Both technology and social media websites have become an indispensable part of our lives.
It is almost impossible to imagine a day without checking your account or looking through the news.
It is reported that 60% of people who are over 16 years old have a profile on one of the social networks.
Nobody will deny that the biggest number of these people are students who use the following websites for different purposes. The question is: can social media have a positive influence on education or all its features are only detrimental? Undoubtedly, the popularity and passion for social media can be advantageous in education if used correctly.
Here are some great benefits social networks can provide for better academic results:
Collaboration and communication
The first and it might be the biggest advantage of social media is communication. You can connect with anyone you need anytime and anywhere. People who use the same social network create their own community with common interests, activities, and topics for discussions. Social media websites have improved student’s communication as they can connect with their classmates easily. Another thing is the possibility to collaborate provided by these social networks. Group discussions and even video calls contribute to the efficacy of the delivered team projects.
Finding information for education and about it
Social media websites contain an abundance of different information with millions of links to other resources. That means that apart from games and music students can find answers to important for them questions there. These sites can be useful in preparing for the lessons as you can find some interesting data there or get help from others if there are any difficulties. Some sites offer groups by interest while others contain the latest data and survey results on a variety of topics.
Another great feature of social networks is an opportunity to learn about education. Many students desire to study abroad and look for opportunities to fulfill their dreams. The following sites offer much useful information on students programs and grants as well as you can ask other students from different countries about cost of living or studying personally.
An encouragement for LMS use
Different educational technologies, as well as LMS introduction, has made significant changes in education. They have become a great motivation for students to achieve better results. Modern teachers realize that social media plays a very important role in students lives so the combination of these social networks with LMS can be a perfect solution. Students admit that use of such websites as Facebook or Instagram enhances learning and is an encouragement for pupils. For example, it is much more interesting to discuss a topic in the chat than do that in the customary classroom. It both makes students think or respond to other statements and improve their spelling.
Higher parents’ involvement
Undoubtedly, a bigger number of contemporary parents do have social media profiles too. Reasons for the creation of personal pages are very different but educators can take advantage of this fact too. Sometimes it is impossible to connect with parents because of some reasons and use of the networks can save the situation. Another important thing is providing parents with an opportunity to track their children’s progress. Profiles on social networks are used for logging in the LMS or information about kid’s success or underachievement can be sent in the personal message.
Parents can also be added to the school community. No matter if it is a group or a personal profile of the teacher, reading news, and school announcements are useful as well.
Attention to written text and reading
One more positive side of using social networks in education is a desire to read and write without any obligations. Usually, kids and teenagers do not like reading or writing text and parents have to force them to do that killing any desire to study. Messages, news, comments, articles – the list of information on the website pages can be endless and students are ready to devote time and learn all that without putting efforts. That contributes to the overall level of intelligence as well as improves writing and reading skills. Moreover, writing to each other children and especially teenagers are more attentive to avoiding mistakes and writing correctly. They do not wish to look poor in the eyes of their friends and that is incredibly useful for education. Absence or decreased number of spelling and punctuation mistakes will undoubtedly reflect on school achievements too.
Distance learning opportunities
Modern educators look for new approaches of attracting students to distance learning and integration of social media is one of them. According to MOOCs early data learning programs with integrated social media platforms are better visited and less often dropped out than other ones. There is even a recommendation for colleges and universities to make use of this positive phenomenon as soon it will be impossible to ignore that significant influence.It may seem that you can hardly find anything common between education and entertaining social media websites. Of course, we still consider that education takes place in customary for our classrooms and is ruled by a teacher. But the reality is completely different. With the enormous influence of technology, education has gained various new features and is still changing. One of the things that impact on it today is social media. It creates a completely new and unknown to many of us world of knowledge that can be used by every learner and teacher for the utmost effectiveness and productivity as well as encouragement and motivation.
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Also published on Medium.