The Effect of Social Networking on Learning

Richardson (2010) stated, "...all roads now point to a Web where little is done in isolation and all things are collaborative and social in nature" (p. 85).  There are endless possibilities for both learners and educators with the use of social networking technology to enhance adult learning.  I believe the following social networks have tremendous potential to impact adult learning:

Yammer - yammer.com

     Yammer is a social network that focuses primarily on fostering collaboration.  It provides multiple uses in supporting group work, project teams, or any group forums.  Users can create public or private groups depending upon the sensitivity of the information that will be shared. This social network allows users to upload files, photos, videos, and have conversations around them (Yammer, 2015).  Yammer can be accessed online as well as via a mobile device.
     Organizations are the target audience for this network which is why it is considered a professional version of Facebook (Pinto, 2014).  In addition to supporting collaboration within organizations, Yammer has also been introduced to adult education.  In this setting, adult learners can use this network to easily collaborate and communicate to support project work.  I selected this social network due to its ability to effectively foster group collaboration by minimizing lengthy email exchange and encouraging real time discussion.  In addition, the flexibility to access the network via your laptop or mobile phone is a bonus for staying connected.
     I would incorporate the use of this social network into my professional practice in a couple of ways.  Yammer would be the primary tool for comprehensive group work that is required in my courses.  Learners would be required to demonstrate their collaboration through the use of the tool with some specific guidelines.  Yammer would also be used to facilitate ongoing discussions with prompts from the course content to allow learners to share their thoughts, ideas, and suggestions.

Twitter - twitter.com

     Twitter is considered a micro blogging tool that allows for its users to share quick updates with their followers (Richardson, 2010).  These quick updates are commonly known as tweets.  This form of micro blogging can be distributed by mobile phones or the Web (Java, Song, Finin, & Tseng, 2007).  Twitter includes categories of interest for its users beyond their individual contributions and followers.  These categories include music, sports, nonprofits, arts & culture, and many others (Twitter, n.d.).  Since the number of characters are limited for each tweet, users must be specific, clear, and direct in the information that is shared.  It is not a tool for storytelling.  While its use and technology are fairly simple, the impact that this tool can have on learning is invaluable.  Adult educators have found this social network to be powerful in supporting professional development and communication (Richardson, 2010).  Learners can use the directories to find others with similar interests and follow them to gain different insights and perspectives along with sharing their own.  I selected this social network because it is simplistic to use and it offers endless possibilities as an adult educator.  Richardson (2010) stated, "It's the blend of the professional and the personal that makes Twitter such a cool tool on so many levels" (p. 86).
     The use of this network would be incorporated into my professional practice in many ways to support learning.  I would incorporate its use into my courses by having learners identify applicable directories related to the course content, select users to follow, and share their insights with other learners.  As an adult educator, I would have learners follow me and require responses to prompts to tweets related to the course content.


References:

Java, A., Song, X., Finin, T., Tseng, B. (2007, August). Why we twitter: understanding
     microblogging usage and communities. In Proceedings of the 9th WebKDD and 1st 
     SNA-KDD2007 workshop on Web mining and social network analysis (pp. 56-
     65). ACM.
Pinto, M. B. (2014). The Use of Yammer in Higher Education: An Exploratory Study.
     Journal of Educators Online, 11 (1),
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for 
     classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA:  Corwin Press.
Twitter. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.twitter.com.
Yammer. (2015). Retrieved from www.yammer.com.