Aaliya Khan | 
For most people, social media is a very important part of their lives. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, opt for your favourite. Also, there's no denying that our day is incomplete if we don’t use these sites. However, what can we really mean by social media? Is it simply restricted to FB, Instagram, WhatsApp or Twitter? No, it isn’t. Social media is outlined as websites and pc programs that enable individuals to speak and share data on the web employing a pc or mobile phone. Now, if you split the words social and media, then ‘social’ comes from the Latin word ‘socius’, which refers to a friend and the word ‘media’ refers to mass communication. Thus, social media in straightforward terms may be called as an off-the-cuff platform for mass communication.
Types of Social Media Sites
Below are the few most well-liked styles or types of social media sites:
Social Networking Sites:
A social networking website is a web platform that enables users to make a public profile and interact with other users. Some social networking websites like LinkedIn, are used for establishing skilled connections, whereas sites like Facebook straddle the road between private and professional pursuits.
Social Blogging Sites:
A journal, short for weblog, is basically an updated web content used for private commentary or business content. Blogs usually are interactive and contain sections at the bottom of the posts where the readers can leave comments. A number of the samples of blogging websites include Tumblr, Medium, etc.
Media Sharing Sites:
Media-sharing sites are those sites which permit you to transfer your photos, videos, audio to an internet site which may be retrieved from anywhere within the world. It's then up to you whether to share that media with the planet or simply to your cluster of friends. Examples of such sites include YouTube, Instagram, etc.
Discussion Sites:
A discussion forum is basically a website wherever individuals assemble in order to have discussions about a few specific topic and raise queries and get them answered at the earliest. Reddit and Quora are examples of discussion sites.
In the past two years, the importance of social media was a lot more understood. Social media features a growing quality worldwide. The year 2020 has been a game changer for everybody in varied aspects and ways. With countries going under lockdown due to Covid-19 for months, our wants, priorities, and fashion too had taken a shift. The way we earn, spend, learn, and even socialize was not like the way we did before 2020. Since we were not able to move out of our homes for days and even months, web and social media sites were our sole resort. It absolutely was during this time that we understood the real importance of social media and the way in which it can impact our lives.
Importance of Social Media
A few of the important purposes of social media are listed below:
- To stay connected to your near and dear ones
- To let the planet realize you
- To keep yourself updated
- To share your viewpoints, beliefs or thoughts
- To search for and meet new individuals or friends
- To search for content that's fascinating and amusive
- To create a name for your business and for its growth
- To advertise a few products or any service
Social Media for Students
But apart from all this, there is one more very important part that social media plays. Have you ever given a thought that social media can be used for educational purposes? How can students use social media platform for their education and for teaching-learning process?
Social media plays a very important role in students' lives. It is usually easy to use, to access data, offer valuable data and to communicate. Tutors and students may be connected to each other and can use these platforms for teaching and learning. Social media promotes self-reliant learning, which prepares the learners to look for answers and build choices and make decisions accordingly.
Social media also allows students to widen their horizons by way of connecting and collaborating beyond the physical room, which suggests that the students will begin to offer their expertise to the globally connected world long before they even enter the workforce or corporate world. Social media shapes and presents data in such a way that it excites and makes sense to students more than the traditional or conventional tools do. Whether it's through a shared article with comment practicality or attending a livestream of a very important event or a survey associated with course materials or through an issue posed to the broader community.
Advantages of Social Media for Students
The following are the various social media platforms which students as well as the teachers can use as learning and teaching tools:
Youtube for Online Learning and Teaching:
YouTube is an informative platform where a lot of study material from experts is present in the form of videos and short clips. YouTube can be used to make classroom lessons more entertaining and keep students entertained while they are still learning. It is very beneficial for visual learners. Teachers can use YouTube to find videos that will help make their lessons more understandable and enjoyable.
Facebook as an engagement tool:
Students can also use Facebook for educational purposes, including collaboration, discussion and to obtain extra help. Students can form groups on Facebook and post questions to obtain feedback from peers. They can share links, such as videos on the wall of the group page and personal messages. Teachers can access the Facebook group to send reminders to their students about assignments and tests.
Whatsapp as a communication channel:
WhatsApp supports free voice and video calls so teachers and students can stay in touch, even outside stipulated study periods. Various educational groups can be created and the notes, videos or other informative links regarding various topics can be posted on the group to keep students engaged with the learning material and the subject.
