User:Patrick Ament/Educational Technology/Bibliography

Collaborative and social learning
Social technology, and social media specifically, provides avenues for student learning that would not be available otherwise. For example, it provides ordinary students a chance to exist in the same room as, and share a dialogue with researchers, politicians, and activists. This is because it vaporizes the geographical barriers that would otherwise separate people. Simplified, social media gives students a reach that provides them with opportunities and conversations that allow them to grow as communicators.

Social technologies like Twitter can provide students with an archive of free data that goes back for multiple decades. Many classrooms and educators are already taking advantage of this free resource. For example, researchers and educators at the University of Central Florida in 2011 used Tweets posted relating to emergencies like Hurricane Irene as data-points, in order to teach their students how to code data. Social media technologies also allow instructors the ability to show students how professional networks facilitate work on a technical level.