The Impact of Social Media on the Education Sector - Outline Example

?Impact of Social Media on the education Sector IMPACT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON THE EDUCATION SECTOR id] [Module and number] [Submitted to] January 8th 2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary 3 Introduction 3 Education and Social Media 5 The Concept of Education 5 How Education Merges with Social Media 6 Collaboration is the Key Distance Learning via Social Media 9 Mobile Technology and Education via Social Media 10 Social Media and Education Based Marketing and Advertisement 12 Existing Social Media Resources for Education 15 Conclusions and Recommendations 16 References 18 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The present times are witnessing the bloom of Social Media as the most active and prevalent of the trends of the society. The phenomenon of Social Media can very well be termed as a trend setter as the norms of the human society. This research is aimed at analyzing what Social Media is and what integral importance it has when embedded with the education sector. It highlights the importance associated with the functioning and challenges associated with the core area of research. INTRODUCTION Social media is characterized by extensive boundaries and revolutionizing features that should be adopted in order to pace up with the revolutionizing of the restructured human civilization. The boom of information and communications technology in the late twentieth century has sparked a never ending chain of change in the human society. The advent of things earlier unknown to man has emerged so as to govern the norms of the entire human race. Terminologies like web, social networks, web2.0 etcetera were unknown to man and not even in the wildest of their thoughts could our forefathers think that their children would be living in a world that would be completely dependent on high tech stuff. The modern life of a human being is such that it is devoid of much of the in-person personalization and physical effort that one had to go through before the advent of the internet. Today, a smart techie resides in the pocket or the palms of every individual that serves the purpose of connecting us to the grand virtual world of the internet. The social web portals over the internet are breeding grounds for virtual real time connectivity round the clock. The social networking arena has engrossed itself into the human lives such that each individual stays signed into his virtual profile round the clock. These social networks have been the roots of various social media that have evolved from them. Social Media is the new terminology with which the visual social connections of each digital device are connected to each other via the internet. The platforms that support the evolution and maintenance of the social connections are various and limitless. Examples of platforms supporting social web profiles are Facebook, Twitter, Orkut LinkdIn etc. The globalization of today’s world sees it as such that virtually every human being is connected to the web in one way or the other. People connected to the internet have the privilege of accessing all other sorts of information on it. Via the Internet anyone connected to it can stay up-to-date with the very latest information, can telecommute, check stock prices, compare prices and shop online, communicate with others in chat rooms or on bulletin boards, take different online learning courses, learn how to cook food, book airline, train tickets and even earn an accredited degree. The current study is aimed at the standardization of the social web tools and the flexibility of web 2.0. It association in the field of education is highlighted with the aim to target the benefits associated with it. Challenges of incorporating social media into the education are mentioned in terms of the effects that they have on the corporate arena. Specifically the concept of e-business with respect to its integration with the social media is discussed. Marketing and advertising are also developing new meanings in line with the development of social media across the globe. EDUCATION AND SOCIAL MEDIA The concept of Education Education is one of the foremost pillars on which man stands and the present world runs. It is universally acclaimed and accepted that education contributes significantly to human society. Education incorporates the cultural and intellectual resources of the society within itself eventually emerging into better output. The output of education is aimed at preparing students for implication and obligation in every sense and meaning of the term. Education is of such integral importance because it is idealized that the students should be embedded with just the right combination of professional expertise accompanied with the insight to survive in the intellectual globalized environment. The skills needed specifically for this purpose may be the aptitude towards exploration, probing and engaging of the global norms and heritage. The resultant is the ability of the students to better understand the challenges that they are expected to face and also to strengthen mutual strength within them in order to survive in a society of increasing challenges. How Education Merges with Social Media The aptitude of the human race towards the growing technologically assisted ease and efficiency make social media a very attractive means by which education can be enhanced and modernized. The advent of Social Media and web 2.0 are landmarks that have not only fast tracked the development of the human race but have also become the foremost source of socialization (Huang et al., 2009) thus eventually becoming a considerable backend upon which processes can be based. Social media has limitless boundaries of penetration and adaptation that would not only assist in learning and education in the field of science and technology but in I all other fields of life as well. Just in line with the