Social media tools: What place do they have in higher ed learning?

This is a loaded question and can depend on many factors, including course content, goals and objectives, and delivery system. I am currently pondering this question in relation to teaching an online information literacy and library research course at the community college level.

Personally I like the idea of an online course being fairly self-contained so that a student only need visit one learning platform (Moodle in this case) in order to access everything (content, discussion forums, assignments, etc.) required to complete a course. I also prefer to limit the number of social media tools that I, as an instructor, would need to learn about and use in order to successfully deliver course content and facilitate student learning. I question the value of incorporating social media tools simply for technology’s sake.

I believe that engaging content and a strong community of learners are two of the most important ingredients that make up a successful course, whether online or f2f. The real question for me then is what is the most effective way to present engaging content and help build a strong community within a course? Can these objectives be accomplished best by using the many tools/activities available in Moodle? Or would the vast variety of available social media tools be a better choice? Or perhaps a combination of both?

I think before incorporating a new social media tool into a course, the instructor must consider their objective for doing so. They themselves must be willing to take the time to learn about the tool and its possibilities for classroom learning and community building. If there is already a useful tool available in the course management system, the instructor should weigh the pros and cons of using this tool versus a social media tool; this includes considering the potential student responses to either one.

I'm not sure how willing I am to ask students to register at a social media site just to use a tool for which there may already be a sufficient alternative available in Moodle. Most if not all social media tools require students to either sign in with an email account or be willing to connect to the information from one of their other accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, or Google. Students must be willing to agree to whatever the terms of service are as well. But if a majority of students have already previously registered for a particular type of social media account, i.e. Twitter, this point may be moot.

I plan on continuing to learn about social media tools and their potential for class use. I am especially interested in learning more about Diigo to bookmark and collect favorite website links that students find helpful for research; Twitter, Blogger, and Google+ as possible alternatives to the traditional CMS discussion forum; Google Drive to create shared class documents; Wikispaces to create class wikis that can be utilized by students even after the course is over; and VoiceThread which offers a new and very interactive alternative type of discussion forum.