Alex Barrett Source 4

What weighs more, the cost or benefits of social media in education?

Okoro, Ephraim. "Integrating Social Media Technologies In Higher Education: Costs-Benefits Analysis." Journal Of International Education Research 8.3 (2012): 255-262. ERIC. Web. 8 Mar. 2015.

This article illustrated the benefits of using social media in education and also described how to exactly implement it. Since social media is growing and becoming more an more prevalent in education, teachers need to understand the impact of it. Using social media can enhance collabaorative learning and students are able to have an on going communication with one another in the process of learning. Students build strong friendships, build interpersonal relationships, and interact constantly with themselves. Teachers post group activities and lessons online, and students can work together and communicate to learn the lesson. It also provides students who are too uncomfortable with speaking in front of the class to voice their opinions and give answers online. This can increase productivity and give more students a chance to voice their opinions. Teachers should not completely rely on the online side of education though because attendance can drop and students can solely rely on the things teachers post online to learn. Teachers need to have a good mix of face-to-face learning and online. 

This source changes my mind on this topic again. I was on the fence, but now I am for using social media in education. Using social media outside of the classroom is a great way for students to continue learning and keep the conversation going. They can communicate with each other and actually build stronger friendships with one another. I believe this is a good idea because it brings in a new way of learning and thinking for the students. This brings about some new ideas for me. Is there actually a perfect balance between actual class learning and online learning? Will students also become too dependent on the online side of things? I agree that it will improve participation and bring a new way of learning to the table. Students can also increase communication with each other and the professor. I disagree that students' attendance will drop because with the right mix of classroom learning and online learning, attendance should be relatively stable. This article does help me answer the question for this blog post. The benefits of implementing social media into education weigh much more than the costs of it. The thing I didn't consider was the friendships that are built and the on going learning among the students. 

This source agrees with my first source that integrating social media with education is a good idea. Source 1 demonstrated that participation would increase among the students and students who don't want to speak in front of the class can voice their opinion online. Source 2 claims that students get distracted by social media and many students prefer not to integrate it into their classrooms. However this article claims that the benefits outweigh the costs and students can learn much more if social media is part of their education. I tend to agree more with source 1 and 4 because the benefits do outweigh the costs and it seems like students can learn and participate much more when they use social media in their classroom. 

What's the right mix of social media in the classroom? Do grades tend to increase because of it? I need to be asking questions concerning the advantages and disadvantages because that is the main question at hand. My research will continue to be about finding the advantages, disadvantages, and the proper mix of teaching with social media. So far, I have found a few advantages and disadvantages of using social media and a few students reactions to it. These all go together to help decide whether or not the integration of social media in education is a good idea.