scope of human theology, anything that is a source of attention form humans is very probably to leave lasting effects on their memory and conscience as well. Thus it is owing to the popularity and adaptability of social media on such a universal scale that experts advocate it as a massive potential means of imparting education among youngsters and elders alike. There have already been certain examples such as Lankshear & Knobel, 2006. The said educators have researched and concluded that the inclusion of media can enhance the powers of education. Collaboration is the Key Ease of use associated with computing devices, the timely responsiveness of digital mediums. The ability to have real time interactions without the restriction of physical presence of the contributors is just a few of the benefits the merger of education with social media is expected to give man. The distance gap that students used to feel with their instructors in conventional education systems bridges up to quite an extent with they get to know their educator indirectly via his social media profile and interaction details. Many misconceptions about instructors get brushed away resulting in the lessening of the communication gap between the teacher and his students. All of this is just an additive advantage to the enhancement in education of the student. It is by virtue of these digitized technologies that the modern day teacher does not seem like an alien to his students and they feel they can understand him better now that they get to know him to some extent. The popularity of the use of social media in the education sector has thus become very popular In the recent times. Many a students in the present times are not full time students as per their growing economic needs and economic trends. Since almost 90% students are either part time or full time employees at their respective jobs along with their education pursuance routine, they require special and timely learning techniques that would assist them in achieving runtime solutions and course information whenever they want. All of these modifying needs of students cannot be fulfilled by the conventional methods of studying and rather need the use of social media based education to assist them with their fast paced lives. (Silius et al, 2011) The enhanced learning systems supported by social media incorporate participation from students from all over their online community. They enable creating, manipulating, personalizing and sharing of content online within their community. Students can interact freely with respect to their learning needs. They can chat, write news, manage events, write blogs and share files. McMillan and Chavis (1986) describe that communities have the following four features because of which they establish and flourish may they be made for any purpose: Feeling of Membership The feeling of belonging to a community naturally irks many responsibilities among individuals. The community becomes the identification of the member individual. Influence Member of a community have their own personal influence upon other members of the community and similarly get influenced by other members as well. The norms of the community similarly influence its members. Reinforcement of needs For all the members of a community alike, their needs get addressed by other members. Emotional Connection Frequent, timely, strong, need fulfilling interaction among members often irks feelings of attachment and connection among members. Thus the members feel emotionally connected to their community. Evaluating in the light of the above mentioned characteristics of belonging to a community it may well be ascertained that if all these characteristics become part of an education based community, the members of the community become motivated to the discipline and activities associated with it. Sense of belonging strengthens the relationship of learning and responsibility as well. Social Media usage enhances the learning systems and teaching. The social aspects were not incorporated in earlier conventional modes of study and students were encouraged to study in solitude. This however is longer the case. The social structures that exist in real world are often depicted via the online communities. (Boyd, Ellison, 2007). One of the foremost reasons why students feel highly inclined towards education based social media applications is that these ventures merge education with the extracurricular activities of interest and also often involve the usage of their most favorite and latest technological devices for use and access. In the context of education, the social media based services need to be upgraded to certain challenging levels that ensure the sanctity and quality of the content being propagated on them and also that it is being solely used for education purposes. It is essential that the overall quality of the social media based education services be monitored by evaluating the content running through them. Distance Learning via Social Media E-Learning is the need of the hour. In the rapid changing world e- learning can be made much effective and attractive with the inclusion of Social media tools in it. Studies by various researches are emerging to prove the effectiveness of social media in distance learning. For example, recent studies have disclosed that the exposure to an instructor via social networking enhances the motivation level of the entire class and thus results in the betterment of the environment of the classroom as a whole. This in turn is obviously reflective with positive changes in the performance of the students. Mazer, Murphy and Simonds (2007). The most popular and the most massive of the social networks namely MySpace and Facebook have been known to have been the foremost contributors in this regard. This is owing to the reason that even the most ‘technology-unfamiliar’ of the people (mostly those living in remote locations where awareness to computing sciences are not very