Social+Media+and+Its+Significance

Social Media and Its Significance
Because digital natives are so fluent with the language of technology and have acquired distinctive skills and interests, the way education is administered to them must be altered or changed to meet their learning needs (Bennett et al., 2008, p. 775-776). If technology is drastically impacting the lives of students, teachers cannot afford to ignore the effects of it. One form of technology that digital natives are well versed in is social media.



According to Wikipedia, "social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques". Some common forms of social media include blogs, micro-blogs, wikis, social networking sites, and internet forums (2010). Figure 1 above provides a visual depiction of various forms of social media and some specific examples of each. These are just some of the media forms digital natives are interacting with or using on a daily basis.

Why is the use of social media important to teachers?

Students that are digital natives will be using many of the above forms of social media. They are able to use social networking sites to interact with each other instantly, sharing sites to quickly access and share videos and music, and publishing sites to create blogs and comment on forums. Susan Greenfield is a neuroscientist at Oxford University who is concerned that constant exposure to technologies is resulting in a generation with poor attention spans and less time spent with real relationships. She states, "It is hard to see how living this way on a daily basis will not result in brains, or rather minds, different from those of previous generations" (Derbyshire, 2009). So the minds of students are different because they use social media to socialize. Being aware of these changes in the mind is significant to teachers. Also, Säljö believes the environment between students and teachers is changing (59). For instance, students are no longer limited to recieving only the information teachers provide (e.g. through a textbook), as they have access to a wide variety of curricular topics at their fingertips (2010. p. 58-59). This does not necessarily mean students are less dependent on teachers however. It just means teachers are definitely not the only information source students have at their disposal.

Students are now used to instantly accessing information on the internet or through their social media sites, whether it is accurate or not. This does not necessarily mean they are learning however. According to Säljö, learning is the ability to "convert information stored in the expanding external symbolic storages of our social memory into something that is new, interesting and consequential for a practice or an issue." Learning does not occur because of the addition of technology, but it occurs through the collaborative interaction between new technologies, our minds and bodies (2010, p. 62). Teachers cannot treat technology as merely a tool, but something that has helped shape who their students are today. For instance, social media allows students to connect with others around the world, and maintain those connections (Edu-tastic, 2009). If successful education is the result of teachers being aware of and addressing the learning needs of their students, it is significant for teachers to understand that their students are globally connected. Teachers could use the information students have acquired through social media to better relate to students and their interests, and to build on their existing knowledge.

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