I think incorporating social media can help students in their ability to critically analyze content. They can learn to compare and contrast opinions to their course content. By comparing new social media perspectives they can learn to construct knowledge and rationalize their own point of views. Social media can broaden students perspectives and learn to formulate respectful arguments in an online environment. The statement made by Keen “we are replacing the tyranny of experts with the tyranny of idiots. Not all information is equal, nor are all opinions” is quite extreme (Bates 2014). Experts may have very theoretical views and opinions that do not hold in the ‘real world’ when it comes to practicality.
Just adding social media to existing courses would be sufficient because information is being updated more rapidly and students need to learn how to analyze current information to construct their own understanding. There is no need to re-design entire course; social media is only one avenue of learning and the foundation should still be based on sound pedagogy. I think it also depends on the course that is being taught. Certain subjects may be more effective to use social media but if it is incorporated into a course then students should always have choice and options so they can gravitate towards areas of interests to them to maintain engagement. For example, for math classes student should have the freedom to choose an area of interests in their lives that applies math concepts and break down the problem versus everyone solving the same problem. Re-designing the entire course around social media would considerably throw off the sought after balance of finding the “middle ground between the total authority and control of the teacher” (Bates 2014). Students still need the structure to optimize their learning.
Bates, T. (2014). Pedagogical differences between media: Social media. In Teaching in digital age, Chapter 9. Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/9-5-5-social-media/
November, A. (2012). How Twitter can be used as a powerful educational tool. November Learning [Weblog] Retrieved from http://novemberlearning.com/educational-resources-for-educators/teaching-and-learning-articles/how-twitter-can-be-used-as-a-powerful-educational-tool/