One of the most interesting ways I think social media is being used is in education. Since this is my first post I figure I will give you an example of how social media is being used in education and why it works in its simplest form. While pursuing my undergrad at Juniata College, I had to take a class called Politics and Cultures of Modernization. The goal of this course was to examine the effects of modernization on culture and politics.

One of the projects assigned to us was to research a country and then participate in an online conference, which was setup to be like the United Nations. The conference took place twice a week for about three hours each day. Each group had three students and we were given various topics to debate about. Since the conference was conducted online we could have been anywhere on campus, as long as we were in the virtual conference room. Once the conference started the Professor was of course the moderator and one person from each group had to be in the main conference room. Whereas the other two could be in the other rooms making backdoor deals. Essentially the conference took place in multiple chat rooms. However, there was an online forum setup for us to post our country’s general position on an issue or to post a draft resolution. The conference was going along great, lot of students were participating, posting many revisions of draft resolutions and actively debating the topics. But wait there was a twist to the project. The very last day of the conference was to be held in a classroom environment, where we would debate face to face.

Why do this? Well the course instructors explained to us that throughout the years, they have noticed that students who normally don’t talk in class tend to be more outspoken in a virtual environment. This turned out to be true. When we debated the topics in a classroom environment, those who were active virtually, were quite when it came to speaking in front of the class. A simple use of chat rooms and forums empowered those who were shy or intimidated to speak in front of the class to express their views and participate, which they wouldn’t have done otherwise. This also allowed  the few international students, who were in the class to participate.

What is the point of all this? Sometimes the students that barely speak in class have some of the most interesting views, but have a harder time expressing them face to face. Using technologies such as chat rooms, forums, and blogs allow for more participation from these students in the classroom, which results in a healthier discussion within the classroom environment. Finally, I took this course about four years ago, when the concept of web 2.0, social media barely existed.