The world’s first book about social media in education?

Tarmo Toikkanen, a colleague from our Learning Environments research group, just got from a press some copies of the book he co-authored with Eija Kalliala. The book is published by Finn Lectura publishing house.

With Tarmo we discussed that the book could actually be the world’s first book ever that is focusing primary on social media in education. With fast Amazon search I found out that there are number of books about social media and many other things (such as business) but not really any aiming to open what role social media plays in teaching, learning and education in general. I wonder if the book is the world’s first book about social media in education?

Tarmo told that they themselves questioned the idea of writing a traditional paper book about social media, but concluded that there is a need for a book. Majority of teachers – the main target group of the book – are still living largely in the web 1.0 world able to use email, learning management systems and simply search and browse the web. Learning about social media may simply not happen with the tools teacher do not know already. For this purpose teachers need a book.

Whatever the book is the world’s first book about social media in education, it is the first one in Finland and in Finnish. That we know.

The site of the book is here:

www.sosiaalinenmediaopetuksessa.fi

..and the blog here:

blogi.sosiaalinenmediaopetuksessa.fi

Congratulations Tarmo and Eija!