Social Networking as an Educational Tool

    This post has been made as a summary of my own summary on a chapter about social networking as an educational tool. If you are curious about the original one, you can check the link of the summary. 

    Social platforms are inseparable from daily lives for many people. The root of these platforms dates back to web 2.0 tools. These social networking platforms had proved their usefulness by vastly increasing the interactivity of people and soon enough scholars got curious whether they could utilize social networking as a means of educational tool.

    After a while, once these social networking platforms have took off, educators have realized not only that they can utilize social networking for education, but also the fact that they have to so that they meet the requirements of modern age and divert an already common practice into education. 

    Platforms such as wikis and blogs have created opportunities for learners to interact with each others and in doing so improved learning for everyone. Though this freedom has obvious benefits, there are  drawbacks, the biggest hurdle being the abundance of false information. On the other hand drawbacks are outweighed by the positives and it is possible to minimize, even completely eradicate the drawbacks in the cases of some students. 

    Millennials tend to prefer interactive content over static ones, which gives an important responsibility to teachers. By utilizing the tools we have talked about so far, teachers can make their lessons interactive; taking the attention of students as a result. Nevertheless, teachers shouldn't go overboard, otherwise it might backfire. There might be teachers we are willing to create lots of content for their students to learn. The intention might be pure, but what their role in social networking is that they are just facilitate instead of producing. The role of producing is instead left to students. Teachers need to offer the tools and platforms; introduce how to use them and leave the scene to students. By letting students create their own content through interactions with others, they learn through personalized content that suits best to their needs.