social media in education

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Social Media in Education: Resource Toolkit

This collection of blogs, articles, and videos aims to help educators deploy social-media tools to develop professionally, connect with parents and communities, and engage students in 21st-century learning.

Creating Social Media Guidelines

Davis, in the first half of a pro-and-con discussion about social media in the classroom, positions it as a vital life skill and provides 12 positive examples of classroom use. For the second half of the discussion, read this post by Ben Johnson: " Too Much Technology and Not Enough Learning? "

In this first installment of his Digital Lives of Teens series, Levinson considers the problem of translating the teenage urgency of 'always on' into the mindfulness of 'being present.' Be sure to read all five parts of this series to learn more about about the impact of social media and instant data access on teen life and the role of parents and educators in helping teens to navigate these realities.

Holland, communication coordinator and instructor at EdTech Teacher, gives three age-appropriate examples of introducing social media to children in the lower elementary grades.

Ray covered the social media discussions at SocialEdCon and found that positive changes in student behavior happen when schools and parents embrace, rather than ban, social media.

Student Engagement With Social Media

Engage young readers by showing them the value of composing and sending tweets to authors whose books they've enjoyed during a read-aloud.

• Frictionless Formative Assessment With Social Media , by Paige Alfonzo (2014)

Alfonzo, a reference librarian, cites EMS (experience sampling study) as a foundation for using social media as a formative-assessment tool for students who already live in that world.

Guymon, an online middle school teacher, defines visual literacy and proposes using three popular social-media modes -- Instagram, Emoji, and memes -- to enhance students' academic fluency.

Ito, an expert in young people's use of digital media, shares her research on informal learning in online communities, where students can build technology skills, learn media literacy, and create and share their work.

English teacher Lampinen shows how weekly blogging assignments can transform a high school classroom into a community of enthusiastic writers.

Finley defines social media as the new frontier, and he notes that adolescents are the early frontierspersons. Included in this blog are ten tips for adding social-media tools into the classroom.

Selecting Social-Media Tools

Social media can enhance differentiated instruction if the tools are selected with a careful eye on individual students' readiness, interests, and learning profiles.

Heick suggests helping students find their voice in the classroom through technology, whether a medium in which they're already comfortable or one that you believe will make them more articulate.

Loyola, known for using authentic materials in her Spanish classes, explores ten ways that social media can engage a generation of students who prefer creative and collaborative learning over memorizing vocabulary lists -- including some suggested tools to use.

Hertz gives us the basic on how educators and schools can make the most of Google Hangouts. You may also want to read blogger Andrew Marcinek’s post, “ Google Hangouts as Edtech: Connecting, Sharing, and Learning .”

Home, School, and Community Connections

A school leader shares his strategies for connecting his community via the school website, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, WeChat, and staff blogs.

Facebook is a place where schools can take charge of their image. Check out these suggestions for building a page for your school.

While each school community is unique, there's a wide range of digital tools to keep parents involved when face-to-face communication isn't possible.

Through the SAMR (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition) model of technology, school communities can function more easily in supporting students and keeping parents informed.

Mazza presents two new initiatives -- the #Nt2T chat and the Twitter 101 eCourse -- designed to bring teachers, school leaders and parents into the communication- and information-rich Twitterverse.

Social Media for Professional Development

Taking Charge: 5 Key Strategies for DIY PD , by Michelle Manno (2015)

Educators create their own professional-development opportunities with the many resources available via social media, bringing their admins on board with this new model. You may also want to check out the following related articles and posts:

• DIY Virtual Professional Development: Taking Ownership of Your Learning , by Monica Burns (2014)
• The 4 Components of a DIY Professional-Development Toolkit , by Dave Guymon (2014)
• DIY Professional Development: Resource Roundup (2014)

By journaling about your challenges and triumphs, you grow as a teacher. By blogging about them, you affirm, inspire, and help others grow. For additional resources and guidance to help you start your teacher blog, also see Matt Davis's " Start Your Teaching Blog: Resources, Advice, and Examples ."

Holland recalls how she came to recognize that professional learning embodies curating, sharing, and connecting, and reviews the tools that help her meet these needs.

Dabbs provides another helpful, encouraging guide to developing your social-media savvy.

Whitby, a 40-year veteran of the teaching profession and an extremely connected educator, offers some basic, practical wisdom about what a PLN is and how to get one -- including tips for interacting and collaborating on social media. Also, check out George Couros’s post, " 21st-Century PLNs for School Leaders ," for additional tips geared toward school leaders.

Digital Citizenship and Online Safety

Teach your students about the "9 Key Ps" of digital citizenship as you help them acquire both proactive and experiential knowledge of the online world.

As cyberbullying increases, our best options are recognizing patterns, keeping evidence, intervening when appropriate, reporting any incidents, and educating everyone -- bullies included.

Hertz considers the problem of digital distraction in school, the dividing line between mobile devices helping and harming student performance, and the good-sense policy of teaching self-management skills.

Curwick, who was a high school senior when this post was written, describes how he decided to fight high school cyberbullying with a positive-themed Twitter account and ended up launching a global niceness trend.

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act was put in place in 1998; Watters suggests that it could be time for a review.

Check out Edutopia's big list of articles, videos, and other resources on internet safety, cyberbullying, digital responsibility, and media and digital literacy. You can find all of Edutopia's content about digital citizenship, including relevant community discussions, on Edutopia's digital citizenship page; be sure to "+Follow" the page to receive updates.

Additional Resources on the Web

• The Guide to Pinterest for Educators , USC Rossier School of Education (2016)
• " Bringing Twitter to the Classroom ," The Atlantic (2014)
• " Should Schools Teach Social Media Skills? ," KQED's MindShift (2013)
• " Say Hello to Teachers on Pinterest! " Pinterest's "Oh, How Pinteresting!" blog (2013)
• " 11 Sites and Apps Kids Are Heading to After Facebook , Common Sense Media (2013)
• " Teachers Talk About Using Social Media ," Educational Horizons (2013)
• " 8 Ways to Use Social Media to Connect and Coordinate With Parents ," The Innovative Educator (2013)
• " Kids Online: A New Research Agenda for Understanding Social Networking Forums ," The Joan Ganz Cooney Center (2012)
• " The Teacher's Guide to Twitter ," Edudemic (2012)
• " 100 Twitter Tips for Teachers ," TeachThought (2012)
• " A Simple Guide on the Use of Hashtag for Teachers ," Educational Technology and Mobile Learning
• A Blog about Social Media in Education , edSocialMedia
• Learn Voxer, Joe Mazza's Lead Learner blog

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Registered Report Protocols describe a study’s rationale and methods for which the planned work was peer-reviewed prior to data collection.