common) have heard of these ever famous social networks. Thanks to media coverage internet environments are recognized and understood even where they do not exist. Specifically speaking, these social media tools are vast domains within themselves and possess diverse characters that fit specific class needs readily. MOBILE TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION VIA SOCIAL MEDIA With the onset of Web 2.0 and the evolution of mobile devices with wireless internet, a new learning model has emerged. This new paradigm highly facilitates information sharing on the go. The combined effect of both the mobile internet connectivity and social media on this horizon not only enhanced the socialization factor but also reinforced the process of learning. The phenomenon truly implements the idea of learning through knowledge sharing anywhere, everywhere and all the time. The non-verbal communication mode (i.e. through images, audio-visual objects and pictures) gained enormous popularity through mobile social media. The power of expression has increased manifold with the people’s habit of being more expressive. The doctrine of concealing knowledge died out with the growth of mobile social media. Many researchers after feeling the effectiveness of this phenomenon nowadays try to exploit the mobile social media for educating people. Huang et al. (2009) were among the first researchers who initially proposed the idea of collaborative/combined learning through blogs. Witnessing the maturity and stability of mobile connectivity and satisfactory data transfer environment, Huang et al. (2009) further improved the idea with the introduction of mobile collaborative/sharing based learning. The new learning model facilitates smooth learning. However along with the technical aspects that are required for implementation of a stable infrastructure for provision of learning environment through the mentioned technology, there is a dire need of establishment of controlled content base with efficient knowledge sharing mechanisms and services to facilitate learners’ requirements. The services are under development these days. The main objective is maximization of interaction among people with exploration of common concerns and interests that assist in formation of new improved social groups. An analysis of current situation reveals that there are four major mobile operating system platforms for smart phones namely iPhone OS by Apple Inc., Android by Google, Windows Phone 7 by Microsoft and Symbian by Nokia. All of these platforms offer maximum social media accessibility by allowing almost all types of social networks and social sites to run on smart phones. This indeed combines the power of mobile internet accessibility and social media for information sharing. However there is still much room left to be exploited in order to achieve optimized learning and education in a wireless (on the go) manner using social media tools. The physical presence of academic peers is of high importance in learning and education of a group of learners. Learning through mobile internet using social media lacks this feature. Considering the importance of this feature the researchers introduced the techniques of CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work) (Weinberger, & Fischer, 2006) and MCSCW (Mobile Computer Supported Cooperative Work) (Zurita, Nussbaum, & Salinas, 2005). This technique works through the implementation of virtual collaborative environments that allow virtual presence of participant of learners’ groups. Learners are conferred the blessings of peer based learning through concept of communities of practice. This term is originally borrowed from social networks and here refers to a subgroup of partners or participants with similar learning interests. Partners and participants are users who possess related information for others and are willing to share it. SOCIAL MEDIA and EDUCATION BASED MARKETING AND ADVERTISEMENT. The connectivity of people, enhanced by social media has enabled great progress. The inception of social media or the Social Media was initially meant only to enhance the connectivity of people. This field has shown a great progress over the last four years. Currently the Social websites have emerged as a new horizon for computational marketing and advertisement. According to SEO & PPC Expert UK (2007), social networks propagate and flourish a phenomenon termed as viral marketing. This term can also be used interchangeably with word of mouth marketing. The main concept behind this school of thought is that social networks cannot be used to get profits and revenue directly out of them but rather they are a means by which the marketing of a certain business can be enhanced by manifolds. The embedding of Web 2.0 into Enterprise 2.0 for the education sector assist education based firms to incorporate data available on the internet into their internal systems. The branches and expansions of Enterprise 2.0 further get expanded when advanced computing methodologies such as data mining and machine learning are incorporated to embed them in the field of education. Vishal Sachdev argues in his work “Motivation for Social Computing” that social networks revolve around three basic psychological aspects of man: autonomy, the aspiration to compete an and the ability to relate to things. He urges the use of these psychological factors when designing and planning marketing activities that are based upon the use of social media in education. (Mithas et al, 2011) At enterprise level the HANDLING OF EDUCATION RELATED KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT becomes a relevant challenge. Stephen Anderson and Kannan Mohan, in their work “Social Net­working in Knowledge Management” (Mithas et al, 2011) discuss experiences of four firms and emphasize that marketing for education based social networking should follow their suggested steps for knowledge management. Google’s co-existence with Social media and its