ASSIGNMENT

EFFECT OF SOCIAL MEDIA PORTALS

ON THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESSES IN
SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES.

Submitted by
Rejitha R
4thsemester ME.d
Department of education
University of kerala.
INTRODUCTION

Today, internet plays an indisputable role as a means of communication,

information flow, and as a point of meeting the needs of a growing number of
people. Consequently, the proportion of internet users is constantly growing
around the world (Stachura, 2008). K. Krzysztofek suggests to assume the Internet
as a social institution is non-linear in nature. This results in the need to go beyond
the current discourse and reflection on mediów. Sieć facilitates the development
processes interaktywizacji and personalization. As a result, this leads to the
breakdown of traditional hierarchies (Krzysztofek, 2006).

Virtual communities have many features that exist in reality. They are
characterized by interaction, sense of identity, and belonging. In addition, they
have their proper rites, rituals, forms of expression, the existence of a common
purpose, standards, and rules (MacQuail, 2007).

Social media are interactive platforms where content is created, distributed

and shared by individuals on the web. In other words social media is a group of
internet based applications that build on the ideological and technological
foundations of web 2.0, and that allows users to create and exchange of user
generated content. Social media websites and applications allow users to create and
exchange user-generated content where people talk, share information, participate
and network through technologies such as blogs and social networking sites.
Within the last decade, social media has become one of the most powerful sources
for news updates, online collaboration, networking, viral marketing and
entertainment.

As technology progresses very rapidly in the 21st century, it brings along

very significant opportunities in the field of education. The education system that
needs to reflect the changes in all the sub-systems making up the society quickly is
in an attempt to use the technologies based on the computer and the internet
extensively and effectively (Clark & Mayer, 2016; Garrison & Kanuka, 2004; Katz
& Kim, 2016; Moore, 2013). Technology affects learning and teaching
methodologies positively and makes out new learning models. Two of these
learning models are blended learning and social media supported learning. Also,
instead of using a single learning model, implementing multi-learning models in a
blended way in the 21st century, making effective use of the internet, of portals
providing educationrelated content, and of social media has become a necessity.
Science education is one of the disciplines that is affected the most by these
developments.

Raising 21st century individuals in the classrooms, where traditional face-to-

face learning is implemented, is becoming more and more difficult. The reason is
that traditional face-to-face methods do not offer activities to direct students to
think and to research and opportunities to use knowledge, to solve problems, in
brief, to re-structure knowledge are not provided; thus, students graduate with the
superficial information they memorize (Akınoğlu & Tandoğan, 2007; Akınoğlu,
2013; Bybee, 2000; Lederman, 2004). Therefore, these deficiencies of face-to-face
learning affect science education negatively as well.

Types of social media

Some of the most popular current forms of social media are social networking
websites such as Facebook, which surpassed over one billion active monthly users
in October 2012. There are several types of online platforms classified under the
vast umbrella of social media. These categories include:

Social Networks: Social networking websites allow users to build web pages
featuring personal portfolios and interests. These pages are used to connect with
friends, colleagues and other users in order to share media, content and
communications. Examples of social networks include Facebook, LinkedIn,
MySpace and Bebo.

Visual social networks are becoming more popular, with Instagram having now
surpassed Twitter in its amount of users. Data has shown that a tweet that includes
an image has a 150% more chance of being shared. There are also new networks
such as Snapchat and Periscope, that are slowly growing in terms of popularity,
especially with the younger generations.

Web blogs: Some of the oldest and most popular forms of social media are blogs.
Blogs are often viewed as online journals that order content chronologically, or by
date, month, year and category. Users can also maintain “vlogs,” or video blogs,
featuring shared or homemade videos. Blogging websites include WordPress,
Blogger and Tumblr.

Microblogs: Microblogs are blogging tools that feature short posts, as opposed to
journal-style posts. Users are usually restricted to posting a few lines of text, or
uploading individual images and videos. Microblogging is particularly common for
posting quick updates and distributing content via mobile devices. Notable
microblogging sites include Twitter and Tumblr. However, social networks such as
Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and MySpace also have their own microblogging
features.

