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Live tweeting

"Live tweeting is not easy," Ekechai said, but "they capture the content of the lectures very, very well." Twitter also allows faculty members to post links to what they're reading. Students who "follow" a professor's tweets can get a look at the news stories that help inform their professor's lectures or connect with the experts their teachers are following.

Essential to field Ekechai and Menck see it as their responsibility to teach students about Twitter because social media knowledge is becoming essential to their future fields - communications, advertising, public relations and marketing.

Active Learning is an approach to learner-centered education that utilizes instructional techniques that involve students in reading, writing, discussing, reflecting and creating in order to help them learn.

Rheingold points to five reasons for teaching students social media: Developing students' literacy in our new online environment is as crucial as developing their abilities to read and write. Communication is moving toward social media. We can either help students thrive in this environment or leave them flailing. Many students bring their computers to class. Why not work with this trend instead of fighting or ignoring it? Social media is just that: social. Students who use Twitter for class are "learning collaborative skills that are particularly important today." There is only so much class time. Rheingold makes mini-lectures on video that students comment on between classes, allowing more time to engage the issues through in-class discussion. Shy students who hold back in class often speak up online. "If you can extend the discussion to an online message board, you enable students who may not jump into the discussion," he said, to "make a thoughtful contribution."