US News & World Report’s Rebecca Kern recently covered “5 Social Media Tools for College Students”, The article featured new social media tools that are offering students a new way to share and collaborate academic work. Among the 5 Tools featured was GradeGuru!

Here is a highlight from the article:

“Roughly 52 percent of the world’s population is under 30 years old, and in the United States, 75 percent of this generation uses social media, based on a 2010 Pew Research Center study on the Millennial generation. College students make up a significant segment of that population. Just as college students are using social media websites like Facebook and Twitter to share their social lives online, new social media tools are a way these students can share their academic work online as well.”

For the full article see: US News & World Report: 5 Social Media Tools For College Students

Kaylin Dalrymple is a Junior at The University of Illinois. Kaylin is majoring Communications with a concentration in Advertising.  Kaylin is a Brand Director at Illinois and a contributing author to our blog.



We all know that Facebook and Twitter are super efficient tools for keeping up our friends and acquaintances.  But what a lot of people are not aware of yet is that Facebook, and other social networking sites like Twitter and YouTube, are starting to be used for educational purposes.  I am currently taking a Twitter marketing class and the professor periodically sends out tweets regarding upcoming class information. Given the general direction of business communication, it is unsurprising that a class in the College of Business here at the University of Illinois is using Web 2.0 technology. Using social platforms to update students and connect them to relevant information is brilliant. I check my Facebook and Twitter accounts more often than I would like to admit, and the following academic related updates have been very helpful:

1. Reminders about an assignment I forgot to even start on
2. Notes on GradeGuru that are relevant to my upcoming mid-terms
3. Articles that could give me some background information

According to a recent article in The Guardian, there is a lot of debate in the United Kingdom over proposed plans to change the curriculum of schools to include Web 2.0 technology.  This shows how important it is for our generation, who grew up with the Internet but not with tools like Facebook and Twitter, to learn about and to embrace these sites, as our future careers will most likely deal with them in some way.

Some professors and other educators have even gotten creative in how they teach their courses.  For example, there are many fake “historical figures” accounts on Twitter, and the tweets tell you something about history. Take one of Abraham Lincoln’s latest tweet for example, “The enemy is crossing his wounded over the river in flats, without saying why he does not stop it.”  The tweet of course referring to Lincoln’s congratulatory order to the battle of Gettysburg. I admit, I googled the phrase on the tweet but I learned something new today! Whether we like it or not, social media for academic and learning purposes is here to stay. So the next time someone tells you to get off Facebook, make sure they know, you’re just investing in your future!