Social Media in Studies – the Student Life Cycle

What are the possibilities for using social media effectively in studies? Although learning always takes place in social communities, it is only recently that higher education teaching has become more focused on using media in this social dimension. It is undoubtedly necessary and important to understand what support can look like in higher education teaching and for university teachers. But although social media is attractive and commonplace for students, it is only indirectly considered as a target group, and approaches to directly supporting student learning are rare.

A research project at the Media Center of TU Dresden has looked at the learning experience in the different phases of study from the perspective of the students and identified ways in which universities can support students in every phase with social software tools. Social software is a web-based application that is characterized by the fact that it particularly promotes interaction and exchange between users and not just provides information services or learning applications for learners individually.

Figure: Phase model of informal learning using social software in the student life cycle

Ideal for reuse: The results are bundled in an OAP [Open Access Publication] [https://www.waxmann.com/fileadmin/media/zusatztexte/3340Volltext.pdf] and the potential of social software to support informal learning among students was identified and concrete implementation scenarios for university teachers were developed.