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Social media in undergraduate teaching and learning: A scoping review protocol

Contributed equally to this work with: Richard Hayman, Erika E. Smith

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation University Library, Mount Royal University, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Affiliation Academic Development Centre, Mount Royal University, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

• Richard Hayman, 
• Erika E. Smith

• Published: November 28, 2023
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0291306
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To conduct a scoping review that systematically examines the body of research on social media in undergraduate teaching and learning in order to identify key issues, trends, gaps, and needs. Our objectives include determining what methods have been commonly used to study social media in undergraduate teaching and learning, and to synthesise insights from published research findings within the fields of higher education, educational technology, and the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Introduction

The use of social media technologies in post-secondary environments has been increasing over time, and especially following the shift to remote teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, this growth has continued. This review addresses a need to analyse and understand the body of research on the use of social media across undergraduate contexts for teaching and learning.

Inclusion criteria

This scoping review includes peer-reviewed journal articles on social media in an undergraduate teaching or learning context published at any time, in English. In addition to including concepts and terms related to social media broadly, based on global social media usage, we include within our search the most commonly used social media platforms. We excluded items from the grey literature (such as reports, dissertations, and theses), and studies that focus on groups outside of the undergraduate population of interest (e.g., in elementary, secondary, or graduate settings, etc.).

Systematic searching will be conducted in relevant subject and multidisciplinary databases: Education Database, Education Research Complete, ERIC, British Education Index, Australian Education Index, Academic Search Complete, and Scopus. Records will be deduplicated and screened using Covidence software, with each record independently reviewed by two researchers in both rounds, screening titles and abstracts in the first round, and full-text of articles in the second. Researchers will meet to discuss discrepancies and make decisions using a consensus model, and a third researcher will be independently tasked with resolving any conflicts. Data extraction will also use two independent researchers to review each article.

Citation: Hayman R, Smith EE (2023) Social media in undergraduate teaching and learning: A scoping review protocol. PLoS ONE 18(11): e0291306. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0291306

Editor: Soham Bandyopadhyay, University of Oxford, UNITED KINGDOM

Received: June 29, 2023; Accepted: August 22, 2023; Published: November 28, 2023

Copyright: © 2023 Hayman, Smith. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data from this study will be made available upon study completion.

Funding: RH & ES received a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada SSHRC Explore Grant. https://www.mtroyal.ca/Research/IRGF_SECONDARY_PAGE.htm . ES & RH received a Mount Royal University Mokakiiks Centre for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Collaborate Grant. https://www.mtroyal.ca/AboutMountRoyal/TeachingLearning/MokakiiksCentreSoTL/grants-program.htm . The funders did not and will not have a role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: We have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: the authors are spouses. This does not alter our adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Introduction and rationale

There has been an observable increase in the use of social media in post-secondary teaching and learning situations over time, and the ways these social media technologies are used in teaching and learning have become particularly relevant since the shift to remote education during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 1 ]. This scoping review research study addresses a need to analyse and understand the body of research on the use of social media across undergraduate contexts for teaching and learning. We will use a scoping review methodology to fill this gap by systematically examining approaches to studying social media in undergraduate teaching and learning, and to identify any notable patterns and themes across the findings from published studies.

There are a number of scoping reviews on contemporary educational technology issues, including digital game-based learning [ 2 ], augmented reality [ 3 ], ubiquitous learning environments [ 4 ], teen use of social media in high school [ 5 ], and academics’ use of social media [ 6 ]. However, our detailed search of the literature reveals that there are no scoping reviews on social media use focusing on teaching and learning across undergraduate contexts, published either within higher education or in the wider body of educational research. While Katz and Nandi [ 7 ] recently published a scoping review of social media in health contexts for comparison, their research focuses primarily on trainees, clinicians, and educators specifically within medical education programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, there is a clear need for a scoping study examining the topic of social media in undergraduate teaching and learning more broadly.

Although several scholars acknowledge a need to grow the field’s meta-research contributions through higher education scoping activities, issues identified with existing higher education reviews include use of problematic research design elements, focusing on overly narrow scope, and a lack of rigour in reporting [ 8 ]. Notably, Chick et al. strongly critique the search strategies and reporting standards of several recently published higher education reviews–including work by Booth and Woollacott [ 9 ] and Tight [ 10 ]–highlighting the lack of “detailed or rigorous descriptions of the review methodology” [ 8 p187] necessary for such studies.

Being aware of these issues and working intentionally to address them in our research, we will integrate relevant recommendations from Chick et al.’s [ 8 ] scoping review protocol where appropriate to ensure rigour in our own study while balancing for breadth and depth in our research design and reporting. We plan to share insights and examples from conducting our scoping review at a meta-research level (i.e., discussing the research process as well as the outcomes of our scholarship) in order to help promote further understanding and use of review methods by future higher education scholars.

Unlike other types of reviews, such as meta-analyses, a scoping review methodology embeds a systematic approach but intends to address broader topics where many different research designs and approaches have been taken. Following from Arksey and O’Malley’s foundational framework for scoping reviews, we have selected a scoping review because our research well aligns with three common reasons for conducting a scoping study: “to examine the extent, range and nature of research activity”; “to summarize and disseminate research findings”; and, “to identify research gaps in the existing literature” [ 11 p21].

There is growing recognition in the wider research community of the value that reviews contribute. Onwuegbuzie, Leech, and Collins [ 12 ] highlight the benefit of reviews for informing practice and understanding the topic being explored. By conducting reviews, scholars can identify trends and opportunities for using and improving practices in research and scholarship. Scoping reviews specifically can outline strengths and weaknesses, and provide insights that can help to advance a field of research, inform future research agendas, and lay the groundwork for other evidence synthesis [ 13 ]. Also important, a scoping such as this one can help meet the demand and build the necessary capacity for expert knowledge synthesis that occurs outside of healthcare disciplines [ 14 ].

While informed by Arksey and O’Malley’s [ 11 ] framework and Grant and Booth’s [ 15 ] influential work on evidence synthesis reviews, we draw heavily on recent methodological guidance on reviews from the JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis [ 16 ] and the Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions [ 17 ], and incorporate considerations raised by Peters et al. [ 14 ] The design of this scoping review protocol document is our own, but is informed by Ghezzi-Kopel and Porciello’s [ 18 ] open evidence synthesis protocol template.

