Social media is about fun, hobbies, friends and distractions, so how could students use it for educational purposes? Well, there’s more to the eye, and the list of benefits of social media for students can be quite long. If you don’t believe us, just keep reading to know a little more about the educational applications of social media.
How to use social media effectively?
Social media is more than sites to spend time, they can become and investment for students if they give educational uses to their social media. If you need practical applications, then look no more because here are the best way to make the best of your accounts.
- Share educational material: The Internet is filled with enriching information about every subject, and if you follow science magazines, schools or similar institutions, you will have a constant flow of information that is pure gold. And not just that, you will get a portion of memes, videos, gifs and all sorts of audiovisual resources that can also have educational content and be easily shared through social media.
- As a source of information: Social media has become an interesting universe for investigation, this implies that their platforms are a source of information for social media essay topics. It’s so popular there are websites that will help you with your social media essays, where you can find a free essay example, lists of topics, and even help to write the assignment. A great tool to promote student-driven education without suffocating them.
- Keep a more direct communication: Chats and video calls are priceless tools, use it to keep open communication with your school mates, you could even make studying groups through video calls and help each other in the distance. Also, there’s the possibility of contacting authorities in certain matters and get an answer to your questions. And you could use them to contact your teachers, as long as they give their authorization to it.
- Self-learning: Study guides, video tutorials, opinion pieces, researches, articles with social media topics, surveys, this kind of content is out there and its spread in social media. With all that charge of information, self-learning becomes a more plausible option for many students that want to deepen in the matter.
- Tutoring: You can use social media to contact a tutor and set virtual meetings with him, so it is another way to help self-learning. If you don’t want to hire and set meetings, you could go for virtual tutors that will be available for you at any moment, so you can set your studying routine according to your own schedule. In either case, you will get personal tutoring that will guide you and work as a safety net.
Does social media really have such a big influence on students?
No matter where you go, social media will be there. Its presence is so overwhelming that it has become part of our lives. Students are no exception, and since they are closer to technology, its a generation that grew up surrounded by digital devices- they are also more vulnerable to it.
On the one hand, social media comes with numerous tools that can be of invaluable help to any student. The possibility to know different opinions by just reading it from your wall, the opportunity to learn how to do something with a video, or the chance to clear a doubt with a scientist trough a live transmission, those are the advantages of the social media.
But -there’s always a “but”- it is really important to know the benefits of social media for students, but you must also be aware of the disadvantages that this might imply. Due to the huge amount of the “fun” that’s available on social media sites, the tendency to procrastinate is always a latent threat. And you should also be conscious of social media addiction, which can become a real issue if it appears and it’s not addressed in the right way.
Educational applications of the most popular social media sites
There are tons of platforms for social media, each one with different looks, means and targets. You can definitely use them and their tools for academic purposes.
- Facebook. This is the first reference when you think about social media, it allows you to create groups, an ideal to share educational content with school mates. Also, you could keep constant communication, send or receive files and give it a fun twist to school material.
- Instagram. These social media focus on pictures and short videos, so it’s a great platform to share experiences. In an educational context, can be used as a register of scholar activities. Most importantly, it’s an extraordinary tool of investigation for assignments that have social media topics.
- Reddit. It is a social media where discussions are encouraged, this boosts a little of a hostile environment but also filled with the possibilities of knowing and understanding different points of view. Besides, the discussions are quite organized, and it’s necessary to learn how to argue properly in order to be part of the discussions. A good homework assignment, right?
- Twitter. Everyone speaks its mind on Twitter, even if no one asked, so everyone’s opinions are out there. That’s what makes this platform another good resource of investigation for media research topics, mostly for those related to interactions between users, and to conduct simple social experiments.
- YouTube. This is the most used platform for video, and that makes it also the best to reach big audiences. The greatest benefits that YouTube offers to students are tutorials, a video format in which a “tutor” explains a process in order to teach others to perform it.
Internet and social media put at your feet numerous tools with the prospective to help you reach your full potential. Social media does not have to be only a source of distraction, it can also be your best ally.
