Platforme de LLL (lifelong learning) bazate pe retele sociale

Bavaleta Georgiana, grupa 1085, master IE, an II

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Social Media for Lifelong Learning

Abstract

The below paper reflects the research on eLearning progress, development, challenges and
opportunities using social media in our daily life. It summarize how social media platforms
are used in learning purposes and how these platforms impact the way of study of the
students. It concludes the study on eLearning reality and attempts to provide a thorough
understanding on how social media influence the perception of young people about eLearnng
deployment. A questionnaire was used to collect data and to analyze if social media is
useful or not. It appears that the respondents have increased their percentage as Social
Media users and prefer a blended approach of education where the role of eLearning is
enhanced. That does not mean that the traditional way of teaching and learning is not
respected anymore. The findings of this research confirmed the importance of social
media and its increasing role in the future of education.

Key Words : e-learning development, social media, e-learning challenges, teaching

methods, communication, leisure time, e-learning acknowledgement, increasing role, e-
learning purposes.
Introduction

We live in an information society, in an era of rapid technological advancements and digital

revolution, where a lot of our daily activities take place in an online world, both in personal
and professional life.

Social Media has become an indispensable part of modern life. A huge part of our social
lives already happens online rather than in the real world. (Andriotis, 2015)

The social media websites have revolutionized the way people communicate and socialize on
the Web.

The below paper reflects the use of social media in eLearning process and why it is
important nowadays to take into consideration social media for educational purposes.
Because the information society has grown and the students are more linked to the social
media than to the libraries or the old way of education, teachers have to find solutions
through social media in order to make the learning process fun and interesting for them.
There are some tips in the below paper regarding the development of the teaching
methods that fits the level of interest of the students and also the most popular networks
that can be used as learning platforms.

Moreover, in order to find out the vision and opinion of the people regarding these
activities, a questionnaire has been made asking 70 young individuals. The questionnaire
refers to a series of questions, asked to individuals, in order to highlight if the social
network sites are used in our daily activities or are beneficial in the e-Learning process.
Based on their responses, the role of the social media platforms is growing day by day and
it has many positive effects on the learning process, but outside the learning process and
the academic environment, they are still social media platforms used mostly for keeping in
touch with friends and family and for relaxation.

Literature review

Christopher Pappas highlights the fact that social media platforms help you create an
effective social learning strategy ( Pappas, 2013) , but it takes time and dedication on this
purpose by creating different surveys, videos, tutorials, groups, discussions or any other
resource in order to create an effective social learning strategy. In my opinion, social
media can be very useful as learning platforms, because of their diversity. Students can
develop themselves very fast because they can mix the learning process with the fun
process, which is the best way of learning for students, because they are looking for fun
things and entertainment and these platforms offer them all these stuff.
 If you ask students who their favorite teacher is, they will probably name the one whos
constantly present on Facebook, answering their questions and posting links to content
that makes learning fun. (Norman, 2016)

In order to use social media for educational purposes by bringing teaching methods closer
to the students and their level of interest, all teachers should change their perspective
and follow some tricks to make the students realize how fun learning can be sometimes.
For example, it is very important to create a group for the class, where everybody can
share their opinions, assignments, links to online courses or related videos and to
encourage them to post and be active for extra points for the activity. Moreover, I think
that the video sharing is one of the best option for e-learning process, because students
understand and receive much better the information from a video format than from a text
format. Also, it is very important to discuss the video material and it can be made through
comments and reviews on the video.