We have tested initial literature search strategies and further refined and enhanced them using the database thesaurus features found in both Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) and Education Research Complete. These will be tested further before data collection and analysis begins. For our sample frame we have identified relevant information sources (e.g., disciplinary and multidisciplinary databases) to collect publications and which allow the appropriate search limits we have identified (journal publication, etc.). In alignment with the research questions, data collection will focus on finding and comprehensively compiling relevant publications, and all results will be exported to Covidence for screening.

Our team will use Covidence software during the project to conduct deduplication, screening, coding, and data extraction. Covidence provides data management support in the scoping process and helps generate inter-rater reliability scores, as well as a PRISMA flow diagram for reporting. Data analysis of items will be done independently by two researchers coding in parallel, iterative rounds. Final synthesis will focus on overall trends and key findings, as we transition to reporting and dissemination. Review reporting will use the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) [ 19 ], which is integrated within Covidence research software.

Protocol registration

This protocol is preregistered on OSF, available at: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/V5WF7 .

Research questions

The research questions guiding our inquiry around social media use in undergraduate settings are:

• RQ1: What methods have been commonly used to study social media technologies in undergraduate teaching and learning over time?
• RQ2: Are there observable trends, patterns, or gaps that can be identified in the existing published literature?

The goal of our scoping review is to address a need to analyse the body of research on the use of social media across undergraduate teaching and learning contexts by identifying notable patterns and themes within studies published in scholarly journals. To understand the state of research in the field, our objectives include determining what methods have been commonly used to study social media in undergraduate learning, and whether there are observable trends, patterns, or gaps with regard to research methods used, data types and sources, the most popular types of social media platforms used in learning, and overall findings in the existing literature, as well as any pandemic learning context insights that emerge. In scoping and synthesising the research on social media in undergraduate settings, we will also make meta-research contributions by disseminating on both our review methods and approaches (as reflected, for example, in our protocol) and the results of the scoping review itself.

Definitions

The following describes in detail the key definitions that are used within the context of our research.

Social media

Based on their comprehensive analysis, McCay-Peet and Quan-Haase conclude that there is relative consensus regarding the meaning of social media and define this term as follows: “Social media are web-based services that allow individuals, communities, and organisations to collaborate, connect, interact, and build community by enabling them to create, co-create, modifies [sic], share, and engage with user-generated content that is easily accessible” [ 20 p17]. This definition of social media has been used in other recent scoping studies [ 21 ]. Additionally, in their recent scoping review protocol, Giroux et al. point out that the term social media “refers to any web-based service that allows individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile and interact with other users within a bounded system” [ 22 pp1-2]. These defining elements, as well as the categories and characteristics outlined by Smith [ 23 ], are used to guide our research and search strategies.

Social media is also a broad term describing a fluid, evolving suite of technologies. These affordances are influenced by several driving factors and features, including user demand, commercialization and monetization opportunities, and security and privacy concerns. As such, there is ongoing debate about the precise tools and platforms that are considered to be social media, and in light of this we have intentionally delineated the social media technologies that are within the scope of our research through our inclusion and exclusion criteria. Using these definitions, we deemed certain technologies (e.g., text messaging, email, email lists (listservs), and conferencing software) that typically do not focus on sharing and engaging in interactions via a public/semi-public profile to be out of scope. We also deemed platforms focused primarily on virtual worlds to be out of scope.

In higher education learning contexts, common learning management systems (e.g., Moodle, D2L) may embed social media-like elements, but post-secondary institutions usually control the profile capabilities of faculty and students in unique ways, where users have little (if any) choice regarding their accounts and usernames, and otherwise have limited abilities within the system, and these LMS profiles and activities are typically not public or semi-public. As such, we have excluded studies that focus on the LMS or other aspects of online course management and delivery (e.g., MOOCs).

To identify prominently used social media platforms we examined several online sources and reports on social media usage globally and over time [ 24 – 26 ]. and Wikipedia’s Timeline of Social Media [ 27 ]. We also sought out platforms with the highest number of monthly active users (MAUs) [ 28 – 32 ] and consulted reports on social media platform usage from different sources including an analysis from Newsweek [ 33 ], The State of Social Media in Canada reports [ 34 – 36 ], the Social Media Fact Sheet [ 37 ], and a social media use analysis by the Our World in Data project [ 38 ]. The platforms named in our final list of specific social media to include in the search strategy aligns with our inclusion criteria, while platforms that do not align with the research questions or the study’s focus (e.g., apps specifically for dating) are out of scope. These platform names will be searched for alongside general keyword terms describing social media and social networking ( Table 1 ).

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0291306.t001

Undergraduate

As our study focuses on undergraduate teaching and learning it is also important to define what this means. At post-secondary institutions an undergraduate program usually “refers to a program of study that you can pursue immediately after high school—or any time thereafter” [ 39 ]. Undergraduate students typically complete these programs at institutions that are often described using different terms: colleges, universities, polytechnics, tertiaries, post-secondaries, and others. Our use of undergraduates or undergraduate students means the students engaged in learning at these types of institutions while studying toward a degree or credential at a bachelor’s or similar level.

Eligibility criteria

The following inclusion and exclusion criteria help define this review.

To define key elements required for our scoping review, including the population, context, and concept (PCC) related to the purpose of the review, we have drawn on guidance [ 40 ] within the JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis when defining our inclusion criteria. Items to be included will meet the following criteria:

• Population: The primary individuals involved in undergraduate teaching and learning including both the students (learners) and the educators (faculty).
• Concept: The use of social media that meet the definitions above, such as the social media platforms previously mentioned, for the purposes of formal and informal undergraduate teaching and learning.
• Context: Post-secondary teaching or learning environments such as universities and colleges, including online versions of those environments.
• Peer-reviewed articles including original theoretical or empirical research, meta-analyses and systematic reviews, case studies, or other quantitative, qualitative, mixed-methods, and experimental research;
• Articles must be published in an identifiable academic or scholarly journal;
• Language: English publications only;

We include English-language publications only due to the language fluency of the researchers, while non-English articles will be removed during screening.

