Social Media Use in Universities: Benefits

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Paradigm shift in learning Experience

Advantages of Social Media	Disadvantages
Early Recognition of Student Needs and Formative Assessment	Privacy of Educators
Increased Sense of Student Achievement	Lack of Resources
Student Engagement	Equity of Access
Information Management	Legality
Establishment of Classroom Community
Access to Marginalized Students

Modified: Goldfarb , 2011.

FaceBook and Twitter as Tools for Social Media and Networking in University

FaceBook

Free entry;
Allows for creation of individual profile;
Allows adding of friends and exchange of messages;
Allows account holders to groups of interest.

Twitter

Free messaging but message characters not more than 140;
Acts as a microblog;
Stay touch;
Live tweeting;
Internet research.

Advantages and Disadvantages For Classroom/Learning Purposes

Advantages
FaceBook
Student Perspective	Instructor Perspective
Informal and enticing environment promotes spontaneity	Fosters collaboration through collective intelligence
Large following among the teen that form bulk of student fraternity	User profiles are accessible resources
User transparency wins immediate gratification	Reduces chances of classmate marginalization
Has a democratic learning atmosphere	Encourages out-of-class student engagement
There is direct virtual contact with instructors	Teaches ethics on individual and social responsibility
Challenges the University administrators always to be up-to-date	Students can connect one-on-one with guest speakers
Strong tool for awareness creation and intimacy

Twitter
Advantages	Disadvantages
Allows real time and real world classroom experience	Social challenges: ensuring etiquette
Links posted directly from field by colleagues	Social challenges: ensuring vertical thinking
Access to current news and development in specific professions	Assistance to handle backchanneling in classroom
Live Tweet allows outside class learning	limited message characters for comprehensive classroom instantaneous commenting
Disadvantage of physical classroom absence minimized
Professional networking that expose students	Tracking classroom professionalism among tweets.

Common Elements Shared by FaceBook & Twitter for Classroom/learning Purposes

Stay in Touch and Track News
Promoting sharing
Brainstorming Ideas
FaceBook’s Flexibility & Multi-dimension

Beneficial Apps for Learning Purposes

FaceBook App	Student/Instructor Utility
Books iRead	Share reading material to know what others think about it
DoResearch4me	Assists in information research for a given topic
Flashcards	Makes it easy to study on FaceBook
WikiseekSearch	Assists locate Wikipedia
JSTOR Search	Assists locate full text research articles
Notely:	Has accessories for organizing school life
Study Groups	Assists in groupwork collaboration
Class Notes	Assists locate scan class notes
Notecentric	Create notes on facebook for sharing with others
BookTag	Assist in loaning out books and setting quiz
WebinariaScreencast Recorder	Record video and share with students
Mathematical Formulas	Distribute formulas, solutions, e.t.c
SlideShare	Generate presentations and send to others
Mathematical Formulas	Distribute formulas, solutions, e.t.c
SlideShare	Generate presentations and send to others

References

Dawley, L. (2009). Social network knowledge construction: emerging virtual world pedagogy. Emerald Group Publishing Limited 17(2), 109-121.

Drhowie (2011). 50 Ways To Integrate Social Media Into Your Classroom. Web.

Goldfarb, A., Pregibon, N., Shrem, J. and Zyko, E. (2011). Informational Brief On Social Networking In Education. Web.

Hussain, I., Gulrez, N. and Tahirkheli, N. A. (2012). Academic Use of Social Media: Practices and Problems of University Students. International Conference on Education and Management Innovation 30, 189-194.