Nikos Andriotis summarized how six of these social media platforms fit into this process
of elearning. He pointed out the strengths and the weaknesses of each platform and
reached out to the conclusion that even though not all platforms equally fit for eLearning
purposes, they have a huge potential for eLearning and it depends on each of us on how
they impact us. Keep in mind though that each social media platform has its own strengths
and weaknesses and it is own peculiar take on the concept of social that you should
respect and try to work within its bounds. (Andriotis, 2015) For example, Twitter has a
limitation of 140 characters and is not the best platform for a deep learning experience,
but it is a good marketing tool, in order to advertise new courses. On the other hand,
Youtube is more straightforward. You can enter different channels, in order to watch
various materials like foreign language lessons, cooking lessons, programming lessons,
dancing lessons, and so on. In my opinion, it is a very useful platform because of its variety
and accessibility you can learn by yourself in your free time following various lessons and
demos without having to pay for any of these lessons. Instagram is more like a platform
for the ones that are passionate about photography and video. Google + can be used for a
closed group, by the students, in order to focus on the content that the teacher propose.
It is not so popular and has many limitations, but it can be used as a learning platform as
well. Facebook is the Godzilla of social networks (Andriotis, 2015). This platform can be
used by everyone and it has everything a learning platform can have. It has text, images,
videos, scoring, comments, pages, sharing and can be also an ideal marketing platform
because of its number of users. Last, but not least, the LinkedIn platform is very popular
among businessmen and people who are interested in their professional life. Here it is very
easy to connect with recruiters and to find different jobs, based on your profile. I think is
a useful platform for those who want to learn more about the professional life, about how
a CV should look like, how to prepare for an interview or what are the requirements an
employer demands. Also, in this platform, students may find different courses or trainees
that might help them in their development.

By using social media, some organizations can improve their productivity, promote
themselves and allow knowledge transfer between them. Simon Prashanthi thinks that
employees need to be trained on the use of social media. (Prashanthi, 2015). He points
out that the training time is shorter and cheaper because there is no need to make any
investment. Also, he points out that the interaction is very important and different,
because we can find a lot of people with different opinions and cultures, so we get to grow
as an individual and challenge ourselves in different queries.

In this direction, the social media has different benefits to the e-learning process,
including the following: no investments, shorter training time, different perspectives from
different kind of persons, interaction with other users from which the users can develop
their communication, develop presentation skills and marketing skills, a broader view of
things and a wider perspective.

Brian Lee realized a case-study not focused on on-the-job learning in the workplace but
instead on learning that takes place in people's leisure time outside both work and adult
education provision. (Brian & Sin Sing, 2012) For this study, the respondents were asked
to rank the way social media helps to achieve the following attributes: Knowledge,
Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis and Evaluation. The research reveals that
the respondents felt they have achieved an increase in learning outcomes in area of
Knowledge, Application and Analysis and a decrease in Comprehension, Synthesis and
Evaluation. This means that the respondents gain more knowledge and due to the many
articles and information they develop their critical analysis, but they still dont take too
serious the use of social media for informal learning purpose. The decrease in
Comprehension, Synthesis and Evaluation reveals the fact that due to the high among of
information and comments, the respondents cannot understand the content itself.

Based on the questionnaire made for the magazine Procedia - Economics and Finance, it
was proved that Social Media Networks and especially Facebook are used from students
mainly for socialization, communication mostly with family and friends. (Kolokytha,
Loutrouki, Valsamidis, & Florou, 2015) Although it can be used also as a learning tool and a
suitable guidance, the students can be distracted by their friends or family by comments,
notifications, photos or messages thats why they will never be 100% percent dedicated
and focused on this purpose. I think that if someone is focused on something of interest
on Facebook, whether is about a discussion topic, or a video, or an article, then that person
would not be distracted by the notifications or comments or messages.

In my opinion, social media networks and especially Facebook are mainly for socialization
and communication, but they are also very useful platforms for learning and I think that if
you want to learn something, to be focused on something, then you could not be distracted
by anything else.

Research method

A questionnaire was applied to 70 young individuals, 52,9% women and 47,1% men, 60%
with the age between 18 and 24, 37,1% between 25 and 34 and only 2,9% over 35 years. It
was selected this category of people because of the fact that most of them are still
students, fresh graduates or at least closer to this information society and academic
environment.

80% of the population spend on a daily basis between 1 and 8 hour on social networking
sites, which means that even on their learning time or working time they use in a way or
another the social networking sites and 58,6 % use often these sites in an educational
capacity.
The questionnaire summarizes what social media platforms are mostly used by the
population. Based on the responses, the most used social media platform is Facebook. 65
persons answered that they use Facebook every single day, while only 5 of them use it
once a week or never.

The second most popular social media platform is YouTube with 55 persons who use it
every day. Also, Instagram has a growth of 36 individuals who use it on a daily basis.

For LinkedIn, the responses are various. As we can see below in the chart, there are 8
people who use LinkedIn every day, 17 who use it a few times a week, 18 once a week, 16
rarely and 11 individuals who never use it.

