connection. You check what’s new on Facebook and Twitter during school hours, you read Digg articles, and you can’t miss the trending Reddit threads.
Of course, students also use these devices for learning purposes. Social media tools have the potential of changing the face of education. Have you ever wondered how you can use them for learning?
6 Ways to Use Social Media for Education
- Create a Facebook Group for Your Class
This is a classic. Facebook is the best place for posting news, learning tips, and reminders about upcoming assignments. If your class still doesn’t have its own Facebook group, then it’s time to create one and invite your classmates to join. The members can ask questions, discuss different issues, talk about tests and everything else related to their studies. The administrators can be in charge for setting discussion questions and maintaining order in the group. You should invite your teachers to become part of the group as well. This is a perfect platform for organizing the flipped classroom concept. Teachers can provide the resources you should explore at home, and the class will be reserved for questions and discussions.
- Use Twitter in Class to Show What You Think about the Lectures Needless to say, this should come with the approval of your teacher. You’ve surely noticed that most TV shows promote a Twitter hashtag that enables the viewers to share opinions in real-time. This is a really effective method of providing feedback. Instead of taking notes of your thoughts, you can simply post a tweet with your question or opinion. Before the end of the lecture, the teacher can go through the updates to answer the question and reflect on the opinions.
- Join Book Discussion Clubs
Are you a passionate reader? You must be frustrated with the fact that your friends don’t understand your love for books, so you have no one to talk to when you read an amazing book that changed your point of view. You’ll find plenty of book discussion clubs on Facebook. Join one that focuses on your favorite genre and you’ll have a great audience to share your impressions with.
- Learning through YouTube Videos When you can’t understand a concept presented in the classroom, you’ll probably find a YouTube video that brings it down to simplicity. YouTube is not only about cats and wedding videos, you know. It’s an important learning resource that even teachers are starting to appreciate. You can also use YouTube as a platform to showcase your video projects from class. When you get feedback from a large community, you’ll fix the flaws and improve your next projects.
- Social Media Study Groups There is no need to invite your friends to your house, prepare sandwiches and spend hours in conversation before you get to the actual studying. When you organize a virtual study group, everyone will be more focused and ready to cooperate. Since everyone can write what they think, the entire process will be more relaxed and effective.
- Blogging There is only one way to improve your writing skills: write more. When your teacher encourages everyone to blog, these activities will be public and he will be able to monitor everyone’s progress. You can suggest this to be a new class project. You can create blogs in teams and share the responsibilities for weekly posts. Some will be in charge of research, others in creating concepts, some team members will write the content and others will edit it. The students will change roles, so they will understand the process of writing from different aspects.
