{"id":283,"date":"2015-01-13T18:23:44","date_gmt":"2015-01-13T23:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openstudio.pub\/teachinginadigitalagev3m\/chapter\/9-5-5-social-media\/"},"modified":"2025-05-10T07:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T11:14:09","slug":"9-5-5-social-media","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/openstudio.pub\/teachinginadigitalagev3m\/chapter\/9-5-5-social-media\/","title":{"raw":"9.1 Social media","rendered":"9.1 Social media"},"content":{"raw":" \n\n[caption id=\"attachment_282\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"755\"]\"\" Figure 9.1.1 The Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies. Image: Wikimedia Commons, 2019[\/caption]\n

9.1.1 The challenge of emerging technologies<\/h2>\nIt is not uncommon for a school principal, a college VP Education, or a university president to go to a conference and come back thrilled about the potential of the latest technology for teaching and learning. They are victims of what the consulting firm Gartner calls the hype cycle.\n\nA new technology triggers excitement, the media picks up on it, the technology reaches a peak of inflated expectations, it starts to get more widely applied, disillusionment sinks in when faced with the realities of implementation, then the technology starts to find its niche as better understanding of its strengths and weaknesses emerge, eventually reaching a plateau of productivity, where it works well within its limits. MOOCs are an excellent example of this, with most knowledgeable observers\u00a0in 2019 placing them towards the top of the slope of enlightenment or just emerging on to the plateau of productivity (see, for instance, Web Courseworks, 2018<\/a>).\n\nNew technologies that have educational applications are constantly emerging. For instance in the first edition of this book (written in 2015) there was no extensive discussion of artificial intelligence, virtual reality or serious games, yet seven years later they are now at the forefront of many discussions about the future of digital learning, which is why this chapter has been added. There are several other technologies that could be included, but many of these will be subsumed under artificial intelligence.\n\nI will not be able to go into depth about any of these three technologies (each deserves its own book), but they are significant enough to bring them to your attention. Once again, I will focus on their potential affordances, although it must be recognised that with all emerging technology, it may take time to identify all their advantages and disadvantages.\n

9.1.2 Social media<\/h2>\n\"\"Figure 9.1.2 Image: Dave Chaffey, Smart Insights<\/a>, 2022\n\nAlthough social media are mainly Internet-based and hence a sub-category of computing, there are enough significant differences between educational social media use and computer-based learning or online collaborative learning to justify treating social media as a separate medium, although of course social media are dependent and often fully integrated with other forms of computing. The main difference is in the extent of control over learning that social media offer to learners.\n

9.1.2 What are social media?<\/h2>\nAround 2005, a new range of web tools began to find their way into general use, and increasingly into educational use. These can be loosely described as social media, as they reflect a different culture of web use from the former 'centre-to-periphery' push of institutional web sites.\n\nHere are some of the tools and their uses. Most examples below illustrate educational applications or sites. (There are many more possible examples):\n

Table 9.1.3 Social Media<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Type of tool<\/strong><\/td>\nExamples<\/strong><\/td>\nApplication<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
 \n\nBlogs\n\n \n\n
\n\n<\/td>\n		Stephen's Web<\/a>\n\nOnline Learning and Distance Education Resources<\/a>\n\n
\n\n<\/td>\n		Allows an individual to make regular postings to the web, e.g. a personal diary or an analysis of current research or events\n\n
\n\n<\/td>\n		<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Wikis\n\n \n\n
\n\n<\/td>\n		Wikipedia<\/a>\n\nUBC Math Exam Resources<\/a>\n\n
\n\n<\/td>\n		An 'open' collective publication, allowing people to contribute or edit a common area of interest\n\n
\n\n<\/td>\n		<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Social networking\n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n
\n\n<\/td>\n		Facebook<\/a>\n\nLinkedIn<\/a>\n\nWhatsApp<\/a>\n\nWeChat<\/a>\n\n
\n\n<\/td>\n		A social utility that connects people online with friends and others who work, play or socially interact together\n\n \n\n \n\n
\n\n<\/td>\n		<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Multimedia archives\n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n
\n\n<\/td>\n		Podcasts<\/a>\n\nYouTube<\/a>\n\nVimeo<\/a>\n\nTikTok<\/a>\n\nFlickr<\/a>\n\niTunes<\/a>\n\nCurated OER repositories<\/a>\n\n
\n\n<\/td>\n		Allows end-users to access, upload, store, download and share photos and images, audio, video and multimedia educational resources\n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n
\n\n<\/td>\n		<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Multiple player online games\n\n \n\n \n\n \n\n
\n\n<\/td>\n		Battlegrounds<\/a>\n\nMinecraft<\/a>\n\nDivision Derby<\/a>\n\n \n\n
\n\n<\/td>\n		Enables people to play against or collaborate with each other or atavars represented and controlled by a computer program, usually in real time\n\n \n\n \n\n
\n\n<\/td>\n		<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Virtual worlds\n\n \n\n \n\n
\n\n<\/td>\n		Second Life<\/a>\n\nThe Sandbox<\/a>\n\nUpland<\/a>\n\n
\n\n<\/td>\n		Real-time semi-random connection\/ communication with virtual sites and people\n\n \n\n
\n\n<\/td>\n		<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Mobile learning<\/td>\nDownloadable apps via online app stores<\/a><\/td>\nEnables users to access multiple information formats (voice, text, video, etc.) and online tools at any time or place (with a wireless or Internet connection)<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\nThe main educational feature or affordance of social media is that they empower the end user to access, create, disseminate and share information easily in a user-friendly, open environment. Usually the only direct cost is the time of the end-user. There are often few controls over content, other than those normally imposed by a state or government (such as libel or pornography). One feature of such tools is to empower the end-user \u2013 the learner or customer \u2013 to self-access and manage data (such as online banking) and to form personal networks (for example through FaceBook). For these reasons, some have called social media the 'democratization' of the web, although at the same time it could be argued that social media are now heavily commercialised through advertising, and there are major concerns about end-users' privacy and the use of social media for disseminating false information and manipulating individual behaviour.\n\nIn general, social media\u00a0tools are based on very simple software, in that they have relatively few lines of code. As a result, new tools and applications ('apps') are constantly emerging, and their use is either free or very low cost. For a good broad\u00a0overview of the use of social media in education, see Lee and McCoughlin\u00a0(2011<\/a>).\n

9.1.3 General affordances of social media<\/h2>\nThe concept of 'affordances' is frequently used in discussions of social media.\u00a0McLoughlin & Lee (2011<\/a>) identify the following \u2018affordances\u2019 associated with social media (although they use the term web 2.0) in general:\n