Social Media-Enabled Learning: A Review of the Research in Higher Education

Abstract

The meta-analysis/literature review discussed in this chapter focuses on social media-enabled learning in higher education and is transdisciplinary in focus. It seeks to examine design methodologies that are effective for the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of effective teaching and learning for social media-enabled environments in the higher education system. Through examining the academic literature and also engaging directly with social media, what has emerged is the importance of design methodologies that are open and flexible, collaborative, and learner-centered. Social media-enabled learning is learning which moves higher education beyond a focus on content provision into a dynamic communal process of sense-making and knowledge creation in which answers lead to further questions. In this chapter we argue that, it is through integrating social media within higher education that the scope and reach of higher education will be extended.