SHORT PAPER

EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL BENEFITS OF USING SOCIAL MEDIA IN EDUCATION

Exploring the Potential Benefits

of Using Social Media in Education
http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijep.v3i4.2836

Rdouan Faizi, Abdellatif El Afia and Raddouane Chiheb

ENSIAS, Mohammed V Souissi University, Rabat, Morocco

Abstract—The objective of this work is to investigate the The rapid growth of social media, mainly due to
potential benefits of using social media in education. A technological factors such as increased broadband
thorough examination of a large set of these online tools has availability, the improvement of software tools, and the
revealed that social media have many educational development of more powerful computers and mobile
advantages. In fact, it has been found out that these web-
devices, has been phenomenal. This type of media has
based applications can improve communication among
students and between teachers and students. Thanks to actually become ubiquitous and part and parcel of the
these technologies, both teachers and students can interact daily lives of millions of people around the globe and has
with each other in a matter of seconds. Social media can also a tremendous impact upon every facet of our personal and
be used to promote students’ engagement. Students who professional lives. Given that a large number of internet
often complain of being intimidated or bored in the users are teachers and students, social media seem to
classroom may feel comfortable to express their creativity have greatly influenced the way we teach and learn.
and voice their opinion on a social network website. Another
finding of this study is that social media applications foster The objective of this paper is, therefore, to examine
collaboration as they allow students to work together to
the potential benefits of social media in education. The
achieve a common goal. Given these educational benefits, we
recommend that these online social tools should be used in rest of this paper is organized as follows. In Section Two
learning environments. we detail the different types of social media. Section
Three presents the numerous opportunities that social
Index Terms—Benefits, collaboration, communication, media offer to both students and educators. Finally,
education, engagement, social media. Section Four gives a brief conclusion.

I. INTRODUCTION II. SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS

In the last few years, the web has evolved from a Social media encompass a wide range of tools that
medium for distributing a rudimentary and hyperlinked integrate technology, social interaction and content
collection of read-only and static information resources to creation. In the present work, analysis will be confined to
a set of social websites where people interact, share and the most popular social media types. These include social
constantly update huge amounts of decentralized networks, blogs, micro-blogs, wikis, bookmarking, media
information. In the past, the web was a one way sharing and RSS. In what follows, we provide a brief
information transfer tool as content was predominantly description of each of these social media types.
produced by experts, who published factual information
and had the skills to create web pages. Users could only Social Networks
view websites but could not correct, change or add any A social network is an online community that brings
content. Currently, the web has become an interactive and people with common interests, opinions, activities and
participatory "read-write" universal channel where users experiences together by sharing their news, photos,
are allowed to be both producers and consumers of digital videos, and events. A social network is essentially
content in real time right through a web browser. composed of a representation of each user (often a
profile), his social links as well as a variety of additional
This new conception of the Web as a platform for services. These online communities also provide means
computing and collaborative interaction has been for users to interact with each over the internet, such as e-
supported by the development of so-called Web 2.0 mail and instant messaging. Some of the most popular
technologies and standards. The result has been the fast social networking sites are Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace
proliferation of social media. The latter basically refers to and Viadeo.
a category of web-based tools and platforms that
facilitates discussion, participation, and sharing of Blogs
various forms of content (namely, text, video, audio and Blogs are web-based logs or journals that enable users
image) in a very convenient way. to post their thoughts, ideas, writing, and opinions for
other people to view. Blogs are usually written by one

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EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL BENEFITS OF USING SOCIAL MEDIA IN EDUCATION

