Dear Commons Community,

My colleague, Jeff Seaman (Babson College  Survey Research Group) and two other researchers, have just completed a survey commissioned by Pearson Education on the use of social media by teaching faculty.   Jeff is one of the top experts on the use of online technology in education.   The full report can be accessed at the Pearson website but it will require a brief (free) login.   The survey used a stratified sample (N=1,920) of teaching faculty.

I found the survey report enlightening.  For me, the most important finding was the contrast in use of social media by faculty for personal use versus for instructional use.   Three tables that summarize these findings are below. Essentially these tables indicate that faculty are aware of and use social media in a variety of ways in their personal lives but when it comes to teaching they are very selective.  Online video and youtube are by far the most popular (almost 80%) with Facebook and Twitter being of much less use (less than 30%).

For those of you interested in online learning tools, I think you will find reading the full report very helpful.

Tony