# title
Bridging Courses, Countries and Continents : Creating a Sustainable Virtual Learning Community Using Social Media Tools

# abstract
The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), USA and Victoria University (VU), Australia developed a freshman course which bridges the two universities to create a learning community. The course uses social media tools for content delivery and engagement, rather than traditional learning management systems. Data suggest that the use of social media tools for the course was very effective in engaging the students, and enabled the creation of a highly interactive forum which facilitated the building of a virtual and engaged community of learners. This community has been sustained in the current format for 2 years and will be sustainable in the foreseeable future.

# publicationOutlet
Proceedings of Global Learn Asia Pacific 2011--Global Conference on Learning and Technology

# nameOfConference
Global Learn Asia Pacific 2011--Global Conference on Learning and Technology

# authors[].organizations[].label
Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station (TEES)

# authors[].organizations[].label
Institute for Engineering Education and Innovation

# publisher.label
Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)

# authorList[]
Palsole, S., Hernandez-Bizouarn, D., & George, E.