More on social media use in the classroom...

I read an interesting article today published on USAToday.com regarding teacher attitudes regarding social media use in the classroom (Link: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-03-04/facebook-twitter-social-media-classroom/53358382/1) and it got me thinking even more on the growing debate on the issue.

Why is it so important to teach young people about responsible use of social media? One of the contributors to the article discussed how she uses Twitter in her journalism class as a virtual notebook of thoughts and ideas on her lecture--she encourages her students to tweet their thoughts during the class. What a great way to track students' contributions! On the other hand, how does one effectively use this platform, but also ensure responsibility on the part of the students (i.e., that they are not being distracted from the classroom activities by engaging in non-productive activities not related to the learning at hand)?

So, have you found productive ways in which to engage your students in a social media platform while ensuring responsible use of the technology that is appropriate to the classroom activities and does not distract the students from required learning? Please share your thoughts as a comment to this post--I'm interested to hear what others have to say on this topic.

Very interesting concept, to say the least!