person about a particular topic and are usually updated on organizing sites like Delicious, Digg, Flickr, YouTube,
a regular basis with entries displayed in reverse Dailymotion and RSS readers. The third category is
chronological order. They can either be self hosted or composed of content creation and editing websites such
placed on a blogging network such as Blogger, as Blogger, Google Docs, Wikipedia and WordPress.
WordPress or Tumblr. Often times, however, the features and functions of a
social media network can overlap, making a tool
Micro-blogs appropriate for more than one category.
Micro-blogs, as their name suggests, provide a similar
function as traditional blogs, but with a much stronger III. SOCIAL MEDIA: POTENTIAL EDUCATIONAL
focus on brevity. A micro-blogging website enables users BENEFITS
to write short text messages and transmit them in real- Despite being a recent addition to the Internet
time to their contacts. Micro-blogging can, therefore, be landscape, social media have witnessed an exponential
seen as a cross between blogging and social networking. growth. It is now infiltrating nearly every field, including
The most famous micro-blogging service is Twitter. the educational arena. These online social networks are
increasingly being used for different reasons not only by
Wikis students but by teachers as well [1], [2]. For this reason, a
Wikis are websites that are developed collaboratively number of critics have started questioning the validity of
by a community of users. They allow any user to add, social software in learning environments, stating that
change, correct and post information for others to see. such tools may disengage students from learning
The largest and most popular wiki is Wikipedia, a user- traditional skills and literacies [3] or even destroy the
contributed online encyclopedia currently hosting traditional roles of teacher and learner [4].
millions of articles in over more than 200 languages.
Once published, articles on Wikipedia are considered to However, after a thorough examination of a wide range
be “living content” as they are always subject to change of social media, it has been found out that these tools
and amendments by users. present many educational advantages for both students
and instructors, hence, contribute in providing
Social Bookmarking opportunities for further learning. These advantages are
Social Bookmarking websites, also termed detailed below.
collaborative tagging systems, give people the
opportunity to tag their favorite links and share the results A. Social Media as Communication Channels
with other users. Usually organized by topic, bookmarks Studies have shown that the successful running of any
can be saved privately, shared with certain people or learning experience depends on many things, one of
groups, or available to the public. Delicious, Digg, which being effective communication between teachers
Reddit, Stumbleupon, to name just a few, are good and their students. If no proper communication between
examples of websites offering bookmarking services. teacher and students is available, both teaching and
learning will become difficult. For this reason, teachers
Media sharing need to continuously monitor students in order to be
Media sharing sites enable users to upload and share aware of any trouble the latter are having. Understanding
their multimedia content (photos, videos and audio) on the students’ problems, fear, or confusion will help
the web. People can view the files uploaded by others, faculty better understand students' learning difficulties.
enrich them with tags, and share their thoughts through The more connected the teachers are to their students, the
comments. Examples of such social media tools are more likely they are able to help students learn quickly
YouTube, Flickr, iTunes and Shutterfly. and at a high level [5].
RSS In this respect, a lot of educational institutions
RSS (short for Really Simple Syndication) is a complain nowadays of their students’ erratic behavior and
common component of social media websites. RSS poor scholastic performance. Educational experts believe
allows websites and blogs to distribute their updated and that this is partially due to the absence of “connection”
dynamic content as feeds to different users. Hence, between teachers and students. Actually, experience has
instead of visiting a given website regularly, the user can shown that if there is not enough communication between
subscribe for free to as many feeds of information as teacher and students, the feedback process remains thin or
desired and then access and mange those feeds all at once vague and optimal learning is not achieved. Proper
by making use of an RSS reader (e.g. Goggle Reader). communication between both parts can, therefore,
remedy this problem.
All these social media platforms can be grouped into
three major categories. The first category includes social Given that Internet users, the majority of which are
network sites like Facebook, Ning, MySpace and Twitter students, use social networks mostly to keep in touch
that serve as online communities via which users connect with friends, colleagues, peers and family, it is important
with friends or colleagues, and share ideas and resources. to explore the possible benefits that such networking
The second category consists of content sharing and tools can offer to modern education. These web-based

