunities.

Share book reviews. Students can post their book reviews for the instructor to grade and other students to read on a class Facebook page, or try tweeting a 140-character book review on Twitter.

Play Knighthood. This Facebook game promotes reading skills and has been used in at least one ESL class.

Poll the class. Use polls as an interactive teaching tool in class using the Poll app for Facebook or PollDaddy for Twitter.

Create a news feed. Have a journalism class report news via Twitter a feed or the Facebook status update.

Follow news stories. Use groups like World News Now on Facebook that provide video clips of world news.

Do community service. If your class is community-minded, organize a community service class project.

Create stories. Have students create a story, one by one, using only one Twitter post of 140 characters or less and one student at a time.

Post student projects. Set up a Facebook page to showcase student projects as Stanford did.

Author visits. Use Skype to set up author visits that allow students to interact with the author.

Interviews. Have students conduct interviews with teachers, school staff, or other students and share the interview via a Skype feed to other classrooms.



Promoting Community and Collaboration

Working together and promoting a sense of community makes for a richer learning environment. Find out ways to do just that with social media.

Promote community. Students sharing personal information through social media create a sense of community , which leads to more open communication and better learning.

Online communities. Social media can connect online communities such as classrooms or teachers’ groups to help create a larger community.

Interpersonal understanding. Getting to know small bits of others over time, as happens through social media, provides a greater picture of who those people are and develops a deeper sense of understanding for more openness and sharing in the classroom.

Use backchannel. “Backchannel” refers to the conversation occurring secondary to the main lecture or presentation via social media. Use backchannel to enhance both teaching and learning.

Blog. Create a community blog and share it on Facebook to tell what your class is learning and doing.

Guest lecturers. Have guest lecturers visit the classroom through Skype if they are located too far away to come in person.

Collaboration. By definition, social media outlets are designed to promote social interchange, so harness that capability to have students work on activities together through social media.

Stay relevant. Schools moving from an old, skill-centered approach to one that embraces connectivity through social media will provide a better learning environment for students.

Collaborate with professionals. Some 7th graders collaborated with the National Museum in Canada via Skype.

Make changes. When a book was not allowed to be taught in one school, students connected with the author of the book and collaborated on how to approach the school board with their case.

Inclusion. Students who may have to be out of the classroom due to special needs or illness can be connected to the class remotely and stay a part of the community.



Social Media Tools for Students

These tools for Twitter and Facebook will provide students even more ways to use social media at school.

TweetDeck. Students can use this tool to help organize their Twitter feeds. It also provides an excellent way to tweet from their iPhones.

Twhirl. Twhirl is another helpful tool for managing Twitter and includes features such as URL shortening and new message notifications.

bit.ly. Posting long links eats up the 140 characters allotted on Twitter, so shorten URLs with this tool.

Tweetree. Twitter can get confusing with several conversations going on at once, so use this tool to group conversations together.

TwitPic. Share photos on Twitter when you use this popular tool.

QuoteURL. If students want to put different tweets all on one page (for summarizing a project, for example), then this is the tool to use.

CiteMe. This Facebook app provides properly formatted citations according to APA, Chicago, Harvard, MLA, or Turabian.

Notely. Notely users who are on Facebook can organize assignments, classes, notes, and more with this app.

CourseFeed. Add this app to Facebook to find online classes or follow your current class.

DoResearch4Me. Steer students away from finding information on Wikipedia with this Facebook app that finds information online from other sources.

Hey Math! Challenge. This Facebook app provides Flash movies that clearly explain difficult math concepts.

CampusBuddy. Find students attending your school with this Facebook app.

Flashcards. Use this app to create flashcards on any subject right on Facebook.

Class Notes. Take a photo of teacher’s notes or your own notes and post them so others in your class can see.



Preparing for Employment

Whether students are graduating from college and starting a career or finishing high school and looking for work, these tips offer a great way to find employment through social media.