Dive Brief:
- Social media can boost higher ed instruction in a number of ways, particularly when it comes to collaboration, as a new article from Campus Technology highlights.
- Though the article primarily focuses on how STEM courses are benefiting from Wikpedia, Twitter and YouTube, the advantages can stretch beyond that subject matter.
- According to the article, Wikipedia is beneficial for graphic communication in science courses, projects like the Online Studio-Based Integrated Development Environment (OBSIDE) facilitate communication and peer review, YouTube serves as a stand-in for oral assessment, and Twitter and Storify can be used for classroom Q&A sessions.
Dive Insight:
As noted, it's not hard to imagine the advantages of these platforms stretching beyond STEM. With Twitter, for example, students who may be shy in a classroom environment can speak up and ask questions they might not otherwise. Though it does likely beg the question of the benefits or lack thereof for their development of communication soft skills that might be valued in the workplace.
Notably, social media may also potentially enrich the MOOC experience and encourage better retention. A study presented recently at the annual AMC conference on Learning at Scale suggested that MOOC students prefer the communication and collaboration tools offered by Facebook over those built in to the massive open online course platforms.