Like in many other countries, social media is a major factor in the lives of students in the United Kingdom. For many students, the relationship with social media is healthy and a complement to their social lives; with the right techniques, it can also be a useful and engaging learning tool for those teaching in the UK.
The Role of Social Media in Educational Institutions
Social media has become an integral part of educational institutions, transforming the way students learn, interact, and engage with each other. By adopting social media, educational institutions can create interactive learning environments that promote student engagement and enhance the overall learning process. These platforms provide students with access to educational content, facilitate knowledge sharing, and foster critical thinking.
For instance, social media platforms can be used to create online communities where students can discuss course materials, share resources, and collaborate on projects. This not only helps students stay informed and motivated but also encourages them to engage more deeply with the content. Additionally, social media can help educational institutions build their brand, attract new students, and promote their programs and services, making it a valuable tool for both learning and marketing.
Social media can help kids with online learning
Although it can sometimes get a bad rep for taking up too much of young peoples’ time, there are many ways social media usage can be positive. This is particularly true for high school students, who often use social media to research schools and engage with educational content. Teachers have a great opportunity to tap into the popularity of social channels to encourage their students to study. A recent study found that more than 70 percent of students feel that the tech they use for studying should be tailored to their requirements and preferences through social media feeds, enhancing their online learning experience.
Choosing the Right Social Media Platform
With a plethora of social media platforms available, selecting the right one for educational institutions can be challenging. The choice largely depends on the institution’s goals, target audience, and the type of content they wish to share. For example, Facebook and Twitter are excellent for sharing updates, news, and announcements, while Instagram and YouTube are better suited for visual content.
When choosing a social media platform, educational institutions should consider the following factors:
- Target Audience: Identify the students, parents, and staff the institution aims to reach.
- Content Type: Determine the type of content to be shared, whether it’s text, images, or videos.
- Engagement: Decide how the institution wants to interact with its audience, through comments, messages, or other forms of engagement.
- Analytics: Plan how to measure the success of social media efforts using analytics tools.
By carefully considering these factors, educational institutions can select the most effective social media platform to meet their needs and achieve their goals.
Create feeds and hashtags using social media tools
Teachers can use social media accounts to centralise knowledge of their classes, making it easy for students to find and learn from. Teachers can use these platforms to foster collaborative learning, where students share resources and engage with content together. For example, where external channels might not be appropriate, the school may have its own internal intranet system, where pages or interactive areas can be created in which students can share information, learnings, tips and opinions on course content. Twitter is also another popular way to share information with students; using a unique hashtag linked to your class or course is a great way to encourage dialogue and collate class information in one place. The digestible nature of Twitter can make it an ideal tool for sharing information that students may benefit from outside of time spent in the classroom, while also enhancing their digital literacy.
Record missed classes and extra clips of information
Video is a great way to complement lessons and is a key component of modern educational technology. Popular social media tools like Periscope and Snapchat can be used by teachers to record and share missed class content. Once upon a time, a missed class meant missing out on a one-time opportunity to learn specific content. Teachers can also record extra learning materials and tips, as well as bite-sized chunks of key learnings, making them easily and readily accessible to a young audience that spends at least 27 hours per week online. These new techniques help students to engage with learning in a way that is more akin to the digital world they have grown up in.
Encourage blogging to improve written skills and digital literacy
Learning how to write English eloquently and creatively is an important tool for self-expression, and social networks can play a significant role in this process. Introducing blogs into your classroom is a great way to engage students through modern technology, while also leveraging online social networks for broader engagement. Today, students are less likely to write their thoughts down with a pen and paper; more than likely they will take to social media instead. Introducing blogs into your classroom is a great way to engage students through modern technology, whilst encouraging them to express themselves. Not only does blogging help young people to practice their writing skills and expression, it also encourages them to find and engage in hobbies and interests. Having a website where blogs are published also enables excellent blogs to be on display, and helps others to learn from them.
Photo sharing
To today’s young people, social networking and photo sharing are ways of life, often linked to everyday activities such as eating dinner, meeting up with friends, doing homework, and even doing household chores! Although it might not be practical for your school to have its own Snapchat account, there are other ways you can bring this culture into the classroom through social networking sites such as Flickr. Practically anything is being visually shared online, particularly through Snapchat. Flickr allows users a certain level of engagement, whilst also providing a simple and vast platform through which to host various images. It is easy to set up a Flickr account and this can have many benefits for students. For example, you could encourage students to use it to put together albums that supplement various aspects of their curriculums. It could also be used to help students share useful images that they have either taken themselves or found online.
Measuring the Impact of Social Media on Learning
Understanding the impact of social media on learning is crucial for educational institutions to make informed, data-driven decisions. There are several ways to measure this impact, including engagement metrics, learning outcomes, student satisfaction, and knowledge retention.
Educational institutions can use social media analytics tools to track engagement metrics such as likes, comments, and shares. Learning management systems can help track learning outcomes like grades and test scores. Additionally, conducting surveys and gathering feedback from students can provide insights into their satisfaction with social media-based learning.
By measuring these factors, educational institutions can refine their social media strategies, improve student engagement, and enhance the overall learning experience. This data-driven approach ensures that social media is effectively integrated into the educational process, benefiting both students and educators.
Be mindful of over-usage
Whilst social media in the UK is undoubtedly popular, there is also a real risk of danger from excessive use, such as becoming addicted, losing sleep, lack of concentration on studies, lack of self-esteem – and many more. In fact, recent research in the UK found that one in five students are losing sleep due to excessive social media use at night. The report, which surveyed more than 900 pupils between the ages of 12 and 15, even found that a significant number of young people are waking up in the night to check their social accounts or send messages. While teachers can’t ultimately control how their students use social media outside of school hours, they do have an important role to play in helping young people to healthily manage their use of social media during the day and keep students informed about the potential risks.
