The Importance Of Social Media And Education

Travel to any college or university and grab ten students at random from all around the campus. Statistically, nine out of ten of them use one or more forms of social media and obviously use the internet on a very regular basis (Perrin). With such a large audience, teachers and educators have been trying to integrate the internet and social media into the classroom and their teaching styles. By doing this, they are trying to update education to the 21st century and explore a brand-new way to educate society. By having social media and education mixed together. The population can become more educated and open to more free thought through an individual’s connection to the rest of the world. This issue is prevalent in most all educational institutions …show more content…
The internet brings social networking to rejuvenate and add to the old ways of communication. Laura Lefkowits, a former member of the Denver Public Schools Board of Education praises social media use in education in her article A New Face for Schools. Here Lefkowits points out how educational institutions use what she defines as “purposeful communities” which can be defined as just communities what have a specific agenda. Moreover, by citing Denver- based Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning; of which she is a part of, believes that these communities can have an enormous effect on student achievement in the modern era. From here, she goes on to compare how similar social media sites are to these purposeful communities and advocates that these online networks should be integrated into academics on the local level (Lefkowits). Looking at a majority of modern educational institutions today, social networking through the internet has already been enacted and streamlined. Immediately after these changes, students and staff grew closer and more connected. To give an example, some universities use an online service called Blackboard to organize information and allow teachers to post and grade assignments among a plethora of other benefits. Not only does this serve allow for communication between students and any member of the college staff, but it can give the teacher more time by grading assignments by its self. On the same note, I can use email as a social network to send and receive information to anyone in any of my courses that I am in with only a few clicks. Ultimately, social media and the internet greatly speeds up and expands communication in educational