Social Media in the Classroom

How does social media affect learning and the classroom community?

I believe that this issue is very important for a number of reasons.  What really made this issue come to mind and stand out to me was an article on the upcoming Olympics.  This summer Olympics is being referred to as the first “social Olympics” where social media is going to play a large role in how we experience the Olympic games.  In this article they had statistics of the massive jump in social media users since the last Olympics.  Facebook had 100 million users last Olympics, this Olympics it has 900 million.  Last Olympics Twitter users were sending 300,000 tweets per day.  Now there are over 400 million tweets per day.  (Laird, 2012)  

This just goes to show the trend of how people are using the internet.  More and more people are gathering and sharing information from social media and as educators we had better be aware that our student population is definitely among these users.  It is important for us as educators to really see and understand the impacts and effects that social media has on both student learning and building a classroom community. 

I believe that this question is significant to all educators.  Social media can be a great tool in the classroom if we understand how to use it effectively.  To use social media effectively we must first understand the impact and effects that it has on student learning and collaboration to build a community of learners.

There is also the topic of cyber bullying and several articles that I have found on the link between a person’s social media use and their self-esteem.  These are the kinds of factors that need to also be considered when thinking of how and/or if to introduce social media into the classroom.

In a study conducted by University of Salford in the UK on how social media can actually increase our anxiety and lower our self-esteem because we are constantly comparing ourselves to others online and many of us have forgotten how to switch off.  We are in control of the technology, not the other way around. (Indvik, 2012)

Despite these negative points I believe that addressing and using social media as educators will become and should be very important.  I believe that the negative impacts should enhance this reason rather than subtract from it.  We should take the opportunity to teach students about social media and help them learn how to deal with it and not let it control their lives.  Social media isn’t going away and is very prevalent in our daily lives so how would we be helping students by ignoring it in the classroom?

Works Cited

Indvik, L. (2012, July 08). Social Media Fuels Low Self-Esteem, Anxiety [STUDY]. Retrieved July 09, 2012, from Mashable.com: http://mashable.com/2012/07/08/social-media-anxiety-study/?WT.mc_id=en_top_stories&utm_campaign=Top%2BStories&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter

Laird, S. (2012, July 08). Why Social Media Will Reshape the 2012 Olympics. Retrieved July 09, 2012, from Mashable.com: http://mashable.com/2012/07/08/2012-olympics-social-growth/?WT.mc_id=en_top_stories&utm_campaign=Top%2BStories&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter