Social Media as Used in Education

Benefits of Social Media

Research was conducted on uncovering the benefits of using social media in an educational setting. TFaizi, El Afia, & Chiheb (2013) began by describing the evolution of the web from just a place where resources were accessed to a place now where people interact and share a variety of information. Presently, anyone who has access to the web can be a consumer and producer of information using audio, video, images, and text. TFaizi, El Afia, & Chiheb (2013) also described a variety of ways how people could connect on the internet. The tools they described were blogs and micro-blogs, wikis, social networks, RSS feeds, media sharing, and social bookmarking. There are many advantages to using these tools in education. One advantage is to increase communication between the student and teacher. Students could also connect more readily with other students through social networking. This also opens doors for collaboration on class projects. Also, students who are afraid to share in front of their classmates might be more likely to participate in an online format. The authors concluded that there are several advantages to using social media in an educational setting.

Faizi, R., El Afia, A., & Chiheb, R. (2013). Exploring the potential benefits of using social media in education. International Journal of Engineering Pedagogy (iJEP), 3(4), 50-53.

Social Media in Education- The Good, Bad and The Ugly

Social media has infiltrated our lives. Many people use such sites as Facebook and Twitter to connect and communicate. In this study, the authors shared how social media sites used for educational purposes have positive and negative impacts. Now more than ever, educators have access to a variety of social media apps they can use for class assignments. Social media use in higher education is on the rise due to research efforts to support these platforms in schools. Social interaction and collaboration are two reasons why these social sites have been developed. Raut, & Patil (2016). shared that research shows these sites are attractive to students and motivates them to engage in the learning process. Through these sites, students can make connections, gain new knowledge, and join online communities These sites also meet the needs of all learners.

There are also several negative effects of social media platforms. Students who check their social media account frequently are shown to receive lower grades. Addiction, health, privacy, and friendships are other challenges that are faced among students who use social media. The authors concluded there are many positive and negative aspects of social media use in education. The authors added several suggestions on how to manage social media.

Raut, V., & Patil, P. (2016). Use of Social Media in Education: Positive and Negative impact on the students. International Journal on Recent and Innovation Trends in Computing and Communication, 4(1), 281-285.

Social Media Divides

Many educational technology specialists are hopeful that social media can play an important role in educational participation. Kimmons, Carpenter, Veletsianos, & Krutka (2018), however, found divides in participation among educational Twitter accounts. These divides can be an issue to equal the playing field in education. In this report, the authors examined and reported the first analysis of K-12 Twitter use across the U.S. They analyzed several factors such as affluence, school type, and urbanity to see if they could find a digital divide. Through a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, data mining, and web extraction, the authors collected data from a variety of schools in the U.S. From this data, the authors wanted to find out how K-12 schools used Twitter and if this showed or canceled out digital divides. The authors concluded that the schools that were using Twitter more were secondary schools, suburban schools, and schools in wealthy areas. They also shared that Twitter might be used more for administrative use instead of boosting participation from the community.

Kimmons, R., Carpenter, J. P., Veletsianos, G., & Krutka, D. G. (2018). Mining social media divides: an analysis of K-12 US School uses of Twitter. Learning, media and technology, 43(3), 307-325.

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