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The Advantages of Media for Students: Popular media (films, music, YouTube) are a familiar medium to students that helps gain attention and maintain student interest in the theories and concepts under discussion. Students can see the theories and concepts in action. In more than a figurative sense, theories and concepts leap from the screen. Students can hone their analytical skills by analyzing media using the theories and concepts they are studying. The use of media in the classroom enables students to see concepts and new examples when they are watching television, listening to music, or are at the movies with friends. Students can experience worlds beyond their own, especially if the media is sharply different from their local environment.

Using media requires a complete understanding of copyright law, an appreciation of the workload involved, and some skill in recognizing content that will enhance learning, instead of becoming a distraction.

Some of the most productive parts of the class were the weekly take-home assignments that asked the students to post comments on their social networking sites while using connected viewing technology

While the students learned a lot from the class assignments, they were initially anxious about letting an instructor into their social network. I felt it was necessary to preserve the anonymity of the students for the study so I wanted to keep their comments about the connected viewing private.

Unfortunately, the only way to ensure this anonymity was to create a “secret” Facebook group. “Secret” Facebook groups are one of three categories of groups that allow members of the social network to collaborate on a project. Though this setting allows all posts and members to remain confidential it also required me, as the creator of the “secret” Facebook group, to “friend” all of my students so that I could then add them to the group.

have used Twitter to facilitate class discussion and to gauge and deepen students’ interest and level of understanding.

raising awareness of personal branding. “I think it’s really important for students to think about the content of their accounts and the pictures they use,” which form part of a lasting “digital footprint,” she says. Faculty members often must remind students of the permanence of the Internet and its long-term effect on their professional image.