Education and Social Media Essay Example

Media is abundant in today's society, from newspapers that have been tossed onto lawns, to a cell phone which can fit in a pant pocket, and the use of technology has greatly changed society's ways of learning. As a college student, the value of technology such as a laptop has changed the style in which work will be completed. Media used to mostly be on paper, however, in recent years, it is almost fully digitized for the convenience. Social media is changing how we learn in the classroom to become more beneficial by constantly evolving, communicate, and converting to learning management systems, however, this comes at the cost of students losing their ability to socialize.

Social media, specifically for education over the years has the spotlight when it comes to evolving technology. Take, for instance, classrooms. Classrooms have gone from lectures that were face-to-face to being through a computer screen. When I was in elementary school, standard whiteboards, markers, and taking notes, with paper and pencil were the norm for me. Being raised by my mom she never was accustomed to the idea of putting me in front of a computer screen to learn. She was more prevalent in teaching me my letters and how to count the traditional way. Now being eighteen, I am almost always in front of a screen. Schools have now have resorted to using computers and submitting papers online to go green and save paper. Even in college, I find myself creating PowerPoint presentations, working on assignments and having to submit them online, versus receiving papers and handing them in manually. With our current technology, it seems like we can receive any type of information just from our phone alone. Technology will always continue to evolve and make our lives easier as well as having a great impact on our everyday life.

Benefits of Educational Media

Since educational 'media' is something we can all see and share with our friends, it has become significantly easier to work in groups as well as work on projects from home versus having to meet up with the whole group. For instance, while working on a group project and a classmate happens to get sick or is unable to attend class, it is still possible to communicate to said person and work on the project. This has happened to me in several cases. One of those being in seventh grade in Geography class, while my group and I were making a project on creating a game to help remember the countries in England. We had received our groups and prompt as well as a due date. Everyone was thrilled at the opportunity to work on something more interesting than memorizing the countries in England the more traditional way of studying. It was our third day working on the project and one of our group members was unable to attend the class that day, it turned out he was sick with the flu. However, the rest of the group and I were able to contact him to understand what was going on. By having the ability to connect and communicate with the group with the help of social media, it made it significantly easier to get our work done, as well as not have as much confusion to what was happening.

Social media in education appeals to all different types of people, whether they are young or old or of any race since there is a never-ending supply of educational sources online every day. When I started high school it felt like all I was using was computers, I could access all my school homework by the click of a button. All of my teachers are able to upload their work online to a learning management system website called Schoology. This is the equivalent to Blackboard to keep all of my given assignments in order. This is a huge educational bonus for all students, especially those who tend to get sick or just miss school a lot. It can keep those students from missing too many assignments and help hand in all their work. While on the other hand, newspapers and the news can appeal to older generations that are not keen on the use of technology. Many older generations do not understand technology very well, but once they get accustomed to it, they too can use media to connect with long lost friends, read the news online and learn about current events.

New Opportunities of Social Media

With education being converted more to online, being able to study has been made easier for students of all ages. Being able to create and study flashcards on websites such as Quizlet have aided me greatly in high school. Another plus to having education more digitized it that it is harder to misplace assignments. A huge majority of schools will select a learning management system. The high school that I attended used Schoology. Schoology has a similar format to Facebook. Teachers post updates on what assignments had to be completed as well as due dates for those assignments. As much as I missed being able to write my assignments with pencil and paper, the convenience of being able to write my assignments on my laptop was all worth the trade. While In middle school, I repeatedly forget my assignments at home a lot ultimately resulting in a poor grade, but once my assignments were switched to being online, that helped me keep track of them all and in turn them in on time.

The downfall of having new technology in our learning environment is the fact that students lose the ability to socialize. More or less in social situations such as the classroom, or even in public. I have realized in my personal experience that before phones and computers were so heavily depended on, it was easier to not only keep a conversation but also easier to give presentations in front of a classroom. On the first day of college-level English as soon as I walked in everyone was on their phones. Nobody said a single word until the professor walked in and had everyone introduce themselves. Even when asked to do so it seemed like it would have been easier to pull teeth. Everyone seems more invested in posting their thoughts to twitter rather than sharing them with the student sitting next to them. After I graduate college, I plan on being a lawyer and I need to know how to talk to people face to face and not hide behind a screen. Being social and verbal will be an important part of my life and job, while other students seem to forget their whole life does not revolve around their phones, and that once they graduate they will need to break away from the dependence they have on technology.

The Impact of Social Media

Educational Media has deeply impacted everybody's life, including mine. Since it is so abundant in today's society, it is a hard thing to miss. While there is greatness in social media helping people reconnect and presenting the news. There is also a curse that tags along with it, being that everyone can see what is posted as well as it never completely being deleted. Media is something that has always been available to us and something that always will. Whether we as a society enjoy media or not, we all need to learn to use media to our advantage because it is growing every day, which means it is here to stay.