Exclusion criteria

• Those individuals outside of undergraduate teaching and learning settings (e.g., graduate students, elementary and secondary students, mixed populations), or teaching or learning outside of educational settings that are not part of an undergraduate post-secondary context; university/college administrators or non-academic staff fall into this categorization.
• Studies where the primary activity is beyond the focus of the research questions, or where the tool or technology used does not meet the above definition and criteria for social media use for higher education purposes, such as use of online dating apps.
• Teaching or learning activities occurring within a learning management system (LMS) or MOOC, as well as those activities focused on text messaging, email, email lists (listservs), online conferencing, and virtual world interactions.
• Non-empirical and non-peer-reviewed works, and works situated as opinion-based commentaries, viewpoints, editorials, and perspective pieces, etc.
• Books, book reviews, and book chapters, and grey literature including government reports, dissertations/theses, conference abstracts, websites, environmental scans, etc.;
• Language: Published in a language other than English;

Regarding the exclusion of grey literature, the research team understands the potential to introduce risk of bias and otherwise limit this study, and acknowledges that including grey literature is usually desired or required for evidence syntheses. However, we have made this decision to balance feasibility and practicality while still meeting the stated research objective of examining the scholarship published in journals over time.

Information sources

Primary databases and indices.

We will conduct systematic searching in relevant subject and multidisciplinary databases to find the published research relating to our primary research questions. For this study the primary disciplinary databases are Australian Education Index (Proquest), British Education Index (EBSCO), Education Database (ProQuest), Education Research Complete (EBSCO), and Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) (EBSCO). These will be complemented with searching in the multidisciplinary databases Academic Search Complete (EBSCO) and Scopus (Elsevier).

Search strategy

The search strategy addresses the PCC framework across three primary categories of search strings. The first focuses on the social media concept using terms and the names of popular platforms, and was derived through a combination of the definitions already provided, the subject-matter expertise of a project researcher (EES), and by reviewing existing, recent literature on the topic including a recent systematic review and related protocol on social media in healthcare [ 41 ], as well as several rounds of testing. We also consulted an open search hedge published by an expert librarian [ 42 ]. However, given the specific nature of our scoping project and associated research questions, we made significant modifications and expanded the included terms to meet the needs and scope of the social media technologies and related concepts appropriate for our study.

The concepts in the second and third categories are related and have conceptual overlap in their subject matter, but are treated separately within the overall strategy searching. One of these focuses on identifying post-secondary environments (e.g., universities, colleges) and also the population (e.g., students, educators) primarily involved in undergraduate teaching and learning. The third category captures the relevant processes and activities of learning and teaching. These categories are likewise derived from the definitions already provided, as well as researchers’ a priori knowledge of, and professional work experience in, educational research, post-secondary education settings, and undergraduate teaching and learning. Terms here were further informed through consultation with a librarian with research experience in social media and the scholarship of teaching and learning in undergraduate contexts.

For all three groups, test searches and use of database thesauri in both ERIC and Education Research Complete ensured identification of relevant indexing terms and descriptors. As one of the researchers for this project is an academic librarian (RH), the development and testing of initial search stings was completed within the research team. The draft strategy has been rigorously tested within ERIC and documented (see S1 Appendix ), including the search syntax and the limits used to isolate records indexed as journal article publications. Previously identified seed articles from within ERIC that met all of the inclusion criteria helped verify the search strategy, as they were confirmed to be within the results. (These seed articles were later used to pilot test the data extraction elements.) Earlier versions of the search strategy were reviewed by an independent research librarian using the Peer Review of Electronic Search Strategies (PRESS) guidelines [ 43 ] and the suggested revisions have been incorporated into the search strategy as reported in this protocol.

We will identify published research on the scoping project topics through systematic searching in each of the identified sources, using unique strategies for each information source translated to use the appropriate descriptors, syntax, and filters in those resources. All searches will be logged using a spreadsheet in the shared team Google Drive, and search histories saved using the account features within each information source. Records of search strings and exports of search results (citation records) from each information source will be archived and stored in a shared Google Drive accessible to all team members.

Study records

Researchers will use Covidence review software ( https://.covidence.org/ ) for managing the project and information sources, including importing citations, title/abstract and full-text screening, data extraction, and overall reference management. Deduplication will be done within Covidence’s embedded processes, and any records flagged will be manually reviewed to confirm their duplication.

During the pilot screening phase, researchers will test the inclusion and exclusion criteria against the titles and abstracts using a random selection of 50 records. The team will meet following the pilot activity to discuss discrepancies. Additional rounds of pilot testing will be conducted until the team reaches consensus agreement of 90% or higher. Only then will records will then be screened for inclusion eligibility by the research team in two independent, parallel rounds, with a first phase focusing on titles and abstracts only, and a second phase focusing on full-text of articles. Again, this process will be managed within Covidence. The results of the entire screening process and reasons for exclusions during the full-text screening will be captured and reported using a PRISMA flow diagram.

Much of the data management will occur within Covidence, with some file storage in a shared Google Drive accessible by all team members. Files will follow a standardised naming convention (e.g., databasename_string, databasename_searchdate). Where appropriate these and other records will be shared openly and accessibly in a data repository (or similar) upon completion of the project.

Data extraction

Piloting of the data extraction elements was completed independently by two researchers reviewing and testing against several seed articles identified while piloting the search strategy.

Data extraction will occur using the extraction processes in Covidence. The extraction elements have been selected to focus on the research questions and inclusion criteria (including PCC). These may be updated or revised during extraction; for example, to include emergent themes or previously unidentified tools or trends. These iterative changes or modifications will be recorded and described in detail within the review manuscript. The following elements will be captured via the data extraction process:

Data extraction elements

• Citation details (e.g., author/s, date, title, journal, volume, issue, pages)
• Country (or countries) where the research took place
• Purpose/objectives of the research
• Research method(s) (e.g., survey, case study, interviews, etc.)
• Research data type/sources (e.g., qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, etc.)
• Specific social media platform(s) mentioned (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.)
• Is the primary focus on teaching or learning (teaching focus, learning focus, approximately equal, or undefined)?
• Does the study focus on the COVID-19 pandemic or emergency remote teaching or learning?
• Key findings/results of the research

Data extraction from each source will be conducted independently by (at least) two researchers who will complete their reviews within Covidence. Discrepancies that arise between reviewers will be resolved through discussion to reach consensus; this stage will also be used to address coding errors or missing values. For records where consensus cannot be reached, a third researcher will review to make a final decision.

Data synthesis and charting

Data will be presented and reported using tabular, numeric, and/or graphical formats to represent the extracted data elements described above. These will be accompanied by a narrative summary addressing the research questions guiding this project. These will focus on an analysis of the research methods commonly used to study social media technologies in undergraduate settings, and include any key findings, trends, patterns, or gaps identified in the existing research literature relating to social media and teaching and learning. Reporting of search strategy results and other elements will follow PRISMA-ScR standards [ 19 ].

