Moodle 2: Embedding twitter(social media) into your module

What are the benefits of using social media for students?

Embedding social media into modules can make your students want to:

• engage with your module much more
• be able to easily network with their peers and personal tutor
• be more receptive to receiving new types of information

Why is it important to have social media integration?

Edudemic advises that students are privy to information that transcends books and assignments. They are moving into a world where professional networks are much more significant. This is why social networks are much more important then they ever have been before. There is therefore an advantage to be had if you have embedded social media of some sort into your moodle module. Of course it may be worthwhile looking at which tool might be more effective.

Where is the pedagogical evidence that social media benefits students to be more self-directed?

In a recent french masters course, a collaborative learning environment and an online practice community were established and students were invited to use them to discuss pedagogical issues related to eLearning practice using the social networking tool Ning. The aim of the three-year experiment was to place students at the core of the learning process and enable them to experience and reflect upon collaborative online learning while engaged in specific practical projects.However at the end of the third year, students clearly expected more from a social network being used as a tool for learning. As a result, instead of requesting students to initiate and moderate individual discussion threads, the group of 21 students was divided into 5 sub-groups of 4/5, and ‘imposed’ projects (the contents of which the authors hoped would act as ‘social learning object’ stimulation were issued to each group over a 2-month period, accompanied with support information and web links. A precise time schedule including 5 deadlines per sub-group was indicated and appropriate alerts were activated before each deadline. This project reveals that the extended use of social media provided a students with immediate opportunities to take responsibility of their own learning.