Using Social Media in the Classroom: Perspective on an Evolving Classroom Pedagogy.

Most educators strive to create an engaging learning atmosphere, one in which the culture is learner-centered. In the recent decade social media (SM) has gone mainstream in our culture and created opportunities and challenges for traditional learning. In the beginning was Web 1.0, or a place where information could be stored and accessed through web enabled computer devices. Next came Web 2.0 that allowed for content interaction and that has recently morphed into Web 3.0 where tremendous user content is generated each day. For educators, the current challenge is how exactly can we use the power of SM for learning. Initially the larger question was “How do we engage students with the world? The answer came from SM which allows us to “Break down classroom walls…” Where we once took students on trips outside the classroom to engage them now it can be done with the press of a button. Knowing that SM was not going away and in fact its use would likely intensify with the Millennial students entering the classroom I began exploring various SM platforms for classroom use. This was an intentional effort to encourage my Turf Science students to engage content build community and connect to the larger turf industry. The opportunities and challenges of using SM platforms (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, Snapchat, and Purdue’s HotSeat and ZipTrips) over the past five years will be discussed.