Dissemination plans

Results will be shared via appropriate academic conferences, and via a journal article submitted to an academic journal. We also anticipate disseminating non-traditional knowledge translation artefacts (e.g., infographics) and making further meta-research contributions.

Supporting information

S1 appendix. search strategy draft using eric (via ebsco)..

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0291306.s001

S2 Appendix. PRISMA-P checklist.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0291306.s002

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge Dr. Zahra Premji, Health Research Librarian (University of Victoria), for her thoughtful feedback on a draft version of this protocol. Dr. Premji also conducted the PRESS peer review and proposed revisions that we incorporated into the included search strategy.

We also thank Margy MacMillan, Senior Researcher Emerita (Project Information Literacy) and Professor Emerita (Mount Royal University), for consulting on terms and concepts concerning social media, teaching, and learning in undergraduate contexts.

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• 35. Gruzd A, Mai P. The State of Social Media in Canada 2020; 2020 [Cited 22 June 2023]. Borealist [Dataverse]. https://doi.org/10.5683/SP2/XIW8EW
• 36. Mai P, Gruzd A. The State of Social Media in Canada 2022; 2022 [Cited 22 June 2023]. Borealis [Dataverse]. https://doi.org/10.5683/SP3/BDFE7S
• 37. Pew Research Center. Social Media Fact Sheet. Pew Research Center, 2021 Apr 7 [Cited 22 June 2023]. Available from: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media/ .
• 39. Godfrey Maddocks K. What is an Undergraduate Degree? Southern New Hampshire University. 2022 Sep 13 [cited 22 June May 2023]. Available from: https://www.snhu.edu/about-us/newsroom/education/what-does-undergraduate-mean .
• 40. Peters MDJ, Godfrey C, McInerney P, Munn Z, Tricco AC, Khalil H. Chapter 11: Scoping reviews. In Aromataris E, Munn Z, editors. JBI manual for evidence synthesis. JBI; 2020. https://doi.org/10.46658/JBIMES-20-12
• 42. Campbell SM. A hedge to retrieve studies related to social media from the OVID ERIC database [search hedge]; 2020 [cited 22 June 2023]. Repository: Education and Research Archive, University of Alberta. https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-xf01-rg10

Using Social Media in Education: 10 Can’t-Miss Tips

The best educators know there’s no point in resisting social media in education. Go on, invite those apps into the classroom.

10 tips for using social media in education

Social media has revolutionized the way we connect and communicate with each other. And not just in our personal lives. Teachers and administrators have realized the potential of using social media in education.

Today, the best educators are embracing social media’s role in the classroom. But if you feel overwhelmed by the possibilities, you’re in the right place.

There are many advantages of using social media in education . Keep reading for our top tips, including lesson ideas you can steal and tools that can make your life easier.

Download a free bundle of social media tools designed specifically for universities and colleges — including post ideas, a social policy template, a social media strategy template, and alumni reachout templates.

The benefits of social media in education

How does social media influence education?

The biggest advantage is engagement. And, as any teacher knows, engagement is key to student success. When students get involved in their learning, they learn better.

Plus, most social networking sites and resources are free! This is especially great if you’re an educator with a tight budget for materials.

Let’s go over a few more benefits of using social media in education.

Increase engagement

Normally, when we discuss “engagement,” we’re referring to likes, comments, and shares on a social media post. However, “engagement” can have a double meaning when using social media in education.

Student engagement is key to a successful classroom. When students are engaged, curious, and social in class, it shows that you are succeeding as an educator.

Social media resources can help facilitate and encourage engagement with your students.

Why? Well, when most teens are active on social media (particularly YouTube and TikTok, according to the Pew Research Center ), using social media in the classroom helps you meet them where they are.

Connect students with resources from experts around the world

One of the best things to come out of social media is the ability to connect with anyone around the world. This has a benefit in the classroom, too — especially for higher education programs .

You can connect students with global resources and experts to help broaden their perspectives. Host an Instagram Live with an expert or have students connect with professionals on LinkedIn to enhance their learning experience.

Facilitate communication and collaboration between classmates

Most students are comfortable using social media to communicate. It only makes sense to bring that communication method into the classroom.

Social media can be a great way to facilitate conversations around lessons or collaborations for group projects. Think private Facebook Groups or Slack channels. Students can also build their collaborative skills with document-sharing tools like Google Docs. Groups of students can share notes and collaborate during lessons in real time.

It’s not just great for students, either. Social media can help build relationships between teachers and students, making it easier to communicate with students about classroom updates or other discussions.

Provide a platform for sharing information and ideas

Inviting, rather than resisting, social media into your classroom can have huge benefits. Use it to promote collaboration, share resources and ideas, and provide real-time feedback.

And for educators, social media can be a valuable professional development tool. You can connect with other teachers or educator communities on social media to learn new strategies or engagement methods.

Meet students where they’re at with the tool that makes it easy to engage, recruit, schedule, measure, and win.

10 ways teachers can use social media in the classroom

Social media has endless opportunities for educators and students. As a tool, it can help students improve digital literacy and critical thinking skills. It can also help promote your class, your institution, and yourself.

Here are 10 essential ways to use social media in education:

1. Attract new students with a campaign

A great way to use social media for education is to attract new students to your school or course. For example, if you want to increase enrollment, create a social media campaign that highlights the benefits students would gain from your program.

Consider running a campaign to raise awareness of your program a few weeks before it starts. In your campaign, you could:

• Use scarcity and urgency techniques (“50% sold out already!”)
• Offer a discounted rate for early bird sign-ups
• Tease the benefits students will get from the course

MasterClass does a great job promoting its classes by teasing content through Reels. These short videos offer a preview of what students can expect from the full course.

Source: mistyonpointe on Instagram

This TikTok video from the University of Idaho is another example of how to use social media to attract new students. The video highlights different reasons to attend the school from the perspective of current students, making it relatable to the audience they’re trying to reach.

Source: University of Idaho on TikTok

2. Build a community

If you lead virtual classes or have alumni around the world, an online community is essential.

Communities can take many forms, too. Private Facebook Pages may be great for class discussion, while public hashtags can amplify important content.

A Facebook Group or Page is a natural fit if you’re focusing on student engagement. Here, folks can discuss the course, post questions and comments, and connect over shared experiences.

