The classes I've had with the highest overall success rates had a fantastic group of students who were nearly all actively participating in lecture discussions each class meeting. These classes had this same sense of community being mentioned here.

I've experienced this myself through the online classes I've taken from the discussion boards utilitzed. At first I thought it was just one more thing to do, but quickly realized the valuable purpose was to bring everyone together & create that sense of community even though we weren't in a classroom together.

When teaching a fully onlilne course, I've thought about having students submit a face-shot of themselves so that while they are participating in the group discussions they will have a visual of the person they're talking to in their mind. However, my question is - does this break any of the privacy issues? Is this not a good idea? I see the benefits, I can see a few draw backs, but somehow want to create more of a sense of community with the fully online course. Any suggestions?

I use MathXL to help students see additional problems worked via the "Help Me Solve This" tool that has an interactive solution guide, there are video clips and animations available, too. However, MathXL is not considered "social media"!

Not only do I think about students with physical disabilities having the ability to use certain social media tools, but also students who have a financial disability who may not have access to a computer at home, they may not own a smartphone or ipod or ipad that will allow them to be connected to the class.

Mindy, I'm with you on the concerns of technology and it's availability to the students. Someone made a good point to me though: if we are trying to prepare them for the real work world then they will have to learn to use these different technologies sooner rather than later, why not have them get their feet wet while they're a student at WCC? Also, don't forget that both the Sugar Grove and Aurora campuses have nice open computer labs. Having to sit down there once or twice a week for a few minutes isn't really too much to ask of them. It's not much different than requiring them to visit a library for research on a project which is considered completely normal. As far as the education of how to use Twitter you could make a short video "How to" on Jing and post a link in Blackboard to be viewed at the start of the class.