Social Media and Education

The internet has greatly changed the landscape of pedagogy. I would argue not in a fundamental way, but verging on it, and even more so as time goes by. Even in my own short 14-15 years in school I have seen technology, computers, the internet, and social media creep more and more into classrooms and homework assignments. For example, from Kindergarten to about... 8th grade I did not use the internet at all for homework assignments or papers. Then around high school my teachers started incorporating occasional assignments on that utilized the internet. Then around senior year in high school and continuing into college my teachers started using not only the internet, but social media profiles for homework assignments or class supplemental material.

Social media and the internet are powerful pedagogical tools for two reasons. One is because the world is becoming more internet-driven every single day. The landscapes of business, trade, networking, communication, recreation, and more are all being guided more and more toward the internet. Because of this, is extremely important that students not only be proficient in their usual day-to-day internet activities, but learn the more powerful tools that the internet offers for creativity and upward mobility.

The educational community is having mixed responses to this changing landscape. Some teachers I have had do not allow any sort of technology to be used in the classroom, be it computers, cell phones, mp3 players, tablets, etc. And in other classes, we spend the entire class period using computers, or students are encouraged to take notes on their devices. However, when it comes to social media specifically, these sites and services are usually barred from the classroom. But should they? This is a difficult question. Because on one hand the students could get all kinds of distracted from the lecture by surfing their social media news feeds, but on the other hand these tools are incredibly powerful for brainstorming, group thinking, debating, and networking with others in the same area of business or study. In my opinion, social media could be used effectively in the classroom if the teacher sets up some kind of group or profile where all the class activity takes place so he or she can monitor the activity of the students to an extent and make sure they are engaging in activities that are relevant to the class. Alternatively, the teacher could develop homework assignments that use social media so that student do them in their study time instead of risking getting distracted during class.

Social Media and Politics

Never has social media taken a larger role in politics than in the 2016 presidential election. One of the reasons for this is how the 2 major candidates (plus a large number of underdog candidates) used social media constantly to connect with their base, communicate their thoughts, and promote their campaigns.

I heard an NPR broadcast that called Donald Trump's Twitter arguably the most important social media account in the history of the world. They argued that if someone was able to hack his Twitter account, they could tweet things about starting a nuclear war that could wipe out the entire planet. Something that is also interesting to note about Donald Trump's twitter is that entire currency's have been devalued after he Tweeted about them. This happened to the Mexican peso after he Tweeted a mean remark about Mexico.

For me personally, I was more involved in this election than any other election. I believe that is probably in part due to social media since I am on it fairly often.

Something that I found interesting in the readings for this week was how social media eliminates the middleman when it comes to the communication between potential voter (or constituent) and the candidate (or representative) themselves. This has upsides and downsides. One of the upsides to this is that we get up-to-date information about what the politician is thinking about. We do not have to wait hour or days for news sources to report on what the politician said. This leads to the second good thing about this, which is that the words are coming directly from the politician themselves, so they are not filtered through a third-part media source that may construe what they said for ideological purposes. However, that could also be considered a downside since there is less accountability for what they said. The voter or constituent can look at the social media post written by a politician (Facebook post, Instagram post, Tweet, etc), and believe what the politician is saying even if it is wrong because there is no ombudsman or fact checkers.

In the grad scheme of things, I think social media in politics is a force for good rather than for bad because we can look at the raw data of what the candidate is saying and use our own critical thinking skills to determine the validity of the statements rather than rely on someone else to do it for us since they may be corrupt or have and agenda that they are not telling us.