This thesis work studies concepts of a class teacher who is using the social media as an educational environment in the elementary school. Purpose is to find out the class teacher’s experience of the subject nowadays and how he could get more benefit of the social media in his work in the future. Using the social media in the education work might be a challenge also for the class teacher.

I have defined four research problems: 1) How teacher defines the social media? 2) What kind of experience the teacher has from use of social media in the educational environment? 3) How the social media could be developed and how it could be better utilized to support learning processes? 4) What kind of challenges it brings to teacher’s work?

The data was collected by interviewing a class teacher who utilizes information technology and social media in her work when teaching and in education environments of her students. The research method was qualitative case study.

Defining media education and social media is difficult. With the help of media education children learn to understand, interpret and examine media critically. The social media is seen as an open source communal services and forums. The essential characteristics of social media are sharing of knowledge and produce communal information and it offers good possibilities to realize the methods of constructivism and problem-based learning.

The research results proved that social media as an educational environment in the elementary schools has many shortcomings. It is somehow used in blogs, electronic journal and wikis. With the help of social media it would be easy to integrate different school subjects together. It would also be useful in the communication between school and pupils’ homes. Privacy protection and copy-rights as well as lack of time and effort of teachers are the biggest obstacles in using the social media in the schools.