SFI2011

The TwHistory project began in early 2009 with the first Twitter reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg over a period of several weeks. TwHistory is based on the idea that historical reenactments can take place online and have positive effects for all involved.

"Facebook isn't just a great way for you to find old friends or learn about what's happening this weekend, it is also an incredible learning tool. Teachers can utilize Facebook for class projects, for enhancing communication, and for engaging students in a manner that might not be entirely possible in traditional classroom settings. Read on to learn how you can be using Facebook in your classroom, no matter if you are a professor, student, working online, or showing up in person for class."

"This ECAR research bulletin discusses the use of student-developed social contracts to support a vital online community of inquiry. In blended classes-which combine co-present and web-mediated interaction-contracts that address both settings are particularly effective. This bulletin provides examples of successful student social contracts and describes students' views on the impact of the social contract on their learning."

"The data suggest that 80 percent of professors, with little variance by age, have at least one account with either Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Skype, LinkedIn, MySpace, Flickr, Slideshare, or Google Wave. Nearly 60 percent kept accounts with more than one, and a quarter used at least four."

A course on a blog.

"The University of British Columbia's class SPAN312 ("Murder, Madness, and Mayhem: Latin American Literature in Translation") contributed to Wikipedia during Spring 2008. Our collective goals were to bring a selection of articles on Latin American literature to featured article status (or as near as possible). By project's end, we had contributed three featured articles and eight good articles. None of these articles was a good article at the outset; two did not even exist."

"In their own words, here are thirty social media definitions from active participants. "

"Basically, we are outsourcing our brains to the cloud. The upside is that this frees a lot of gray matter for important pursuits like FarmVille and "Real Housewives.""

"While some platforms, such as YouTube, have been widely accepted in the classroom, Twitter has been slower to catch on as a teaching tool. In the same survey, only 2 percent of professors reported using the microblogging site-which limits posts to 140 characters-in class."