This private Facebook Group for incoming freshmen at The University of Texas at Austin is a great example of a private community.

Source: Class of 2028, The University of Texas on Facebook

A catchy hashtag can go a long way if you’re building brand awareness. Take Cornell University , for example; they’ve included #Cornell in their bio on Twitter (X) to encourage conversations.

Source: Cornell University on X

You can also turn community-building into a lesson. Have your students create a strategy to build a community-based Facebook group based on their shared interests.

To be successful, they’ll need to figure out a niche or specific problem they can solve. This forces your students to develop their problem-solving skills.

3. Broadcast updates and alerts

Many educational institutions have internal communication software used to share alerts with students. But they’re often notorious for their clunky technology and slow load times. That’s why it’s often much easier for students to check Twitter, now X, for real-time updates.

If you post class updates on social media, your students can check in from their devices anytime. Social media is a great way for clubs and instructors to keep their communities informed.

Source: Calgary Linguistics on X

You can also use social to broadcast to a crowd if you have relevant information for an entire student body or your broader community. Sharing major announcements on social media helps distribute the news to a wider network faster.

Source: Texas State University on X

4. Livestream your lectures

Trying to reach a broader audience or just make your content more accessible? Consider livestreaming your lectures via platforms like Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube.

Online lectures allow students to access content independently and at their own pace. Some students may have difficulty attending classes. In those cases, online lectures can be a lifesaver. Students can review your lecture as often as needed to fully understand the material.

Livestreaming your lecture also allows you to reach a wider audience. Students from other institutions or countries can watch and learn. This open access will expand the reach of your expertise.

The University of Pennsylvania’s College of Liberal and Professional Studies (Penn LPS) frequently posts virtual information sessions on its YouTube channel.

If you’re able to moderate the chat, it’s also an easy way to engage students. Introverted students may find it easier to type a question instead of speaking in front of a crowd. Plus, you can add captions to your lecture, making it more accessible.

5. Focus on increasing digital literacy

Social media is a powerhouse. You can use it to find a job, build your skills, connect with potential employers, and much more.

But on the flip side, social media doesn’t forget. Once you post something on the internet, people can almost always find it again.

That means digital literacy is more important than ever. Students of all ages must learn how to be responsible and effective while using these tools.

As an educator, you can help your students develop the skills they need to succeed by creating digital literacy workshops and programs. Take this digital literacy program hosted by UT Extension of Henderson County. The organization promotes its digital literacy program for seniors on its Facebook Page.

Source: UT Extension Henderson County on Faceboo k

6. Generate UGC

User-generated content (UGC) is any content created by regular people, not brands. Your students are likely already generating content. Why not encourage them to post on the topics you’re teaching? You could incentivize participation with a bump in grades or as bonus work.

FYI: You’ll have better results if you give your students parameters. Don’t just say, “Post about class, and you get one get-out-of-homework free card!” Instead, create a relevant hashtag for them to use. Or, say, for bonus points on an assignment, they can post a photo of themselves working on the assignment.

For instance, the Parsons School of Design regularly reposts student work on Instagram. Getting featured in front of Parsons’ audience of over 150K is a great incentive for students to share their work and tag the school.

Source: Parsons School of Design on Instagram

As always, ask permission before you repost their content, and be sure that the content is compliant with any internal policies at your organization. If you’re new to UGC, here are some best practices .

See the latest data and discover the top social media trends specific to education — and craft a strategy that’s too cool for school.

7. Create opportunities for active and passive learning

As an educator, you probably use a mix of active and passive learning.

Active learning requires students to actively engage with the lesson. This may be through discussions, challenges, or debates. You can even task your students with creating a photo or video essay hosted on a social media platform. Instagram is great for photo essays, while YouTube or TikTok work for video essays.

Passive learning requires learners to listen to lessons and absorb the information. Then, they must consider or translate the information. In classrooms, this might look like lectures and note-taking.

Social media poses an opportunity for both active and passive learning. For example, you could lecture your students on the dangers of misinformation on X. Then, task them to find a misinformed tweet and present their fact-checking process. Students will learn to examine data and provide evidence supporting their findings.

The combination of active and passive learning allows students to absorb information and then engage with what they’ve learned.

8. Teach networking and thought leadership skills

The working world is becoming more globalized and competitive every day. So, teaching students to develop networking and thought-leadership skills is essential.

By creating a LinkedIn profile and connecting with other professionals, students can:

• Learn how to build and nurture relationships
• Identify potential mentors
• Develop a personal brand

One way to do this is by sharing workshops on social media. Workshops offer a valuable opportunity for students to network, learn new skills, and form an opinion on a subject.

Source: Dougherty Arts Center on Facebook

Schools and educators can also use LinkedIn to show thought leadership in action. Your students, teachers, and departments can share resources, request feedback, and post relevant articles and videos.

Source: University of Southern California on LinkedIn

As students become more comfortable using LinkedIn, they can start exploring. Encourage them to follow other thought leaders and join conversations.

9. Develop discussion and critical thinking skills

Is your lesson goal to promote critical thinking? Then you might have students tweet their responses to weekly discussion prompts.

The limited character count will force students to be concise. They’ll have to identify their argument and communicate it without wasting words.

10. Celebrate student and alumni achievements

If you work in higher education , alumni relations are key to your social media strategy.

One way to engage both current and former students is to keep up with their achievements and post-graduate lives. You can do this by showcasing student news on your social media channels.

Not only does this reengage alumni and spark pride in current students, but it highlights your school’s impressive feats to the greater community.

Source: Texas State University on LinkedIn

A tool to help you use social media in education

Hootsuite can help make life a little easier. And with Hootsuite’s Student Program, qualified educators even get a deal!

Educators and administrators, here are four features that deserve your attention.

Scheduling capabilities

Scheduling all of your social posts in advance can help you save major time. If you’ve got a lot on your plate — as most educators do — this can be a huge help.

Hootsuite Planner’s calendar view makes it easy to see each post you’ve scheduled across every platform.

You can filter posts by account, drag and drop upcoming posts to new times or days, or easily duplicate recurring content — all from one simple dashboard.

Social listening

Hootsuite’s social listening tools help you analyze millions of online, real-time conversations.

You can use Streams to track topics that are relevant to your lessons or set alerts for your institution’s name. You’ll see what people are thinking and feeling, and you can use that data to influence your practices.

Hootsuite also integrates with more advanced social listening tools, like Talkwalker.

