SOCIAL MEDIA USE IN EDUCATION HAVE MANY CHALLENGES

Rosalyn Y Dizon

Though social media can increase student learning through student interactions, challenges arise when social media are incorporated into an academic course. The assumption that students are familiar with and agreeable to using certain types of social media can cause educators to inadvertently fail to provide the resources or encouragement necessary to support student usage and learning. Some researches found that even when social media is used for an educational purpose, students incorporate the technology into their lives in a way that may differ from the intentions of the course instructor. For example, off-topic or non-academic discussions occur on social media because of its primary design as a social networking tool. Further, as a student’s age increases, the frequency of off-topic discussions also increases. This indicates that while social media may encourage broader discussions of course content, older students may spend more time than younger students engaging in unrelated discussions. Social media can also negatively impact student GPA as well as the amount of time students spend preparing for class. One explanation for this impact is that social media provides too much stimulation and therefore can distract students from completing their coursework. Another reason for this may be that students who spend more time on social media may have difficulty balancing their online activities and their academic preparation.

Social media can also be a challenging instructional strategy to incorporate because it attempts to balance the authority of the educator with the active participation of the students. Collaboration through social media supports more of a constructive approach to learning, where students and educators can work together to co-create understanding of a particular topic, rather than an approach that emphasizes individual contributions. As a result, students and educators become equal participants in the knowledge sharing process. Though this seems beneficial for creating and disseminating knowledge, social media can also become a privacy concern as well as an outlet for abuse and cyber-bullying. This suggests that establishing standards for social media use should include behavior and attitude guidelines similar to those enforced in the classroom

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The author is Teacher III at Northville 16 Elementary School