The term was first described in 2008 by Utah Valley University instructional-design services director Jared Stein as "institutionally controlled technology/tool that emulates or mimics pre-existing [sic] technologies or tools that may already be in use by the learners, or by learners’ peer groups.
"[1] This was when social media such as Facebook was starting to become mainstream and professors would try and get students to interact with them on the site for educational purposes.
[3] The term was first described as "technological innovations by faculty members that make students’ skin crawl.
[6] One such example is a professor giving his students an option to use a popular video game to learn about history instead of writing an essay.
[4] Jason Jones of chronicle.com suggested letting students create social media groups for the class themselves and explaining why using technologies is required and important.