Talkwalker offers analytics related to social conversations beyond your owned social properties, including:

• Brand sentiment
• Important influencers
• Conversation clusters

Talkwalker is especially useful to spot activity peaks in conversations about your accounts. This can help you determine the best times for you to post on social media .

Psst: Hootsuite is set to acquire Talkwalker VERY SOON . This means that you will get access to Talkwalker social listening and analytics directly in your Hootsuite dashboard!

If you’re serious about using social, you’ll want to make time to review your work and make adjustments based on your findings.

Hootsuite’s Analytics can help you dig deep into the numbers and show you what’s working and what’s not with your social strategy.

But analytics can also be a valuable teaching tool.

Understanding data analytics is a huge advantage, especially in our tech-forward age. Learning how to translate insight into action is a huge win. Students who understand how to interpret data are more employable, period.

Access to online courses

Want to take your social marketing to the next level? Hootsuite Academy offers on-demand video training to help you build your skills and engage with your audience. If you’re planning to teach with social media, these courses are a must-have.

Learn all the ways Hootsuite can help educational institutions improve their social efforts.

Using social media in education has never been easier. With Hootsuite, you can manage all of your social profiles, schedule and publish posts, engage your followers, monitor relevant conversations, analyze results, manage your ads, and much more — all from one simple dashboard. Try it free today.

Attract, recruit, and retain students with Hootsuite, the #1 social media tool for education .

Become a better social marketer.

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Colleen Christison is a freelance copywriter, copy editor, and brand communications specialist. She spent the first six years of her career in award-winning agencies like Major Tom, writing for social media and websites and developing branding campaigns. Following her agency career, Colleen built her own writing practice, working with brands like Mission Hill Winery, The Prevail Project, and AntiSocial Media.

Sam Lauron is a freelance writer who works with B2B and SaaS companies in marketing, ecommerce, business, and related tech. With a background in editorial writing and content marketing, she uses her communications and research skills to produce helpful content that inspires and informs readers.

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Social Media in Education: 13 Ideas for the Classroom

Since gaining widespread popularity in the early 2010s, social media has been a controversial topic when it comes to using it for education. However, many educators are now embracing social media as a teaching tool with a wide array of benefits for learning.

From parent-teacher communications to organizing group projects to developing digital literacy, social media has the potential to enhance the curriculum at any grade level — provided it is used responsibly. Here, we’ll explore eight platforms and five possible uses for social media in the classroom, plus some best practices for keeping it a safe and enjoyable experience for everyone.

How Social Media is Reshaping Education

Pros & cons of social media for students, 8 ways teachers can use social media in the classroom, 5 social media lesson ideas to try, faqs about social media in education.

As around 60% of the world’s population knows, social media can be an effective way to share news, find communities, build social networks and disseminate information instantly to a broad audience. According to Pew Research, 95% of American teens use at least one social media platform — so it makes sense that educators would seek to engage their students using technology they already interact with daily.

Teachers can use social media to organize group projects, communicate with students outside of class, share resources, and much more. Social media also has the potential to connect schools to the wider community for purposes including:

• Sharing school news
• Promoting school events
• Holding virtual town hall meetings
• Advertising fundraising initiatives
• Sending out emergency alerts

Since 90% of U.S. adults are also on social media (and many likely access it on their phones ), it is an incredibly useful medium for sending real-time communications to parents and guardians of school-aged children.

Of course, a tool as powerful as social media requires its users to exercise great responsibility to maintain a respectful, safe online environment. Teachers and students should be clear on both the benefits and risks before using these tools for educational purposes.

Benefits of social media in the classroom:

• Real-time communications can increase student engagement, collaboration, communication and overall participation.
• Many students may find it easier to participate in online discussions than in the classroom.
• Students can easily ask each other or their teacher questions about assignments outside of class.
• Students and teachers can quickly share helpful resources at any time.
• Teachers can easily share announcements with the entire class.
• Social media can provide a contingency plan for last-minute remote learning scenarios .
• Students can organize school events with each other or with the help of a teacher.
• Teachers can augment an online-only class by establishing a social media page or account strictly for building community.
• Students can practice using social platforms responsibly, including maintaining a respectful online discourse.
• Parents can stay informed of school news via a convenient, easily accessible platform.
• Teachers can communicate directly with parents as needed, especially if parents cannot attend an in-person meeting.
• Educators can build and enhance their own tech literacy skills to add to their portfolios.
• Most, if not all, social media platforms are free.

Downsides of using social media in the classroom:

• Social media can be a major distraction in class, especially if students are accessing their personal accounts independently. Private side conversations, off-topic activities and mindless scrolling can all happen when students are granted in-class internet access.
• If students primarily use social platforms to participate in class discussions, they can miss out on practicing face-to-face conversations and respectful in-person discourse.
• Some students may see social media assignments as an opportunity to cyberbully their classmates , so it’s critical that teachers set firm ground rules about responsible social media use.
• There is always a risk of a group member posting inappropriate content or language, since it is difficult to manage how students use social media platforms independently. Teachers must be responsible and attentive administrators to prevent and address inappropriate behavior.

While fewer school-aged young people are using Facebook today (about 32%, Pew finds), it can still be a useful tool for maintaining an online community, posting updates, sharing links and asking questions. Facebook can be used to organize specific projects, communicate with classes, form student clubs, plan events and more. The instant group chat function can facilitate real-time discussions, and Facebook Live enables teachers to lead virtual lessons, stream lectures and hold Q&A sessions. As administrators, teachers can set Facebook groups to private or invite-only to maintain a safe space for students.

Twitter can serve as more of a bite-sized message board where teachers can post short project updates, announcements, links to helpful resources or answer students’ questions. The platform can also serve as the basis for lessons in using concise language , since each post is limited to 280 characters — a valuable skill for both essay writing and future professional communications. Teachers can create dedicated handles or hashtags for each of their classes and invite both students and their guardians to follow along.

Blog posts provide another way for students to practice their essay writing, an increasingly important skill for higher grade levels. Instead of maintaining physical reading journals, students can submit weekly blog posts with their reflections and responses to assigned readings. Teachers can also use blogs to communicate project instructions during remote learning days or vacations and even write up a semester report for parents and guardians to review.

This is an excellent tool for sharing visual resources like infographics, artistic inspiration, tutorials or examples of finished projects. Many teachers use Pinterest to collect and organize their own lesson ideas, so creating a board (or several) where students can pin their own resources encourages collaboration and learning ownership. While students of all ages respond well to visuals, Pinterest may be particularly popular with younger students who are still practicing their reading skills.

