As with almost everything the integration of social media in pedagogy is viewed and interpreted in ways that are marked by cultural underpinnings. The use of the computer is itself a cultural product, a tool, the non-human part of the human species, that has evolved by being simultaneously tool generating and tool-consuming. Teachers have always used tools, the chalk and the board, to transmit their knowledge; and students, the notebooks to keep records and create symbolic representations of the teachers’ transferred knowledge. Therefore, tools for teachers and students used to be distinct in the past. But technological advancement has stirred away this distribution. In our era, teachers and students use weblogs, wikis, social networks and mobile technologies to meet at their convenience, to share, to collaborate and to co-create ideas and content. Not all the teachers do, certainly; but an increasing number of the former, and, definitely, a large number of the latter. Seemingly, a more egalitarian school model emerges as roles in groups interchange and redefined. The teachers still manage the class but they are not its masters.
not just another…