Integrating Social Media Concepts as Tools in a Pedagogical Approach for a Technology-enhanced Learning Environment

Abstract

The use of social networking sites and social media tools is on the rise, as the most common activity of today's youth. Thus, leveraging social media concepts in learning can make education more relatable to the youth in this digital era. This paper identifies key current social media concepts, such as user profiles, activity streams, and status updates, among others, and analyses how they support pedagogical learning approaches, with the progressive inquiry-based model used as an example. The preliminary study serves as an introduction to a series of future research and empirical studies on the integration of key existing social media concepts and the development of novel ones in a hybrid educational environment, called Science, Technology, Innovation, Mathematics, Engineering for the Young (STIMEY). The STIMEY environment will combine social media components, robotic artefacts, and radio, and connect students, educators, parents and organisations, based on a pedagogical framework researched and developed to increase the European youth’s interest and engagement in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education and careers.