Abstract

• Learning takes place in a social context, and encouraging student-student and student-faculty contact and interaction gets at the heart of student engagement in online-education settings.
• Because of their fundamental reliance on social participation and contribution, Web 2.0 tools, specifically social-networking tools, have great potential for enhancing the social context in support of learning, especially in online education.
• Twitter used as an instructional tool can add value to online and face-to-face university courses that far outweighs its potential drawbacks.