A short article listing 4 benefits of using smartphones in the classroom. While I'm still not totally convinced, some good points are made here. The issue I don't ever seem to see addressed in articles like this, though, is how to keep students from going to facebook or their texts after using the phone for a learning purpose.
http://www.onlineuniversities.com/blog/2012/10/balancing-advantages-disadvantages-student-social-media-use/ "In " Only Disconnect," Andrew Reiner, writing for The Chronicle of Higher Education, lamented the state of American youth, particularly their preoccupation with social media. By the end of his article, Reiner advocated for social media Sabbaths, in which students would disconnect from their networks in order to more deeply engage with each other and their academic pursuits.
An article on Twitter for teachers, from Edudemic, a site that distributes stories around teaching, learning, and the impact of technology on education.
In addition to the comment that populated itself below, I want to add that this link contains a list of etiquette rules for Twitter that I think are very useful for a newbie.
Twitter has proven itself to be an indispensable tool for educators around the globe. Whatever skill level you may be, Twitter is downright fun and worth your time. So here's a useful guide that we curated from Edudemic's archives in an effort to put something together that was a bit easier to read than random blog posts.
A word or phrase preceded by a "#." How do hashtags work? Twitter can be a busy place with lots of tweets-and thus lots of "noise." A #hashtag is a way to aggregate tweets that are appended with a hashtag. Picture it like a magnet that attracts all messages categorized by that topical word or phrase.
I think it depends on the course and the course learning objectives. Social networking may not be a tool that aids in encoding course content and thus, would be inappropriate to include.