"Friending" Vygotsky: A Social Constructivist Pedagogy of Knowledge Building Through Classroom Social Media Use

Abstract

Social media and web 2.0 technologies are an attractive supplement to the higher education experience and are embraced as a way to foster intra- and extracurricular knowledge generation among a class community. However, these collaborative media require a rethinking of the theoretical framework through which we engage student communities of practice. This paper offers a social media-age rethinking of Vygotsky’s (1978) conceptualization of social constructivism within learning communities by presenting two case studies of instructor uses of social media platforms through a Facebook community of practice and a wiki-based, student-generated exam. Each examines the pedagogical advantages and disadvantages of incorporating social media in course curricula through the development of social constructivist-based best practices in Web 2.0 course environments.