LT's Angel Pazurek was a recent guest on the educational podcast, Learner Engagement Activated. This podcast features leaders in educational technology fields to offer advice on how to increase student outcomes by focusing on the latest research and developments on learner engagement. It is hosted and produced by Anne Fensie from the University of Maine and is sponsored by the Learner Engagement Division of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT).

Pazurek talked with Fensie about how the internet has changed the way people learn and how social media, in particular, can be used to support connections for learning. She also discussed the practical implications of her current research, which indicates that social media applications can be successfully integrated in college courses when guided by design principles from the connected learning model. Connected learning with social media holds the potential for more participatory, equitable, and engaging learning experiences. 

LT offers several sections each term of a course on this topic titled, CI 3342 Social Media and Connected Learning. This is a course that Pazurek designed and teaches along with several other LT instructors, and it is a core course in the Learning Technologies undergraduate minor program. LT courses like this one help develop digital literacy and leadership skills. The Social Media and Connected Learning course specifically explores how students, as current/future professionals and informed global citizens, can elevate their use of social media to be a source for digital activism and raising awareness of social justice issues, for developing personal learning networks, and for building online learning communities that connect resources, people, and ideas.