Ways to use social media in education: Advantages and Disadvantages

There are many different options on how to use social media for education. There are some ideas on how to use social media inside and outside the classroom. Social networking is the fastest way to find the right person and give them the information they need. Anywhere, anytime. Especially valuable is having an account in any of the social networks when you need to communicate with a person, for example, from another country. In this situation, an important role is also played by saving money because calls in roaming can be quite expensive, and the Internet, by comparison, is a relatively inexpensive resource.

Social networking is an excellent opportunity to find friends of interest. For example, if you are a chess enthusiast, a book or movie buff, or a sports enthusiast, you can always find those who share your interests, learn the opinions of lessons, ask for advice on a particular matter, as well as arrange a meeting and spend time together.

Social networks can be useful first of all for the education of disciplines that include:

●  Abstracts;

●  College seminars;

●  Laboratory works;

●  Coursework;

●  Graduate qualification work.

With the help of social media, the instructor can facilitate the following procedures:

●  Informing school students;

●  Providing tutorials;

●  Communicating additional instructions;

●  Accepting papers electronically for review;

●  The simplest way to back up.

Challenges of using standard information technology

Social media can help during the learning process. They can be used to share lecture notes, lab assignments, and other useful information. There is also an opportunity to join a community on a certain topic and study in detail the issues of history or to improve your knowledge of a foreign language. For this purpose, social networks have links to the necessary literature, photo, and video materials, so you can discuss problematic issues with other members of the group. Many students need essay examples. Where can I find them? We advise you to read social media essay samples at special resources. Exploring new and interesting information is one of the most important functions of social media.

Currently, the use of information technology in the learning process is actively discussed. At the same time, the very process of introducing information technology into the educational process lags far behind the speed of its development. In addition, standard computer technology may not be effective enough in some cases, the reasons may include:

●  Lack of novelty factor;

●  Lack of visibility of materials;

●  Restrictions on the type of learning materials;

●  As a consequence – low effectiveness of the impact.

In these cases, it is possible to use the familiar medium of communication between students – social networks – as an additional means of instruction.

Advantages of Using Social Media

A social network is a platform, online service, or website designed to build, reflect and organize social relationships on the Internet. The use of social media in the classes allows for the following factors:

●  The popularity of social media is constantly growing, and most university students are registered on one or more social media sites;

●  The average time spent on the site by users of social networks from 17 to 42 minutes, which can be used to engage in the learning process;

●  Instant transfer of information and, consequently, availability of reports and assignments for study;

●  All versions of documents are available to both the teacher and the student at the same time, which solves the problem of backups and no problems with losing the electronic version of reports.

Snapchat has great promise. The peculiarity of the social network is that users mostly use video and photo formats. So, teachers use Snapchat to announce homework and upcoming tests, post short videos with explanations, propose questions for class discussion in advance, keep in touch with students, add variety with funny filters and stickers and, finally, measure reactions.

Build out social media outreach to students by choosing the right platform. Among students, Instagram is the most popular. Therefore, you should choose this social network. Then it is necessary to decide how the work will go: you can just answer the students’ questions in messages, post tasks, share useful things in a group, or in general dialogue. Or you can go further and organize a game, a competition for the cleverest with a drawing of prizes, a text role-playing game, give out bonuses for activity in social networks and make the learning process more intense.

Conclusion

How to use media space for students? Everyone should answer this question independently. The most important thing is to set the right priorities and use the opportunities that social networks provide in the modern world wisely.