Social media has altered information sharing, relationships, communication, and a lot more. This is not it, but the students nowadays have become digital natives, experts at using social media for creating, connecting, and accessing content.
Using this familiar medium for academic ends has major potential. The responsible implementation of social media in the classroom can open the doors to innovative learning opportunities right at the tip of students’ fingers. The major role of social media in education is to keep the students engaged in this digital age.
We know, we know, you must be thinking about how these platforms can keep your students engaged, right? Well, we are here to answer this query for you!
Read on to get familiar with the pedagogical benefits and promising possibilities of using managed social media in education.
So, are you ready?
Take the Plunge with Social Media in Education and in the Classroom | Keep the Students Engaged
Enhanced Student Engagement
It is not a secret that students nowadays are energetically spending most of their time on best social media platforms. Gone are the days when we had to sit in front of heaps of books and unsorted papers to complete our assignments. Huff!
Well, due to the high usage of such platforms, the way these students interact with one another has altered a lot. Unlike us, they keep in touch with one another through tagging, commenting, sharing, messaging, or ranking. Such a weird world!
So, one thing is established! These students require a different approach to learning as compared to what we required back in the day. This is where the role of social media in education comes into the spotlight! If tutors set learning activities and content in a familiar environment (i.e., the infamous social media style), it will help a lot to capture the attention of these young minds and might even boost their participation. In this way, these students will be eager to complete their assignments more enthusiastically, rather than depending on various assignment help experts in Canberra.
Collaborative Learning
A greatly designed classroom social media role in education fosters collaborative learning. You can organize your students into private groups within the platforms. By doing so, you will enable them to share resources, discuss course topics, ask questions, give their feedback, and much more. Real-time exchange of information and conversations within the platform motivates active learning.
Well-designed classroom social media usage fosters collaborative peer learning. You can organize your peers into private groups within the social platforms. It will help them to discuss course topics, share resources, give feedback on project work, or ask questions in a social feed. This collaborative knowledge-building echoes real-world teamwork.
Use Live Streaming For Lectures and Discussions
If you want to offer more accessible learning to your peers, why don’t you use YouTube Live, Facebook Groups, LinkedIn Live, or Instagram Liveto stream lectures? In this way, you will be able to educate your students, even if they cannot come to the lecture halls due to any reason.
Moreover, you can also use the live captions facility to help the candidates who might be non-native speakers, deaf, or have a hard time hearing. Online platforms, including YouTube and Instagram, also allow you to record live streams. Thus, students can review the material for final or midterm seasons. These recorded live streams allow the lectures to be available to a wider population, thus widening the institution’s reach.
Responsible Digital Citizenship
Purposely using social media in education permits tutors to shape and model responsible citizenship and online etiquette. Both of them are a crucial aspect of learning in the modern day and age. Tutors can guide relevant digital behavior through moderation and site norms. Learners get to learn all about respectful discourse, ethical sharing, privacy, etc., by using such platforms for learning under careful supervision. All of this will help to build vital digital literacy. Now, that is a much-needed element.
Use Posts to Broadcast Updates and Alerts
Picture this – you need to keep your students engaged in education. To do that, you assign them a plethora of assignments and set unrealistic deadlines. There! Now, they will have no time to engage in other activities, right?
Wrong! Doing sowill only torture your students and leave them with no other choice than to seek online assignment help in Australia. The best way to keep them engaged is by having them join a Facebook Group or follow a class Facebook Page. Upload posts about course updates, tests, homework, etc.; in this way, they will be more interested in learning.
Social media in education allows the tutors to meet with peers wherever they are by using social media platforms they are already used to. Generally, Facebook or X (previously called Twitter) are the apps that everyone knows.
Use Instagram for Digital Storytelling
By creating class-specific accounts on Instagram, you can make your peers practice storytelling. Ask them to present graphics or photos. You can always delete them after the course is over or keep them. It is totally your call to make. This works particularly well in visual-heavy courses, such as photojournalism.
- How is social media in education used to engage students in learning?
Social media in education has indeed become a fundamental element in today’s digital age. Tutors can use social media platforms such as Soundcloud and YouTube to tailor and share content such as audio recordings, podcasts, videos, lectures, and much more. This helps the classroom instructions and offers the students with additional resources to improve their learning. As a result, the students have numerous ways to seek knowledge.
- How does social media affect students’ academic success?
According to research, students who have access to social media to talk about academic-related topics tend to have dramatically better grades than those who use these platforms solely for non-academic-related matters. Surprising, right?
- How does digital media play a major role in education?
Using digital media in the learning process makes the entire experience interactive, fun, and more interesting. It helps the overall process of learning and aids the students in retaining information better. The social platforms are widely accessible and, thus, help the learners gather knowledge with only a few taps.
- What are digital activities for students?
The digital activities of today’s day and age provide a lot of ways for students to master grade-level skills and content. From Google Slides™ to task cards and digital escape rooms, there are a lot of activities to keep the students engaged and on-task for hours.
Summing It All Up!
The role of social media in education goes way beyond the classroom as it assists educators in shaping a modern holistic learning experience, establishing academic authority, building community, and a lot more. We are sure that by reading the information given above, you are well aware of how to keep students engaged in this constantly evolving digital age. We know it can be a bit trickier at first. But keep your hopes high! It truly isn’t as daunting as it sounds.
