By showing students how to use Web-based channels to inform publics, advocate positions, contest claims, and organize action around issues they care about, participatory media education can influence civic behavior positively throughout their lives. Participatory media literacy is necessarily a hands-on enterprise, requiring active use of digital media by students; for this reason the Social Media Virtual Classroom syllabus will involve student use of multiple online media in their exploration of the syllabus texts, and a video blog will provide instruction and real world examples. Although a willingness to learn new media through point-and-click exploration might come naturally to today's student cohort, there is nothing innate about knowing how to apply those acquired skills to the processes of civil society, scientific or scholarly innovation, or economic production. A successfully implemented Social Media Virtual Classroom can bridge that disconnect and prepare students to participate in society as engaged and empowered citizens.