Content Communities: Users on content communities organize, share and

comment on different types of content, including images and videos. YouTube,
Flickr and scribd are examples of content communities.

Wikis: Wiki websites allow a community of people to add and edit content in a
community-based database. One of the best-known wikis is Wikipedia.

Podcasts: Podcasts are audio and video files available through subscription
services such as Apple iTunes. The term “podcast” is a neologism derived from
“broadcast” and “pod” (as in “iPod”), since Podcasts are often listened to on
portable media players.

Other types of social media include the following:

 Rating and review sites (e.g. Yelp)

 Social bookmarking or social tagging features (e.g. Digg; Stumble
Upon)
 Forums and discussion boards (e.g. Yahoo!; Answers)
 Virtual social worlds (e.g. Second Life; World of Warcraft)
 Music and audio sharing (e.g. Spotify; Pandora Radio)

Social media can also be classified by their ability to facilitate certain social
functions. These social functions often involve identity, conversation, sharing,
presence, relationships, reputation, and groups.
Effect of social media on the educational process in schools and universities.

Positive effects of social media on educational process.

1. Encourage online learning.

Online learning is education that takes place over the internet. It is often
referred to as e- learning. The learning process will take place on electronic
device through internet. So online learning create a positive out look to the
learning process.

2. Enhance academic performance.

We already discussed about online learning so e- learning help the

student to enhance their academic performance.

3. Enhance creative environment.

Social media portals help the student to create their own environment.
Students can easily develop their own ideas with the help of learning
platforms.

4. Easy sharing information.

Sharing of information, links, to other sites has now become super easy
for students as they share pieces of information to their friends, classmates,
and other.

5. Social credibility.

Many schools, colleges and universities have begun the facility of

interconnecting with a large no of students through the means of social
media networks like facebook, twitter etc.

These information can be utilize students and provide more valuable

data. And also this creates involvement between the school and student-
related issues through the group associations.

6. Cost-effective communication.
 Social media is an excellent and free medium it cannot only be used to
communicate. It is also an outstanding device to promote things like new
courses and research areas.

7. Sharing information and knowledge.

Social media provides a platform where one can share their
knowledge and gain credibility in their chosen fields. They can also
acquire information and insights from others within an online
community.

CONCLUSION

Today the mass media play an important role in society. Social networks do
not offer a learning model on their own; however, they can be used as a supporting
tool to provide better learning and to increase motivation. Along with the increase
of the significance of the use of social media in education, social media sites are
established worldwide for educational purposes solely and they are becoming
widespread. It is believed that increase in success and motivation can be provided
with the use of these social media sites that serve educational purposes only.

Starting from elementary school up until university graduation, social media

has the role to empower parents, students and teachers to use new ways of sharing
information and build a community. When it comes to social media, schools tend
to adopt different positions. It’s a general consensus that they are useful when it
comes to sharing information or organizing the school tasks. Moodle and
Blackboard are just two examples of learning management system.

The bottom line is that social media is a big part of our day to day life and
there’s no point of keeping it away from the education process. School, college and
university staff should be encouraged to make use of technology for student and
parent communication.
REFERENCES

Kinal, Jaroslaw., & Skora, Michal. (2017). Social Media Portals as a modern Form
of social communication: An exemplification of polish media sphere. Europian
scientific journal, ISSN: 1857- 173.

https://eujournal.org/index.php/esj/article/download/9196/8737

Akgunduz, devrim & Akinoglu, orhan. (2017). The Impact of Blended Learning
and Social media- Supported Learning on the Academic Success and Motivation of
the Students in Science Education . Research gate. Vol 19169-90.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319186035_The_Impact_of_Blended_Le
arning_and_Social_Media-
Supported_Learning_on_the_Academic_Success_and_Motivation_of_the_Student
s_in_Science_Education