in fact they brought up some successful examples of using social media in education, including blogs to document lessons and provide materials to students.
One particular example was at first very funny. One professor asked the students to create blogs in which they were to pose as “bad poets”, but still to gain some following. It was, if I remember correctly, a training for students in a literature class so that they get to develop a sense for quality. After all, the students did not only manage to succeed in their task, but also decided to keep on being “bad poets” for the fun of it.

But I think the examples they cited lack what you describe in your example: A focus on the biggest strength of social media, networking and non-hierarchical communication and organization, i.e. what has lead to it being called “social”.
Maybe you should contact discussants yourself – you can find Ilia Staheev (@staheev) and Ilia Kabanov (@metkere) on Twitter, they can also point you to the others.

Personally, I haven’t experienced social media used effectively in a classroom setting (I did experience a professor trying to use a message board/blog ineffectively). In theory, I’m for the idea of the democratization of the classroom, but my American university, there was a related idea at work–”making students take charge of their own learning.” In practice it meant that some professors did not take an active part in leading the class discussion, leaving it meandering and empty, and I left feeling that I’d learned less than I would have if I’d listened to the professor, who was at least an expert in the field, talk the whole time.