The cohesion between social media and education

 

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As a result of widespread acceptance and increased usage of social media in our daily lives, they gradually get recognition as a useful tool in disseminating knowledge and information in educational institutions. This is also partly due to the realization that there is power in forming groups and sharing information. The tool has actually proved to be very effective in providing students with deep informational insights by connecting them with experts and other like-minded groups. The sole objective of integrating it into educational systems is enhancing or simplifying the learning processes.

For this to work as intended, institutions must look for networking tools in order to install the networking and sharing plug-ins on their official websites.  These tools will also allow conducting analysis to get a deeper understanding of the dynamics between the users and the website.

By engaging in social media, institutions can interact with their students by responding to questions and concerns they might have.

Below you will find the ways that social media can enhance cohesion with educational systems:

 

(1)Consulting experts on topics touching on their fields

 

One thing we cannot ignore about social media is that they have narrowed down the connection gap between the students and experts. If you are looking for more about a particular topic, you do not have to travel distances looking for an expert as you can easily look for one on social platforms and get in touch with them simply by liking or following them. As an example, you can approach to professionals at essay service to get some support with your academic paper.

Often such experts discuss pressing issues that touch on areas of their expertise, and by following them and reading their posts, you can learn directly from them. Furthermore, by interacting with them, you can encourage them to cover the topics that you are interested in or have difficulties understanding.

 

(2)Social platform as a communication mode in institutions

 

Before the advent of social media, it was hard to engage individual students in a particular issue as the most common mode of communication used back then was notice boards.But since not everybody could see such notices in time, messages would be passed across by word of mouth or through text messages with high chances not to get to the initial recipient. But things are different now as nowadays institutions can communicate with students through Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Announcements, campus news and messages are posted there for all to see, and students can access them in real time by subscribing to those channels. That way, colleges are also able to get the feedback and even gauge student’s reactions since social media allow you to comment or express your feelings using emojis, GIF’s, stickers and whatnot.

Tutors can also make short tutorials or inspirational videos and share them with their students on YouTube to motivate them by boosting their morale. Even students themselves can create hashtags on Facebook or Twitter to draw attention and engage others in different discussions.

 

(3)It is a useful research tool

 

Social media have proved to be a vital research tool in data collection. If you already have an account, you must have seen various polls being conducted where people are asked to vote in support or against a certain issue.

By so doing, institutions can understand how students feel about the issues they are polling on. The same tool can be used by students to get data for supporting their academic projects, especially where statistics are required.

 

(4) Increased use of Learning Management Systems (LMS)

 

Integrating LMS software with social media enables learners to do much more than just learning as they can chat and discuss educational issues. They can also share videos and other useful learning materials and organize webinars, live conferences, group reviews etc. Hence, integrating this technology in the system has enabled interactions between the system and the users - something that has led to it being adopted in colleges.

 

(5) Building a social brand

 

Through social media, learners can create and promote their brands while still in college by using their educational background to share informative articles with others through social media platforms. Consequently, people will start respecting and treating you as an expert, and that will help you strengthen your social credibility. It is not a wonder to start seeing people seeking your advice regarding the issues related to your area of expertise.

As indicated above, there are several ways social media can enhance learning processes and those that have already realized this are reaping the benefits. More integration is expected in the future, and if the current trend continues, many challenges facing education will be solved easily.

 

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