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EXPLORING THE POTENTIAL BENEFITS OF USING SOCIAL MEDIA IN EDUCATION

platforms could actually be used to enhance Collaborative and participatory tools like Wikis, blogs,
communication between the different actors of the Google Docs can encourage students to become active
educational system, namely, student, faculty and staff. participants or even co-producers rather than passive
consumers of content [8].
Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, for instance, can
serve as backchannels for communication among students Following a number of studies, the major factor that
and between teachers and students within or between students frequently cite as the cause of their boredom at
classes. Instructors can answer students’ questions via a school is that the materials are not always interesting or
Facebook page or Twitter feed, post homework relevant. Some other bored students, however, indicate
assignments and lesson plans, extend in-class discussions, that the source of their boredom is mainly due to a lack of
send messages and updates, schedule or announce interaction with their teachers. In fact, experience has
forthcoming events, and inform learners about special shown that instructional methods that involve working
lectures, panel discussions or guest speakers. This and learning with peers are the most highly rated of all
teacher-student interaction will certainly contribute in the instructional methods that teachers use [10]. To
understanding various learning related difficulties and counter classroom boredom and enhance behavioral
solving them in less time. engagement, social media tools could be used to design
learning activities that are both social and interactive (e.g.
Social media can improve communication not only discussion, debate, group projects, etc.). This would
between students and teacher but also among students. enable students to learn from each other and interact with
The latter can use social networks to talk to each other other people beyond the school walls.
about upcoming assignments or tests. They can get details
from their classmates about materials that will be covered Besides promoting student-student interactions, social
on a test or the requirements for one or more assignments. media can also be used to enhance and increase the
If students are having trouble with a certain topic, they number of interactions students may have with their
can go to classmates on a social networking website to teachers by overcoming the barriers of time and location
get assistance and catch up online. Similarly, as blogs and [9]. Consequently, students would have enough
wikis involve the contribution of multiple users, these opportunities to ask questions, make comments, as well
collaborative tools can successfully enhance interactivity as get feedback. As such, they will have more chances to
among students [6]. develop supportive relationships with their instructors.

B. Social Media as Engagement Tools C. Social Media as Collaborative Platforms

Social media tools are also effective ways to increase Another vital benefit of social media is that they foster
students’ engagement. As the social features of social collaboration. Collaboration means working together
media resources have attracted the attention of millions of jointly, intellectually, and socially to achieve common
people around the globe, these same features are also goals. Within an online learning community,
capable of drawing the attention of students to the collaboration refers to any instructional method in which
learning opportunities provided by their academic students work together in groups towards a common goal
institutions [7]. A student who hardly ever participates in [11]. As such, collaborative learning can be viewed as
class may get actively engaged in co-constructing his encompassing all group-based instructional methods,
learning experience with his teachers, collaborating with including cooperative learning.
his fellow colleagues, and may feel more comfortable to
express himself and to share his resources and ideas on Following Ingram and Hathorn [12], true collaboration
Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube [8]. consists of three critical elements: participation,
interaction, and synthesis. This means that collaboration
Using tools such as Google Apps for Education or in educational settings requires that students move
Ning would enable students to have access to valuable beyond merely dividing up assignments. True
learning resources regardless of time and place. Within collaboration is not only asking students to independently
the traditional classroom, providing students with produce separate parts of a project; it actually means
additional learning materials can be very expensive and working together on shared tasks. In this respect, Prince
logistically complicated. However, using social media [13] claimed that the core element of collaborative
can enhance the learning experience. In fact, inviting learning is that emphasis is on student interactions rather
students to participate in the different learning activities than on learning as a solitary activity.
available on social learning platforms would serve to
support academic engagement by extending the amount Given the importance of collaboration in the learning
of time a student spends in doing his homework or related process, a great number of social media tools serve as
school projects [9]. platforms for learners to gather and share information and
Moreover, given that many students often complain of resources from both internal and external collaboration
getting bored or intimidated at school, the dynamic and networks. Online learners, who could be students,
participatory nature of many social media resources could educators, or any other individual in the community, can
be used to engage or re-engage bored or shy students. thus generate their own learning content and take

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advantage of collective knowledge. In this sense, social they are working in fully online, blended, or face-to-face
media are an effective means to create channels of learning contexts.
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advantage of social media applications is that they foster
collaboration given that they offer teachers and students AUTHORS
a single destination where they can bring their ideas Rdouan Faizi, Abdellatif El Afia and Raddouane
together, examine them with their colleagues and publish Chiheb are with ENSIAS, Mohammed V Souissi
in a way that be edited. Taking into account all these University, Rabat, Morocco (e-mail: [email protected],
benefits, we strongly believe that social media could be [email protected], [email protected]).
used as valuable educational tools capable of enriching
the learning experience. Therefore, we recommend that Submitted, 27 May 2013. Published as re-submitted by the authors 09
July 2013.
educators use these online social communities whether

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