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"As educators look for new ways to teach digital literacy or the use of digital technology to find, organize, comprehend, evaluate, and create information, some are turning to social media to help advance the concept in the college classroom. BUT.....colleges leveraging social media to improve digital literacy must focus on students' current use of social media and then find ways to interface those activities with the curriculum."

Interesting development with social media and the law.

"Social media has become an integral part of modern society. There are general social networks with user bases larger than the population of most countries. There are niche sites for virtually every special interest out there. There are sites to share photos, videos, status updates, sites for meeting new people and sites to connect with old friends. It seems there are social solutions to just about every need. In this article, we'll review the history and evolution of social media from its humble beginnings to the present day."

"Get the seven steps (and a roundup of valuable resources) you need to help bring social media in your classroom." BY STEVEN ANDERSON and produced in collaboration with Facebook. Social media is fast becoming as ubiquitous as the air we breathe. In recent months, many schools and districts around the country have taken steps to create social media policies and guidelines for their students and staff. "

How to Create Social Media Guidelines for Your School http://t.co/11t78TNg8g

"Post that makes the case for including social media into learning in schools. Taking advantage of social media as a learning platform is an idea that has been met with some great success. There are three ways described here about how teachers are using social media to engage their students."

The Web in Numbers: The Rise of Social Media numbers12009 is the year of social media. Once, Twitter (Twitter reviews) was a place where you could read about someone else's cat. Now, it's the first place you go to when there's breaking news. Sites like Digg (Digg reviews), Reddit (reddit.com reviews), and Facebook (Facebook reviews) can now leave a huge impact on the real world; lives are changed, important questions are asked (and answered) there. Many milestones have been reached; the growth of nearly every aspect of social media has and continues to be enormous. We've dug up some amazing statistics and numbers from this realm.

An asutue post by Sylvia Rosenthal Tolisano (langwitches) "While social media in schools deals primarily with policies around how to use (or not use) social media in the classroom with students, social media for schools is about storytelling and getting their stakeholders (teachers, students, administrators, parents, community) to spread these stories."

"Five well-put reasons as to why social media is a great catalyst for education:" Social media has changed, morphing into many different forms  that have great benefits for education when used well. 

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Social Media (Part 1) - guest post by Alexander Sheko http://t.co/pQ0mXYQYrF @jennyluca Remember we spoke about tertiary student perspective on social media. @alexandersheko has posted part 1 http://t.co/rkm4ZJbpwJ

"...the days of your school social media policy being "we don't have one" are over.  Equally the days of just adopting the districts or states policy in its entirety are also limited (you don't do that for your discipline policy, why would you do that with social media?)  Each school should have their own policy specifically written."

"A picture's worth a thousand likes. Or at least more likes than a post without one. Numerous studies have shown that including a profile picture is essential to garnering more page visits, and picture posts are more visible on social media. There's an active online discussion around the perfect avatar or cover photo, but there is no comprehensive guide to visual engagement for your brand's entire social media profile."

"Social media may have started out as a fun way to connect with friends, but it has evolved to become a powerful tool for education and business. Sites such as Facebook and Twitter and tools such as Skype are connecting students to learning opportunities in new and exciting ways. Whether you teach an elementary class, a traditional college class, or at an online university, you will find inspirational ways to incorporate social media in your classroom with this list."

A variety of uses for social media, linked to real examples by educators in the classroom.

Does your employer / Institution have a policy for the accepted use, by staff, for how they can use Social Media (Twitter, Facebook, SlideShare, YouTube, WordPress, etc)? Is it limited to how you can use it for work, or in work, or does it cover your usage outside of work and how you talk/post about what you do at work? Are you allowed to use images/logo of your employer/Institution in your work?

"..what about when students need some advice in figuring out proper social media usage in general? This useful infographic from Online Degrees is jam-packed with insight and tips on when to (and when not to) use social media"

A list of more than 35 companies who are experimenting with social media in a host of different ways. This list is by no means exhaustive, and it represents a wide variety of businesses, industries and social media tools.

A 4 minute video report. A brief but useful report on managing your reputation when using social media. "Throw away comments can quickly become problematic. People regard social media as a private conversation, but it never is private, regardless of what your settings are. The capacity to repost is always there." Report continues with  "people who post comments threatening violence when responding to a post that is upsetting can be unlawful". Although relating to the laws of New Zealand, there are some good pointers for everyone. 

Social media tools can help break the barriers set by the walls of schools. Learning and communicating outside the school hours with technology aid is a modern adaptation of education that has showed great results. This post looks at some web tools that provide school-specific tools that are just as powerful in facilitating the communication inside the student-teacher-parent triangle as the more famous popular social networking sites..