dominance over the internet is beyond doubt. Being ahead in all aspects Google enjoys a long supremacy. Be it the economic share in the e-market or the market share of total internet traffic, Google has always proven to be invincible. Hats off to the social media that now it is no more an as impressive giant as it used to be. In August 2010, Facebook toppled Google as the top online destination. Google is at par with its new competitor, The Social Media. The social media offers some prominent features that highly influence the marketing and advertisement of the products. Few of them are as follows, Targeted marketing to the similar interest based communities. Replication of word of mouth at manifolds and within no time (Viral Marketing). Virtually inexpensive and yet, most effective. Real time results with guaranteed feedback. High connectivity with the market. Along with the Search Engine Optimization (SEO), a new factor that needs to be taken into account for the promotion and value enhancement of a website is Social Media Optimization (SMO). This is related to the socialization of website to a greater extent through social media. The impact of social media on businesses is observed by the fact that the top 500 fortune companies have their presence on facebook, twitter, yahoo etc. Most of them possess their own blogs. Rests of them rely highly on their constant reviews on big blogs like Mashable and TechCrunch etc. These blogs are the main source of breaking product news for the company. The giants have formal contracts signed with social media. According to Finley (2011), many of the companies have found social media propagation to be successful in propagating a company’s goods to customers. According to Gordhamer (2009), the businesses are experiencing at least four major shifts. ‘Selling and Marketing’ means ‘Making More Connections’. The enhanced presence on the social media ensures business. ‘Large Advertisement Campaigns’ are replaced with ‘Small actions’. Virtually everyone has its own network for broadcasting through social networks. Timely small acts pay a lot more than huge advertisement and marketing campaigns. No need to project a sophisticated, restricted and formal image of the business. To be ourselves holds more value on this media. The companies that are informal with their employees are more successful on the social media due to the freedom their employees exercise. The accessibility impact from ‘Hard Reach-ability’ has changed to ‘Be with everyone almost all the time’. Having exposed preferences of large audience make it highly possible to enter the communities with highest level of connectivity. EXISTING SOCIAL MEDIA RESOURCES FOR EDUCATION Among many of the existing social media resources the following discussion mentions a few prevalent social networking sites that are being used for education. Site by Jane Hart (2007, 2008). The site focuses on the use of the tools of web 2.0 and categorizes them with respect to their use for learning. The site mainly emphasizes on the module of social networks as a means of supporting social communities and social learning.(Hoffman, 2009). Micro blogging sites such as Twitter and Tumblr are specifically mentioned as private social networking forums that assist specifically in distant learning. The site lists more than sixty social networking tools that are related to education. Elgg (http://elgg.org/) and Ning (http://www.ning.com/) are private social networking tools that are freeware. These freeware permit the user to create social communities that are personalized. The former one is an open ware and can be customized to act like one’s own server. The second one is a cloud based application that is supported by advertisements. Education can be imparted well via both these platforms as they enable managing and creation of online communities that are restricted to members only. The communication tools and widgets are available for customization for each particular module and course. Each user has their own profile specific customizable space with personalized blogging, content sharing and discussion boards etc. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS It would not be incorrect if stated that Social Media is the need of the hour. Youngsters and elders respond towards Social Media in an indifferent manner. This factor is a major trigger in the inclusion of Social Media within the Education Sector. Facebook has been witnessed as a potential platform that is acclaimed all over the world and is thus recognizable as well. Embedding education with the Social Media has resulted in positive influences upon the students may they belong to any age or class. Adaptability of the Social Media norms is massive among youngsters and it is thus recommended that implementation of social media norms into the education saga should be enhanced. The Corporate sector has also become highly dependent on the socializing arena that is generated via the Social Media saga. The challenges associated with this new and integrating phenomenon are to be addressed with effectiveness and control so as to ensure the rapid and healthy execution of the stakeholders associated with the concept. It is also essential that social ethics be made prevalent on the social media strengthening the grounds for its future usage in education and the executed usability associated with it. It is recommended that all new emerging entrepreneurs should integrate their concerns with those of the social media whether they are individuals or organizations especially with reference to advancements in means of acquiring education. The future of the human society is proposed to be based upon social media triggered interactions and modules and it is also owing to the fact that the pros of the promoting systems outweigh its cons. References Anderson, T. (2006). “Teaching a Distance education course using educational social software.” Virtual Canuck. 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