Social media has become a significant part of our life and it has also deeply affected the educational environment. It plays a crucial role for the educational sector and has brought many changes. It has both positive and negative impact depending on the classroom environment, teaching methods and students' academic performance.
Some of the positive impacts are :
1) Transformation of the teaching and learning process
Social media has enhanced the method of teaching as teachers as access to a variety of teaching resources and platforms to improve their methods. Also they can share various learning material , communicate with the students at any reasonable time.
For example nowadays teachers use WhatsApp as a means to share an important notice.
2) Platform for Collaboration
Social media has opened up different platforms for students to collaborate with their fellow students and also with their teachers outside the classroom. They use chatrooms as a mean to communicate with each other online. It has helped many students who are timid or back away from interacting face to face.
3) Enhance knowledge
With the help of social media students can get their hands on various type of educational materials. They can follow different educational platform and post their questions to get answers from different perspectives. This will help them to pursue their interest.
4) Interaction in the classroom
Social media has become a platform for students to interact more with their classmates. Now students discuss their assignments with their peers in social media which help them to connect more with each other.
5) Increase the scope of leaning
Social media has opened a new window for learning as it helps students to get more study material. Channels like YouTube have made learning more engaging for the students as it provides various perspective of different creators.
However there are also some negative impacts of social media:
1) Distraction
While social media helps students to engage more in class it also hinders the learning. Students are usually tempted to check their social media account which can distract them during their study.
2) Reliability of source
Getting information from social media gives you many different perspectives but it can also give you misinformation. Students may face misinformation or biased content while searching but they should know the difference between reliable and unreliable sources. Teachers should help them in getting their facts check and provide them with some credible platforms.
3) Privacy and data security
While interacting on different platforms, exchange of student information takes place and there is a chance that the provided information may get misused. Therefore, it's a teacher's responsibility to keep the information safe and protected.
4) Cyber bullying
While social media helps students to interact but it can also lead to cyber bullying and negative comments which can impact mental well being of the students. Hence , the teacher should be vigilant and try to keep things in check.
In conclusion, social media has impacted the classroom in different ways . It has transformed the teaching and learning methods, became a platform for collaboration, increased interaction, enhanced knowledge, and increased the scope of learning. However, it comes with it's own challenges like distraction, privacy breach, cyber bullying and reliability of sources. To control these drawbacks, the teachers should act with vigilance and adapt the new methods so that they can prepare the students for the digital work.
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