Another great visual platform, Instagram can be useful for teachers to share updates, for administrators to post announcements and for students to post project results or follow accounts that are relevant to course content. Teachers can create class-specific accounts where they post assignments, instructions, resources, updates, and more.

This online community provides a space for anyone to unite around any interest imaginable — from fitness to classic film trivia to poetry. Reddit has a bit of an “anything goes” reputation for its lax posting guidelines, but moderators are typically on hand to mitigate any inappropriate or improper use of the platform. There’s a subreddit for every academic subject, so students can peruse threads for project research (while still verifying any information therein) and even post their own questions for the Reddit community to discuss.

Similar to Reddit, YouTube hosts video resources on any topic under the sun. Teachers can easily share educational videos, tutorials and any other type of video content. YouTube is also a great hosting platform for video projects, where students can upload finished videos for their teachers, classmates and guardians to watch on a private class channel.

This professional networking platform is mostly used by people in the post-school workforce, so high school students may not even be aware of it yet. However, whether they decide to attend college or not, learning how to market their skills and build a professional network can help students navigate the job market after graduation. LinkedIn is also a great place to find articles and other resources to help young professionals build their industry knowledge and skills.

The ideas in this section are merely suggestions for unique ways to use social media in the classroom — but the internet is your and your students’ playground! Use these ideas as jumping-off points for your own social media-based lessons.

• Use blogs to chart learning progress. Blogs can be useful tools for language learning, whether that’s practicing how to craft a five-paragraph essay or improving one’s French writing skills. But this long-form writing platform can also be used to track students’ progress in any subject. For example, have chemistry students write biweekly posts summarizing everything they’ve learned in class, and ask them to revisit and write about certain topics once a semester to practice knowledge retrieval. These posts can also serve as test prep and reminders of any concepts students may need to review.
• Use Instagram or TikTok for visual responses. Most social media platforms popular with young people are visual-based, meaning they rely on images and videos to convey information. Writing skills are essential for school, but sometimes it’s easier (and more fun) for students to engage with their learning using formats they’re more comfortable with. Instead of a written response to a textbook chapter, have students react using an appropriate TikTok trend. If students are required to show their work, ask them to create an Instagram carousel or Reel of their process and post it to a class-specific account.
• Use Twitter to illustrate the dangers of misinformation. Learning to find and cite accurate sources is a key skill for students, especially at higher grade levels. Unfortunately, misinformation is easy to encounter on social media, where anyone can make a claim or spread false information without providing a source. Show students an inaccurate tweet or other social post and ask them to verify or debunk its claims. Have them document their research process and cite the sources they used to fact-check the post.
• Use LinkedIn to help older students craft their resumes. Marketing themselves in a professional sense isn’t always a skill young people learn in school, but it’s a skill that proves useful for nearly every adult. Have students use LinkedIn to craft a professional objective, organize and explain their work and educational experiences, ask for recommendations and start making connections with potential mentors and employers.

Best Practices for Social Media in Education

For many young people, social media is a part of their (and their parents’) everyday lives. Chances are, if a teacher chooses to incorporate social media into a lesson, many students will already be familiar with the platform and how to use it. Since students may be accustomed to using social media outside of an educational context, it’s crucial that teachers set ground rules and expectations for the appropriate use of these tools.

The following are some best practices that will keep social media a safe and productive place for students and their teachers:

Set professional boundaries: Many teachers also likely have personal social media accounts, so when using these platforms for lessons, it’s best to create an entirely new account dedicated solely to academics. Keep accounts private and invitation-only so that no one besides students and their parents can access the content. No one, teachers included, should be posting anything about their personal lives or content that is unrelated to the course. Invite students to create new user accounts as well to avoid mixing their personal and academic business.

Prioritize increasing digital literacy: Generations of digital natives (including today’s school-aged children and many of their parents) have likely already been practicing online etiquette, but it never hurts to review both practical and appropriate ways to use social media. Remind students that anything they post online has the potential to exist forever, which becomes especially important as they begin to apply to colleges and search for jobs. Students should conduct themselves online just as they are expected to in school.

Promote student achievements: You and your students put in a lot of work during the school year — share your accomplishments with the community! If your school has a public social media account, provide the account manager with information about your class’s latest project or an upcoming showcase so members of the community can see what students have been up to. Not only does this give students an opportunity to show off their work, but it also serves as promotional information for anyone considering enrolling their own children in the school.

Manage multiple accounts from the same place: If you manage multiple accounts for one or more classes, use a tool like Hootsuite or Facebook Publishing (which integrates Facebook and Instagram) to draft and schedule posts for multiple platforms at once. This is especially helpful when students and parents need the same information, but each group predominantly uses a different platform.

Part of a teacher’s job is to never stop learning, whether it’s about the subject matter they teach, new educational tools or innovative ways to engage students. The University of San Diego offers multiple courses for educators in the Professional and Continuing Education program, including classes covering educational technology , digital literacy , equity in the classroom and more. USD also offers certificate programs that focus on specific aspects of education, so that teachers can build a suite of skills in areas like STEAM education or supporting English language learners .

For a full range of USD courses available through the PCE program, explore all course offerings here .

How can I ensure students’ safety on social media?

To protect students’ privacy, keep all class-related social media accounts private or invitation-only and encourage them to set their own accounts to private or create new class-specific profiles. Review proper online etiquette and behavior with students and establish firm consequences for cyberbullying. As a teacher, it’s critical to maintain professional boundaries online, so avoid discussing or posting anything personal on school social media accounts. You may even want to grant access to students’ parents so they can monitor how their children are using these spaces.

How can I use TikTok in my lessons?

According to Pew Research, 67% of U.S. teens use TikTok , with 16% on the app almost constantly. Since so many students already gather in this digital space, teachers can engage them by creatively incorporating it into lessons. Ask students to film reactions to course content using TikTok trends, conduct research via subject matter experts’ posts, or create response videos in place of traditional project reports.

Which social media platform is best for communicating with parents?

It depends on what kinds of content you want to share and which platforms parents and guardians are comfortable using. At the beginning of each school year, send out a survey asking parents to indicate their preferred social media platform, then use the top two results for parent-facing communications. With so many people on multiple social media platforms, it’s best not to limit school news to just one; fortunately, managing multiple accounts at once is simple with social media management tools like Hootsuite and Facebook Publishing.

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