How can Social Media be used in Education?

Do you remember when you first created your Facebook account?  I remember asking my sister, “But what do I even say? Who cares what I’m doing?”.  Little did I know, everyone cares.  Still, I remained skeptical of this whole social media thing.  I felt as if it was a fad that would come and go, I guess that is why I was so hesitant – after being stung emotionally by the death of the Pokemon card fad that I invested so heavily in as a child.  But that’s a story for another day.  I ask you to recall this early memory as I want you to consider how you would have reacted if someone had said to you that in 2013 (permitting the world not ending in 2012), social media for business would be a borderline necessity if they were to survive.  I think I would have laughed.  How could this be used for a business?  But, we are here, the world didn’t end, and businesses all around the globe are realising the infinite potential of social media.

I’m making a prediction that in 5 years time 80% or more of schools, colleges and universities will be using social media as not just a marketing tool, but as an actual cog in the learning process of students.  Young people now grow up in a world of media and immediacy, if schools shy away from this fact – then they are just further distancing themselves from the students of today.  Having social media involved in the classroom would be a great way of grabbing their interest and getting them engaged.  This post will be exploring some of the ways in which I believe this to be possible.

 

For Marketing Purpose

Okay, let’s get the obvious one out of the way first.  Many educational institutes are already implementing social media marketing successfully as a tool for recruiting new students.  If they’re getting it right, then they’ll be using it as a platform to talk about the success of current students and perhaps how the school is improving all of the time.  They could really build up a positive image for the school and allow parents to get a feel for how unbelievably awesome they are.  If you run a educational institute and you’re not doing this…why not?  Go do it, right now.s

Classroom Blogs

I can’t take credit for this as my sister (who is a teacher) was telling me about her ideas about this – and I love it.  The idea is that each class have their own blog, which is managed by the teacher but authored by the students.  So the pupil who generates the most interesting essay or paper on the topic of that week will have their work published online to the classroom blog.  This will give them a huge sense of achievement and inspire the other students in the class to work harder to achieve online publication.  To take this a step further, you could also add a friendly level of competition by having classes compete.

Video Learning

I remember actually falling asleep in an IT lesson once in school.  I put this down to the fact that just listening to a teacher talking for an hour is eye shuttingly boring.  People love video, young people love video – this can’t be argued as YouTube is the world’s third most visited site.  Video should be being used more in school and if these videos were posted to a class YouTube account, then the students could re-watch the videos at home whilst doing their homework!

Teacher Twitter Accounts

There is an invisible barrier between a teacher and their students, the great teachers smash through that.  All of the teachers in my life who had the biggest impact on my education and life were the ones that I felt didn’t look down on me and were both approachable and understanding.  Having each teacher have their own teacher Twitter account would take a big leap into removing some of the bricks in that barrier.  They could post lesson recaps, answer homework questions, or best yet, have students tweet what they’ve learned in 140 characters to the teacher account!  This will allow the students to feel much more connected to their teacher and remind them that their teacher is actually a person who watches TV, sleeps and buys Nutella, just like you do!  There is something about seeing a teacher outside of school when you’re a kid that just blows your mind – isn’t there?!

Have Students Run Fake Accounts

Again, credit here is due to my sister - teacher extraordinaire.  Classes that are covering historical figures can use social media to really get into the life of that person.  She will have all her students create a Facebook account on a piece of paper for that person.  Putting all of their likes, interests, some status updates etc.  This is great fun and just a much better spin on learning about the famous people of the past.

So with all of these great ideas for using social media in education, why isn’t it more widely implemented?  Well, much like a few years ago in the business world – people seem to feel like they don’t need social media in schools and that it will just be a distraction for students.  This is so much the case, that most social networks are usually blocked and out of bounds to students and teachers alike.  However, I’m sure it’ll just take a handful of schools to start using it and achieving the inevitable success and coverage, before we will see it used across the board.  At least I hope so, otherwise I’ll look stupid for making my earlier prediction.  No pressure, schools.

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