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BENEFITS OF USING SOCIAL MEDIA

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Impact of Social Media on Education in the Present Scenario ISBN: 978-81-923575-5-3

BENEFITS OF USING SOCIAL MEDIA

1G.Praveen
Kumar, 2Dr.M.Vasimalairaja
1
Research Scholar, 2 Associate Professor in Education, Department of
Education(DDE), Alagappa University, Karaikudi-630 003
<phd17praveen@gmail.com>
Introduction collaboration as they allow students to
ocial media is a fundamental part of work together to achieve a common goal.

S daily life for most people. Schools

and colleges are noexception.
Recently, many institutions have started
SurayaHamid et al
conducted a study on Understanding
(2015)

students' perceptions of the benefits of

tapping social media to provide better
serviceand assistance to teachers and
students.The most common social media
sites nowadays are Facebook, Twitter,
LinkedIn, and Instagram. These sites are
not only easy to use and easy to access but
most certainly, almost anyone can join.
Here are some of the benefits of using
social media.
Review Of Related Literature
RdouanFaizi andAbdellatif El Afia (2013)
examined the potential benefits of using
social media in education. A thorough
examination of a large set of these online
tools has revealed that social media have
many educational advantages. It has been
found out that these web-based
applications can improve communication
among students and between teachers and
students. Bothteachers and students can
interact with each other in a matter of
seconds. Social media can also be used to
promote students’ engagement. Students
who often complain of being intimidated
or bored in the classroom may feel
comfortable to express their creativity and
voice their opinion on a social network
website. Another finding of this study is
that social media applications foster
online social networking use for teaching
and learning. However, there have been
limited studies assessing how to
effectively use social technologies and
what the impacts are on students' learning
experience, particularly with regard to
their value in enhancing interactions. This
paper focuses on students' experiences
with using OSN for student–student and
student–lecturer interactions. A total of
nine focus group discussions with 46
students were held in Malaysian and
Australian universities. A thematic
analysis revealed that students identified a
number of positive outcomes from using
OSN to interact with each other and with
their lecturers. The findings contribute to
current understanding about how students
leverage social technologies to enhance
interaction among themselves, with their
lecturers, and with the content of the
course.
Social Media
Social media are computer-mediated
technologies that allow the creating and
sharing of information ideas, career
interests and other forms of expression via
virtual communities and networks.Social
media technologies take many different
forms including blogs, business networks,

724
Impact of Social Media on Education in the Present Scenario
enterprise social networks, forums,
microblogs, photo sharing, products/
services review, social bookmarking,
social gaming, social networks, video
sharing, and virtual worlds. However, the
first social networks were short-lived
because their users lost interest. Some of
the most popular media websites are
Facebook and its associated Facebook
Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter,
Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube,
Viber, Snapchat, and WeChat. These
social media websites have several crores
of registered users.
Benefits of Social Media
Social Media as Communication Channel
The successful running of any learning
experience depends on many things, one of
which being effective communication
between teachers and their students. If no
proper communication between teacher
and students is available, both teaching
and learning will become difficult. For this
reason, teachers need to continuously
monitor students for Understanding the
students’ problems, fear, or confusion will
help faculty better understand students'
learning difficulties. It helps students learn
quickly. The Internet users, the majority of
which are students, use social networks
mostly to keep in touch with friends,
colleagues, peers and family, it is
important to explore the possible benefits
that such networking tools can offer to
modern education.
Social Media as Engagement Tools
Social media tools are also effective ways
to increase students’ engagement. A
student who hardly ever participates in
class may get actively engaged in co-
constructing his learning experience with
725
ISBN: 978-81-923575-5-3
his teachers, collaborating with his fellow
colleagues, and may feel more comfortable
to express himself and to share his
resources and ideas on Facebook, Twitter,
or YouTube.
Using tools such as Google Apps
for Education would enable students to
have access to valuable learning resources
regardless of time and place. Within the
traditional classroom, providing students
with additional learning materials can be
very expensive and logistically
complicated. However, using social media
can enhance the learning experience. In
fact, inviting students to participate in the
different learning activities available on
social learning platforms would serve to
support academic engagement by
extending the amount of time a student
spends in doing his homework or related
school projects. Collaborative and
participatory tools like Wikis, blogs,
Google Docs can encourage students to
become active participants or even co-
producers rather than passive consumers of
content. Students would have enough
opportunities to ask questions, make
comments, as well as get feedback. As
such, they will have more chances to
develop supportive relationships with their
instructors.
Social Media as Collaborative Platforms
Collaboration means working together
jointly, intellectually, and socially to
achieve common goals. Within an online
learning community, collaboration refers
to any instructional method in which
students work together in groups towards a
common goal. As such, collaborative
learning can be viewed as encompassing
all group-based instructional methods,
including cooperative learning.
 Impact of Social Media on Education in the Present Scenario ISBN: 978-81-923575-5-3

Collaborationconsists of three critical Benefits of Using Social Media in

elements: participation, interaction, and Schools. (2015, August 25). Retrieved
synthesis. This means that collaboration in from https://blog.kamihq.com/benefits-of-
educational settings requires that students using-social-media-in-schools/
move beyond merely dividing up
Faizi, R., El Afia, A., &Chiheb, R.
assignments. (2013).
Online learners, who could be Exploring the Potential Benefits of Using
students, educators, or any other individual Social Media in Education. International
in the community, can thus generate their Journal of Engineering Pedagogy
own learning content and take advantage (iJEP), 3(4), 50.
of collective knowledge. In this sense, doi:10.3991/ijep.v3i4.2836
social media are an effective means to
create channels of collaboration between Hamid, S., Waycott, J., Kurnia, S., &
students and teachers and amongst Chang, S. (2015). Understanding students'
students. The power of collaborative perceptions of the benefits of online social
content tools is in their ability to offer a networking use for teaching and
single destination where people bring their learning. The Internet and Higher
ideas together, examine them with their Education, 26, 1-9.
peers, and publish them in way that can be doi:10.1016/j.iheduc.2015.02.004
revised and revisited. Research has The role of Social Media in Education.
demonstrated that students learn better (2017, July 20). Retrieved from
when they are actively involved in the https://lcibs.co.uk/the-role-of-social-
process, and that students working in media-in-education/
groups tend to learn more and retain it
longer than in other instructional formats.
Conclusion
By reflecting on educational background
and gaining exposure on social media
builds social credibility and students come
across as people who can offer their
expertise in specified fields. This prepares
and positions your career to have social
credibility.As social networks interactions
advance in education systems, social
media will become the number one means
for solving education problems. The
important benefit that networks build is the
many helpful and beneficial tools and
access that make learning become a
pleasant process.
References
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