Essay Sample: Social Media and Education

Social media is a platform that virtual community interacts and share information and ideas. These platforms use internet tools such as applications and web 2.0 to enable user-generated content. The two articles theme focuses on the use of the social media to facilitate educational activities. The first article is authored by Chris Piotrowski, while the second has been done by Sreeja Rajesh and Jithin Michael. The first article presents its points by focusing on the dissertation that has been done concerning social media and its value in education. This article is more efficient by using logos as seen from peer-reviewed sources. The second article presents information on the benefits and disadvantages of social media use not only at school but also in social life. It utilized pathos, logos, and ethos to share its information. This situation makes the second article more effective in addressing the topic. Social media is a valuable tool for facilitating the learning process. However, when used for malicious reasons, it may affect the academic and social life of the users.

Students use social media for both learning and interaction. Article one indicated that students predominantly used the social media for social interactions and in the processes shared academic activities. For instance, a student from the same faculty shared a social media group that each member shared their thoughts on various things including scholarly material. This phenomenon was termed as collaborative learning. It was also indicated that those students who preferred social media as an academic platform revealed a better attitude of collaborative

learning and also had meaningful interaction with the instructors (Piotrowski 8). These findings were obtained from one of the dissertation based on quantitative analysis of the college students from a community college on the use of social media. In the second article, the same message was replicated as reported that social media improved the speed at which information was shared in an online community. The social media communities with instructors, researchers, and students allow the members to ask a question and get quick and valid responses. The educators in the communities get a chance to understand the learning needs and patterns of students and hence improve their mode of instruction (Rajesh and Jithin 2). The members use platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to share interesting facts and get feedback. Social media content sources such as blogs are better sources of educating scholars on specific topics. Blogs have the latest information on issues including the unpublished which can be useful for researchers. The blogs act as digital libraries for learners to refer and apply knowledge in their academic needs. Sources like YouTube improve student interaction with media content and sharpen their digital skills. Many students confessed using YouTube to instruct themselves on various skills that they failed to grasp in classroom sessions. It was also a source for further knowledge on the topics they accessed shallow information while learning in their formal classes. From the above evidence, it is clear that the two articles used logos to present their points.

Social media can be used as a source of social and academic advice. In the first article, a survey on college student was carried out between 2009 and 2010 academic year, to determine the perception of a student of social media. The findings indicated that student found a lot of educational advice from social media and hence preferred to use it to gather such information (Piotrowski 9). Some of the advice includes the choice of materials to read on given subjects and access to materials on same topics. Student revealed confidence in information from social media and hence a positive learning environment. On the social perspective, another study was used to show the experiences counselors had on social media while sharing course content. During this study, it was discovered that students felt more comfortable to express themselves on social media. On the social media, the members of a community did not care about sharing their beliefs which allowed easy multi-cultural interactions. The members were able to achieve all this freedom of expression due to the perceived security and hence no fear for self-expression. A course blog was considered an effective tool for learners and instructors to share their concerns and knowledge. On the other hand, the second article revealed that students preferred to use social media to get advise on better carriers to pursue and related schools (Rajesh and Jithin 2). The article indicated that social media opinion could supplement web search for various schools and other information from books or internet. This strategy helps students to have a list of schools and career options which makes it easier to identify the best. Pathos and logos have been used efficiently to present the value of social media in the education process.

Social media can be harmful if misused and can affect social and academic life. Social media despite being supportive of the academic processes, not all students view it as positive platforms. For instance, in the first article, a study that involved 283 college student on the appropriateness of Facebook on the learning processes, indicated that some students especially ladies found this platform not fit for sharing academic information. Most of the students did not desire to interact with the instructor at this site and hence had a negative attitude towards its use (Piotrowski 9). For this reason, Facebook was inconvenient whenever a faculty chose it as their communication media. It also revealed that more men than lady students utilized these sites and not academic grounds but social purposes. On the second article, the same information is echoed with privacy issues on social media profiles exposed to unauthorized parties for profit (Rajesh and Jithin 3). Social media only support virtual interactions, which denies the current generation a personal touch with fellow human being and nature while communicating. This situation leads to dysfunctional relationships when social media parties meet on face-face. The social media provide images and privacy information which can be used for image assassination. This is a common situation where the malicious people threaten to use a person's image on a malicious act and extort money to stop the act. This case discourages students from interacting on such sites to avoid the risk of damaging their reputation.

In conclusion, Social media is a valuable tool for facilitating the learning process. However, when used for malicious reasons, it may affect the academic and social life of the users. The first and second articles both presented their knowledge by using pathos logos and ethos to capture the attention of the readers and drive the message in the right directions. Students, instructors, and researchers can use social media to meet their academic and social need. However, they need to be keen to avoid sharing too much for malicious people to use it against them.

Works cited

Piotrowski, Chris. "Emerging Research on Social Media Use in Education: A Study of Dissertations." Research in Higher Education Journal 27 (2015).

Rajesh, Sreeja, and Jithin Michael. "Effectiveness of Social Media in Education." (2014).