The Social Media in E-Learning - Research Paper Example

Through the ever-evolving technology, social media network sites have increased significantly. Though the number is relatively high, the commonly used are Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Google Docs, and Yahoo drive. These sites aim at enhancing a social interaction between people in a way that proves quite technological than social communication. Social media services are depicted to focus mainly on seven different building blocks. These blocks include sharing, relationships, identity, presence, conversations, groups, and reputation.

This paper discusses in depth about social media as a tool in E-Learning. It explains of the impacts of E-Learning tools to the teacher and the students, the challenges taken, strategies on how to overcome the challenges, and future technological impact on learning and teaching. The internet has the potential to change the way an individual accesses and retains knowledge. Different ways on how teachers communicate and impart knowledge to their students have come up. More technological techniques have been introduced and this entails E-Learning.

E-Learning can be described from different perceptions such as online learning, distance learning, or even networked learning. E-Learning as a technique of obtaining knowledge has both optimistic and pessimistic impacts to the student and the teacher. It has greatly played an important role in enhancing economic, social, and educational growth in the society. Research depicts that use of the internet as a learning device, poses critical success on education (Bonk, 2011). Some of these positive impacts of E-Learning include enhancement of teacher-student relationship.

Through the internet, teachers are able to interact with their students more frequently and for long hours. The communication between teachers and students is enhanced through asynchronous discussions. Any important information that the teacher wants to tell the students is passed on at a faster rate compared to waiting until the teacher meets face to face with the students. This enhances urgency and efficiency in teach (Allen, 2011). The internet as a channel for learning provides extensive information to both the teachers and the students.

This becomes easier for the teachers as they are able to retrieve and invest in more innovative learning. Information is directly posted to students for immediate discussions. Moreover, teachers tend to have a positive attitude towards their work hence providing personalized learning. Research portrays that E-Learning is a more friendly alternative for learning compared to the face-face classroom teaching where the teachers often find themselves dictating content and pedagogy. In addition, emphasis on leaner-centric activities not only enhances mutual personality of online learning but also motivates the students in engaging themselves in their studies and taking responsibility of their learning.

E-Learning enables instructors and curriculum developers worldwide to share resources more easily and together, thus building learning-object repositories (White, et.al. 2011). However, as depicted, everything has an advantage and a disadvantage. One main pessimistic impact of using online learning is that it lacks any of the specifics demanded in assessment of theories. Despite the valuable and crucial support provided by the online learning to the teachers and makers, specialized marking applications should be preference.

Another negative impact of using o