Social Networking as an Educational Tool

Social Networking is useful as an educational tool which makes education better, cheaper and more accessible. Social networking tools of web 2.0 enable the web to get better through the users adding new content, which in turn links other users. As they provide engagement, they become efficient for education.

User generated content in education has some benefits and limitations. The benefits include users creating their own experiences, educational content being refreshed without needing an expert, improving skills of working in teams, learners getting motivated, users adding value to the concepts. Additionally, users can clarify concepts, form relationships and test themselves through social networks. The limitations include the lack of trust, reliability and believability. It also encourages short attention spans, leads to immediate answers and it is hard to find the necessary content. Nevertheless, the limitations and benefits of social networking cannot be separated. Millennials, who grew up with technology, are able to multitask, prefer pictures, visuals and audio rather than only text, prefer interactive activities. However, they also have short attention spans, poor text literacy, cavalier attitude to quality of sources and lack reflection. In short, they lack the ability to judge online content and are not taught to do so, communicate online mostly with their friends and tend to claim the ownership of content copied from the internet

Lecturers, academics and researchers are also affected by the web 2.0. Since printed materials are late, inaccessible and expensive, the literature is also mostly online. Although web 1.0 improved this issue with printed materials, web 2.0 made it possible to have real interaction, peer commenting and collaborative research. With web 2.0 becoming a research network, knowing where to find information became very useful. Knowledge and interaction are also developing with web 2.0 tools. Another change web 2.0 brings is the change of the learners. Technology is believed to change the way we think and learn, therefore, using tools of today is crucial as they are the ones that adjust how we think. An additional change to the learners is multiculturalism, which is increasing especially with online education. Another change is that cooperative and collaborative learning are much higher online than individualistic education, making course design very important for online collaborative learning.

Designing a student centered course requires allowing learners to control the pace, interact with the content and arrange the timing according to the students. While making the lesson student centered a balance between the control over the learner and the freedom of the learner is needed. Student generated content allows them to create appropriate content which makes the teacher the facilitator of interaction. For web 2.0 course design, constructivist theory was thought to be the most suitable. However, Siemens proposed connectivism where learning is no longer individualistic. Even though there is no best method for course design, a popular one is outcome-based design where learning outcomes shifts the focus to process and expected outcomes and clear criteria gives the learner more control over what they learn.

Here are some other blogs you can check out;

https://englishwyeliz.blogspot.com/

https://ilkaylinguland.blogspot.com/

https://withfadime.blogspot.com/

https://learnwith-ilknurgoray.blogspot.com/

https://hightechmats.blogspot.com/


Reference;

Mason R. & Rennie F., E-Learning and Social Networking Handbook, Routledge, 2008

 


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