Alex Barrett Source 5

Is social media use in higher education a good idea or bad idea?

Pătruţ, Monica, and Bogdan Pătruţ. "Social Media in Higher Education: Teaching in Web 2.0." IGI Global, 2013. 1-474. Web. 10 Mar. 2015. doi:10.4018/978-1-4666-2970-7

This book described reasons why many teachers and schools are starting to use social media sites, like Facebook in their teaching. The growing popularity of social media websites among students has gotten the attention of the educational system. Everyone knows teens and young adults are always using these sites to stay connected with each other and find out what's going one in the world. Many teachers noticed this and wanted to take advantage. Why not integrate social media into the classroom. Teachers began to have discussions and put up homework assignments on these sites. Many teachers realized that this is a great way to boost participation, especially with students are do not like to talk in front of a class. It also kept the discussion going outside of the classroom. Some teachers also found out that students became closer to one another through always communicating online. Students are able to express themselves freely online and what they truly feel comes out. Many teachers and educators like the reactions they get when they integrate classroom learning with learning over social media. Students generally have positive reactions because they are using something they are familiar with. The integration of something students like and learning helps improve their attentiveness. This is why it has become so popular to integrate social media into education.

This source helps me justify my opinion on this matter. I am for using social media into education because mainly of the reasons listed above. I feel that students would enjoy using it and it is just more convenient. But, the one thing I found wrong with this book is that it did not list the other side of the argument. It only supported one side and never mentioned any bad things that come along with social media. I overall agree with this source because it further supports my side on the matter. I agree that since technology and social media is becoming very popular with students, it is a great idea to integrate it into education. I also agree that students will be able to fully participate fully since some people are shy and do not like speaking in front of a class. I disagree that people will say what they truly feel because a lot of bullying is on the internet and sometimes people might be afraid to state their opinion if they know it will lead to negative comments or even bullying. This source did lead me to answer the question for this blog post. Social media in education is an overall good idea because of the time spent discussing the material outside of class and the full participation will be helpful to the students.

This source would agree with a few of my other source and disagree with the rest. While source 2 provides evidence that some students may not like it, it is only a small study. Those results might not be the same over a large number of students. Source 3 also claims that there has not been enough research done to actually prove if it is beneficial or not. This would put source 2's claim down a bit and it would put more emphasis on the side saying social media should be in education. Source 5 would agree that social media should be in education and says almost the same things as the other sources that agree with it.

Do students tend to get cyber-bullied when social media is used for class? Are there any bad effects of this integration? I should be asking questions about the negative effects of using social media in education because this book only listed the good things about it. My research will take me to trying to find out more on the disadvantages and advantages of this. So far, I have a lot of advantages of social media and a few disadvantages. These will lead me to put everything together and answer the overall question.