Learning from/through social media. Instagram as a transmedia educational tool for an augmented classroom.

The emergence of information and communication technologies nowadays represents the drive to rethink new communication strategies and innovative ways of educational activities in different fields. In this scenario, schools and universities’ role as a knowledge production system becomes crucial to define, stimulate, and support new landscapes of material, technological, and cultural competencies linked to CCIs. Given this framework, research opportunities are therefore established for the development of new hybrid, interdisciplinary learning pathways that can prepare professionals capable of interfacing with new technologies and the systems they generate, and that can handle undefined solutions as well as undefined problems. Therefore, interdisciplinary and transmedia knowledge is a parameter capable of interpreting and guiding the new design scenarios. We are increasingly witnessing the transition from the teacher operator’s paradigm to that of the teacher designer, from the design of content to learning experiences through new forms of content and activities, tools, and channels. The article is part of an experiment underway at the fashion studies course of the design school of the Politecnico di Milano and in the reflection on the evolution and innovation of educational processes, to exploit the potential offered by new digital channels (and in particular by social channels focused on the use of visual stimuli such as Instagram). The article aims to present the first results of this research project that exploits the potential offered by new digital channels (and social channels focused on using visual stimuli such as Instagram) to implement new transmedia educational processes. In this context, Instagram becomes an "augmented space", enabling new learning methods and relating the different knowledge required. Thus, social media become one of the interfaces to create and augment the learning experience.