Look around you… And it won’t be hard to come across at least one person currently swiping through their social media feed. The number of users on various social media networking sites has increased incessantly. Especially with the growing reliance on smartphones today.

Whether you want to book a hotel room or need a quick recipe guide for an authentic Greek dish, social media always serves you! The versatile nature of social media can also contribute to uplifting and revolutionizing the educational system. On condition, we learn how to draw the most advantage from it.

Social media and education events

Here are some of the few ways in which the role of social media in education has proven to be so efficient:

1. Intuitive and immersive videos to clear tricky concepts

Think of all the YouTube videos your kid watches so addictively at home. If you notice, you will see how the various interactive and animated educational videos available on YouTube have made learning much more fun than earlier.

Several studies have shown the visual mode’s beneficial impact in making students grasp tough concepts rather easily. In addition, the various online video tutorials available on YouTube make all the critical concepts clear to students. This applies not only to school students but those going to college also!

2. Online tutorials by teachers offer extra support

Almost every school and university located all across the globe have experienced the perks of online teaching during the prolonged pandemic period. It has greatly benefitted educational institutions by opening up a new and useful world. Teachers can now easily conduct online tutorial classes or extra classes for students over vacations or weekends to clear the backlogs.

Online classes conducted via social networks like Skype or others have also enabled teachers to conduct classes at a suitable time to clear the doubts of students. It no longer matters whether the student or the teacher cannot come to the university or the school for these doubt-clearing sessions. They are good to go if both parties have a reliable internet connection and a mobile phone to join the online class!

3. Easy sharing of information

WhatsApp groups or email groups of students have become a common affair in several reputed educational institutions these days. These groups allow the teacher or professor to easily share all the required information regarding the courses the students are studying at the moment.

Often the hard copies of required textbooks might not be easily available in the market. Under such circumstances, if the teacher or any students can find a softcopy or pdf version of the exact text, social media allows them to share it easily! Study materials, projects, and any helpful reading material can be seamlessly shared amongst classmates rather easily with social media.

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4. Enhances the credibility of the educational institution

Several educational institutions located all across the globe have started to interconnect with their students and faculty members through social media. Social media networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube are generally chosen as useful channels by various reputed educational institutes.

These channels are thereby used by the schools and colleges to easily share all the required school news, and educational information, make declarations, etc. It helps create greater involvement between the given educational institution and the students. Often several student-related issues and problems can also be sorted easily through these channels.

5. Cost-effective means of communication

Using social media as a vital means of communication renders educational institutions highly cost-effective solutions. It is a powerful and free medium of communication that can be used by schools and colleges today. However, the vitality of using social media does not just stop at using it as a means of communication.

Several educational institutes are also often found to utilise social media as a crucial platform to promote new things that are coming up. For example, they often put up posters. In its turn provide all the details about the new courses or events that viewers can check out! Thus, the use of social media has greatly enriched educational institutes.

6. Hosting live discussions

Teachers can also use social media platforms like YouTube or Facebook to host (private) live discussion sessions with students. Streaming these live lectures, wherein the students can also post their questions in the chat box, will help enrich the overall learning experience for students.

Especially during the long summer or winter vacations, after which your students return to school with their half-done assignments, you can host live sessions. Creating a Facebook group with your students can be helpful. Wherein you can post all the assignment questions along with the deadline. However, make sure to maintain your professional tone, even while using social media for educational purposes. For instance, you send your students the Facebook group joining link via email rather than anything else.

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7. Working on a class blog for an interactive discussion

There are many different and versatile social networking sites for creating digital content, like WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, and Squarespace. Using these blogging websites to let your students create blog posts can be a unique way to approach the field of education.

As a teacher, you can create a specific class blog and then ask your students to create their accounts. Following this, your students can take part in discussion posts or add comments. Allowing your students to work in this manner will provide them with a greater scope for interaction. It will also help you as a teacher to post the course syllabus, assignments, or any other update in one location, such that every student can easily access it.

Conclusion

Social media can offer you several intuitive and useful tools to elevate the overall learning experience of your students. However, you can check out the importance of the techniques we have listed above. Don’t be afraid to do some experiments of your own too.

Despite its many disadvantages, technology also offers us many useful advantages. It’s time that you start making the most of them!