The Use of Social Media

This chapter provides the readers with an overview of the use of social media technologies and how the media is applied in adult teaching and learning environment. It examines the current educational purpose of using social media based on a review of scholarly publications. The aim is to keep up-to-date changes in social media, and to better understand the paradigm shift, including the trends and issues pertinent to the application of social media in adult learning. The chapter reviews the literature on the benefit of using social media and provides strategies and guidelines for adult instruction using social media. The chapter discusses some challenges facing social media use in adult teaching and learning. The idea is to help the reader determine if social media is a valuable tool to improve learning and develop better instructional strategies for engaging students and stimulating academic dialogue using social media.