Social media for learning : a framework to inspire innovation

Introduction The Social Media for Learning (SM4L) framework has been constructed to demonstrate how social media can be used by students and academics to promote learning. The framework supports innovation through curriculum design and has also been used in staff development activities to clarify how social media provide academics with a powerful and dynamic context in which to foster active student engagement. This chapter introduces the seven elements in the framework, each of which present a design principle associated with a theory for effective learner engagement. Each of these principles will be introduced and then illustrated with an example for how it informs effective and imaginative curriculum design incorporating the use of social media. The SM4L framework follows the Viewpoints approach to mediating collaborative design activities (O'Donnell, Galley & Ross, 2012). In sum, the framework is a structured set of principles which can be used separately or in combination to inspire the design of effective social-media enhanced pedagogy.