Integrating Social Media in the Classroom for Beneficial Learning

Because technology and the use of social media is becoming more advanced and relevant in the work place, traditional teaching styles in the classroom are no longer sufficient enough for a multifaceted, comprehensive education. Students will greater benefit from the use of traditional education styles paired with instruction using social media so that they can not only comprehend and engage with the material, but also grow with the evolving world around them.

Student Comprehension and Engagement of Material Increases when Teachers Engage with Social Media in the Classroom

            With Facebook finally reaching 1 million users, Twitter following close behind and YouTube having millions of views each day, it is safe to say that social media has become very popular, especially amongst high school and college students. According to an article, located in USA Today, called "Teachers Embrace Social Media in Class" students spend approximately 238 minutes a week on Facebook and 101 minutes a week on Twitter. That’s a total of 339 minutes or 5 hours and 39 minutes spent on just two of many social media sites. Being a teacher, it is important to recognize these trends and if possible, incorporate appropriate technologies into the classroom and the curriculum in order to capture interests and accelerate learning. Incorporating networks such as YouTube, Facebook, Pintrest and Twitter to supplement material can capture interest and excitement, which can lead to better comprehension and engagement. In my schooling experience, I have had many teachers show videos on YouTube as a supplement to the material. Watching YouTube or any online video usually helps clarify information or provides additional real world examples. YouTube tends to help those students who are visual learners better grasp and understand the material. Social media can also be used in order to obtain information faster than it would be obtained in a traditional manner. For example, a student can easily post a survey question on Facebook and receive almost instantaneous feedback from their friends and followers allowing them to collect research in no time at all. Along with collecting information, social media can also be used as a way to distribute information or research quickly. Before the use of social media increased, students would have to use snail mail or e-mail to distribute information which is not nearly as fast as social media such as instant Twitter updates or Facebook statuses.

            Carole Gilbert, a Montgomery County High School teacher, helps me understand how using social media creates better understanding and engagement for her students.

  

Expanding the Use of Social Media in the Classroom can Further Enhance Learning

 Using social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter are preferable for students simply because of the ease of use and familiarity with navigation. Since students are regularly using these sites outside of the classroom for their leisure, it may be easier for teachers to incorporate these popular sites throughout lessons to aid learning. Facebook and Twitter can be used to encourage conversation between peers, or to reach out and understand the opinions of others such as famous celebrities, or authors. This way, the student is not always only interacting with their classmates, but rather learning how to communicate, have conversations and express opinions with others. Creating a class blog as a supplement to learning was another idea from an article featured on How to Learn. This site describes creating a classroom blog as a way to enhance learning with topics that students do not have much experience with, topics that may be harder to grasp, or topics that are not as dense and do not have an abundant of interesting information. “Blogging can supplement any subject matter, but it is perhaps especially easy to integrate into writing and social science classrooms. Blogging about relevant topics and commenting on classmates’ posts can provide a richer experience for students than traditional writing assignments.” Using a blog may be a form of social media that students are not as familiar with and may require additional instruction of use and navigation; however, in the end, the outcomes and rewards will be worth the extra bit of instruction. 

Embracing the Use of Social Media in Education to Help Students Prepare for College

It has become more and more common for college professors to use social media throughout the semester. It is important that students have background knowledge about the ways these sites work and are used as a supplement to course material. Many universities at very minimum use websites, like ELMS, where students can find information about the courses they are enrolled in. This is an important reason why students should be familiar and able to navigate websites such as these. Other professors engage more with social media creating assignments using class blogs, or Twitter so that students can interact with one another along with other professionals. Basic instruction in early education allows students to have already identified these tools allowing them to be able to put them to better use when using them in college courses.

Molly, a Communication major at the University of Maryland, explains why she thinks social media was beneficial to her in her college classes.

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