7 Reasons To Leverage Social Networking Tools in the Classroom

Instructional uses of social networking software can provide opportunities for learning, connecting, and engagement.

This year, I’ve written frequently about popular social media tools, and education-specific social networking apps. I’ve also noticed increasing coverage of this topic in the media recently. Maybe it’s just me paying more attention to it … or maybe it signals an increasing acceptance of these types of tools as legitimate and effective resources for the classroom.

Social networking tools aren’t going away any time soon, they appear to be here for the long term. But do these kinds of applications really belong in the classroom? I think they do, and here’s a few reasons why:

7 ways in which “social learning applications” can play an impactful role in education:

Engagement: Using social media and networking tools obviously has a social aspect to it, and it requires proactive effort on the part of the user. In other words, using these tools to communicate and interact requires a student’s active engagement. Socialization also provides opportunities for emotional engagement (this article from The Chronicle discusses the importance of emotional engagement as part of the social learning process). 

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