Social Media in the Classroom: Forget Textbooks! Use Twitter!

 What are the benefits of social networks? Boston College Professor Jerry Kane has received an National Science Foundation career award to study the use of social media technology in the classroom and in business. In the classroom, he has experimented with using Facebook as a classroom meeting space (not best suited, he found) and now uses a class wiki. This semester he requires students to develop quality Twitter messages or "Tweets" to better understand the benefits. On the business side, he is examining the risks and rewards of opening business communications over a social network, weighing the more open communications with privacy concerns. 10 May 2010 Courtesy of the National Science Foundation