Instagram as a collaborative platform:
Instagram is the best app for developing interpersonal skills. Thanks to the attractive platform, students may engage more and respect one other’s strengths and characteristics. It uses audio-visual techniques to assist students in becoming more accepting of one another and practicing constructive interaction. The reels option is nowadays used widely in order to teach various concepts in simple ways.
Twitter as a research tool:
Twitter can be utilized as a research tool by having students use the search bar. Students can follow relevant hashtags, search for people, topics, and keywords, or even subscribe to a list to learn more information about a specific topic they are researching and learning in school.
Quora as a problem solving platform:
Students can take a lot of benefit from this platform. If they have any problem in any of the topics in their syllabus, they can simply visit Quora and ask or post their doubts or problems immediately and they can get those doubts solved. Apart from this, they can also learn how to answer a question skillfully and can also improve their vocabulary and content writing.
Blogs for creative demonstration:
Teachers and learners can benefit a lot from various blogging platforms. Teachers can encourage students to make personal blogs and write and share their essays via blogging. For instance, students in a classroom can interact and share opinions on a subject through blogs. Commenting and holding discussions in a blog is one of the best methods to hold positive and compelling discussions among students. In addition to this, teachers can help and encourage students to improve their writing skills through blogging on various topics discussed inside classrooms or even to write their views on a specific topic.
LinkedIn for professional connections:
Social media platforms like LinkedIn are an ideal tool to help students in building professional connections. Students can create LinkedIn profiles and connect with like-minded professionals from a specific industry. Platforms like LinkedIn can help students in building connections that can aid them in their professional lives and career progression.
Pinterest for creative learning:
Pinterest helps to create online open boards in which the learners/students, teachers and parents can interact, share and post on a single forum. It encourages the students to work online, voice their opinions, build interest in learning new ideas and concepts and ask questions and seek answers. It also helps the teachers to draw up lesson plans, share ideas, organize information in a useful and interesting manner. Apart from this, Pinterest also helps students to interact with others, use and organize resources for their assignments, projects, tests, etc.
Learning Management System (LMS) for Online Education:
The LMS system strengthens student participation and makes team projects easy to collaborate. This system exists to tackle student and learning related issues to improve education schemes. It is beneficial for institutions to use popular learning management systems with social media integration to have the best reach and effect through the system.
Video Conferencing Apps for Digital Learning:
Online learning via Zoom, Google Meet or Skype has seen a rapid increase since the early Covid days. Today the whole world is discovering the importance of video conferencing apps in education. Unlike a traditional classroom, a digital classroom has limitless possibilities for both, teachers as well as students to explore. This shows how easily learning can happen even while sitting at home with the help of such platforms.
Online Tuition Sites to encourage new teaching methods:
Various online tuition and learning websites are available for students nowadays. Students are able to access the knowledge that they need and in the process, they will be able to catch up with the classes they have missed. Online tutoring is the perfect way to help children learn and ensure that they get the best grades possible so that they achieve academic goals, which in the end, means helping them in achieving more success. Mathademy is one such example of online tuition websites. Talking about Mathademy, it is one such tutoring company which aims to transform the way mathematics is taught to the students in India and across the world. It provides one-to-one math tutoring, both, in-home and online tutoring for school, university and post-graduation level mathematics.Click here to Book a FREE Demo Now
SlideShare for better learning experience:
It is basically a platform which helps to build knowledge among the students quickly from concise, well-presented content from top experts. Instead of scrolling through pages of text, students can flip through a SlideShare deck and absorb the same information in a fraction of the time. It is a form of PowerPoint Presentation.
Google Docs to manage learning resources:
Google Docs can also help students and teachers streamline homework assignments and class projects. The sharing features allow teachers to provide group access to the same documents, which can serve as at-home study guides. Even homework assignments may be assigned and accessed through Google Documents, which will cut down on paperwork.
To conclude, we can say that social media is a huge part of our regular life and there’s no purpose of keeping it away from the teaching and learning process. The rising role of social media in teaching-learning process also cannot be ignored. It not only provides students access to useful and relevant data but also connects them with leaning teams and alternative educational systems that make their overall learning process even more fascinating and engaging. Social media platforms, if used wisely, can be of great use to students as well as teachers not just within, but also outside of the classrooms. However, the teachers and parents need to make sure that the students don't misuse these tools. Social media platforms together with technology can facilitate students in approaching learning with great interest and enthusiasm.