Social media and education
Social media is a big
part of everyday life nowadays. It is used constantly and sometimes it seems
that it has us under control more than we have control of it. Social media has
changed the ways of communicating, thinking, learning and expressing oneself.
Nevertheless it hasn’t found its place in school systems or education in
general. We think that social media is only full of entertainment and it can be
used only to watch cat videos or sharing posts with our friends, even though it
can be so much more. Social media is seen more as a threat to education than an
opportunity to find new forms of teaching and learning. This essay will consider what social media could
offer to education and on the other hand how it can harm the traditional ways
of teaching.
Social media has changed
people in many ways. Because of social media, people have multiple ways to
connect with each other: friends, family or strangers from all over the world.
It has made communicating more global than ever before. Internet and social
media channels like Google, Wikipedia, Instagram, Youtube, Facebook and Twitter
have given immediate access to information (Tommy Landry, 2014). There’s no
need to struggle to find a certain fact, just google it, and the information
will be found in many forms: text, picture, video you name it. Consequently way
of thinking has also changed. Because there’s no necessity to work for finding
information people want to take the easy way out. Why to go to the library,
read a book and waste hours to find a fact if you can find it in seconds from
the internet. Because of social media’s global nature it is easier for a
singular person to be herd world widely. Just a single post from channels like
Facebook or Twitter can spread quickly all over the world. It’s like Tommy
Landry (2014) said in his article: “It is far easier to do something remarkable
and noticeable, and have it reach people across the planet, than it has been at
any time in our history. We now have truly globalized voices. What a
privilege”.
But how could this
global, communicative and interactive information bank be harmful to learning
and education in general? Social media encourages it’s users to be online all
the time. Students have familiarized to use their smart phones during classes
that effects on their concentration. You “have to be” online, check Facebook
posts and take pictures to Instagram if you want to know what’s happening in
your social circle or broadly in the world. This is not just teenager’s
problem, like some educators like to think. This concerns everyone: students
from elementary school to universities, educators and teachers. It is hard to
focus on dull and blunt class when social media offers so much more interesting
things and information. Social media is addictive and it can seriously have an
influence on student’s and teacher’s concentration.
The other question that
worries educators is that how safe social media really is for a child or a
teenager. Many channels offer a favorable platform to cyber bullying and other
kind of discrimination. Quantity of friends, followers, posts, pictures and
likes may sound quite small and insignificant things, but those things can
encourage to cyberbullying. Bullying in social media is often invisible to
teachers and parents. Only the ones involved know about it, it’s hard to spot
and hard to interfere with. “While social networking sites provide a way for
students and teachers to connect, they can be a weapon of malicious
behavior--even on college campuses.” (Karen Lederer, 2012) These disadvantages
mentioned are only a few of all the struggles social media could cause to
education. Although many of them can be demolished when teachers, educators and
schools in general know how to control social media in a beneficial way, learn
more about it and open their minds also to the positive effects.
The most important thing
that all the educators should realize is that learning doesn’t limit to a
classroom. Learning is a lifelong process that doesn’t require a certain place
or environment, it happens everywhere all the time, subconsciously or
consciously. It’s also important to be aware of that “learning is not just
studying a textbook but also interaction and communication” (Keerti Arora,
2013). In the best circumstances social media can make learning and teaching
fun, effective and interesting. It can make an ordinary class global and
interactive and encourage even the shyest student to participate. Social media
is an effective way to build better communication skills and increase student
engagement (Karen Lederer, 2012). All the students at this day have enormously
information about social media, its use and channels. The reason why social
media still hasn’t found its place in educating is mainly because it’s a
totally new phenomenon and technology to most of the teachers, and it is
understandable because social media didn’t exist when they went to school.
It goes without saying
that social media definitely has its pros and cons, although the solution is
not to rule it out or on the other hand let it control education. A middle
ground should be found. Social media is here to stay and new generations should
learn about its disadvantages and dangers at school, while it’s used as an
effective part of educating. Educators shouldn’t see it as monster that ruins
the traditional ways of learning and teaching, on the contrary social media
should be seen as a way to improve and revolutionize education.
List
of references:
Campus technology: Pros and Cons of Social
Media in the Classroom http://campustechnology.com/articles/2012/01/19/pros-and-cons-of-social-media-in-the-classroom.aspx Karen Lederer, January 19th 2012
EdTechRewiew:
Social Media in Education: Pros and Cons
http://edtechreview.in/e-learning/268-socia-media-in-education-pros-cons Keerti Arora, April 9th 2013
Business 2 community: How Social Media Has
Changed Us: The Good and The Bad, Tommy Landry September 5th 2014
