Title: Social Networking
Course: Dev_TOPKIT_SAMPLE_COURSE_Bauer_S_67 > Section: Week 6 - Enhancing Your Course with Emerging Technology

What is Social Networking?

Social networking is an online social structure that consists of users that typically share a common interest. It is achieved through a social network service, which is used by many people to communicate and maintain an online relationship. You may be familiar with some of the common social networking tools, including Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. While LinkedIn was designed for the working professional, Facebook and Twitter are prime examples of services that can be integrated into the online teaching environment.

The perk to using a social networking tool in your course is that it can link users to other individuals that they wouldn’t normally interact with on a daily basis. Furthermore it makes it easier for people to stay in touch. In higher education, it is oftentimes used to provide supplemental information in courses, both in the classroom and in the online environment. Instructors may create a page on a social networking site to add information students would find beneficial or informative during the semester.

Instructional Strategies & Best Practices

Twitter

This social networking tool allows users to create individual posts of up to 140 characters at a time. Twitter can be used from any computer or cell phone that can send and receive text messages. For educational purposes, an instructor can create a Twitter account and request that their students "follow" them so that students receive course updates that the instructor posts. Twitter feeds can be embedded in pages or modules of your online course.

Visit Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository to learn more about using a Social Networking tool, such as Twitter for communication.

- Pay particular attention to Amanda Groff’s integration of Twitter. Bear in mind that she does not "follow" her students back as this keeps a separation between personal and educational matters. Students have the option to "follow" the course’s Twitter account with their personal account as opposed to creating a completely new account just for educational purposes.

Facebook

Facebook, one of the most widely used social networking services in the world, can be used by instructors to create pages for their course. A Facebook page can consist of anything the user uploads, personal information, photos, notes, and shared links, just to name a few. By creating a Facebook page, instructors can make posts on the page to update students on grading, remind them of upcoming assignments, give supplemental reading materials, etc.

Visit Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository to learn more about using a Social Networking tool such as Facebook.

- Pay particular attention to Kevin Yee’s integration of Facebook. He creates a "fan" page for his course. It allows the user to interact with and stay up-to-date with the course once they choose the option to "like" the page.

Visit Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository to learn more about using social media to provide peer and professional feedback.

Optional Further Reading

- 7 things you should know about Facebook
- 7 things you should know about Twitter

TOPKit Sample Course was prepared by the University of Central Florida (UCF). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.