---

Recent years brought a shift in the focus of Web applications towards social interaction, collaboration and networking. One aspect in this context is the rising importance of social media, which encompass various applications for the publication of user-generated content. Social media have also influenced technology-enhanced learning and teaching. The collaborative aspects of social media suit the constructivist learning theory, while the communicative aspects may be applied to fostering informal learning. This book investigates the way learning and knowledge acquisition occur in such communities. It is based on a series of surveys on the application of social media in education, and proposes a set of scenarios for the inclusion of various social media applications in the learning process in higher education. Based on these scenarios, exemplary tools have been developed and evaluated, and are presented in this context. These tools range from general-purpose tools for the generic community of interest to highly specialized tools for the support of learning in a university environment, which might be used in distance learning, as well as in the context of classroom lectures.

---

Christian Safran is an assistant lecturer at the Institute forInformation Systems and Computer Media of Graz University ofTechnology. His research interests include social software,collaborative tools, mobile applications and the influence ofsocial media technologies on learning.

---