Google + is not so popular among, but it still has some user. 20 of them do not have an
account and they never use the platform, while 14 of them sign in every day.

Twitter is the most unpopular social media platform. Based on the below chart, 30 persons
do not use Twitter and the others use it not so often.
Regarding the use of these platforms for learning in schools and colleges, 70% agreed with
the fact the social network sites should be integrated in the learning activities and think
that there would be beneficial in education, while only 20% are neither agree nor disagree
and 10% disagreed with the positive impact in education.
In terms of the effect of the social media platforms on their performance, almost 70%
consider it as a positive effect, from which they have developed different skills and
abilities. There are still 19,4% who think that these platforms have had no effect on their
performance and on their development of skills and the other 17,7% who think that
Facebook and the others social media platforms have had a negative effect on their
productivity and performance. I think that this depends on each one of us and in our way
of collect only the good information that will make us grow as individuals and help us in our
development.

From the answers to the question: Why do you use an online social network? , we can
find out that most of them use social networks for information / knowledge, for socializing
like keeping in touch with their friends and family and share different stuff with them
photos, videos, music and for relaxing.
To summarize the questionnaire, the individuals were asked to choose 3 statements that
suit them, regarding the social media platforms and the academic environment. In
consequence, the answers were:

1. Social Network Sites help me keep in touch with my class mates or colleague.
2. Social Network Sites help me to develop my social skills
3. Social Network Sites are very useful to me academically.
4. Social Network Sites do not distract me from my educational work.

Looking ahead, the selected individuals believe that the social network sites will grow and
their role in the society and in the e-learning process will be increased.

Conclusions

According to the results of the research, the use of social media for informal learning
purposes is growing among the young questioned individuals. The respondents felt the
social media helped them academically and did not distract them from learning, but the
skills that they have developed the most are social and communication skills, which means
that they use social media for information and knowledge, but not at the highest level of
learning.

The social media has a positive effect among the young learners, helping them to develop
their skills on many levels. I think that it all depends on how focused on the learning
process someone is, without taking into consideration if the learning process is informal or
formal.

There is an increase on performance and productivity reflecting that the way they collect
data and information from social media is very important in their personal and professional
development. I think that every social media platform helps us to develop different skills,
it all depends on what are we looking for. The most popular social media platforms among
the respondents are Facebook, Youtube and Instagram, reflecting the fact that they find
all the relevant information on these platforms, being also the most complex of all.

However, social media and especially Facebook, are used mainly for socialization, relaxing
and communication with family and friends. I believe that the respondents perception on
social media is still not directed towards the learning process. Even though they think it
will have an increasing role in the future of education , most still believe that is informal,
hence it is not a platform for more serious learning purpose.

References

Andriotis, N. (2015, June 03) Re: Using Social Media for eLearning (a look at the
top 6 social platforms) [Web log post]. Retrieved from :
https://www.efrontlearning.com/blog/2015/06/using-social-media-for-elearning-a-
look-at-the-top-6-social-platforms.html
Preshanthi, S. (2015, October 08) Re: Social Media: Its impact on E-learning [Web
log post]. Retrieved from: http://blog.commlabindia.com/elearning-design/social-
media-impact-on-elearning
Pappas, C. (2016, February 25) Re: Integrating the top 5 Social Media platforms
into your eLearning course [Web log post]. Retrieved from :
https://www.talentlms.com/blog/integrating-the-top-5-social-media-platforms-
into-your-elearning-course/
Pappas, C. (2013, July 23) The Role of Social Media in eLearning, eLearning
Industry. Retrieved from : https://elearningindustry.com/the-role-of-social-media-
in-elearning
Norman, S. (2016, March 04) 5 ultimate tricks of using Social Media as learning
tools, eLearning Industry. Retrieved from: https://elearningindustry.com/5-
ultimate-tricks-using-social-media-learning-tools
Pappas, C. (2014, July 28) 8 top tips to create an effective social learning strategy,
eLearning Industry. Retrieved from : https://elearningindustry.com/8-top-tips-
create-effective-social-learning-strategy
Lee, B. , Sin Sing, A., (2013, October 21), Social Media as an informal platform :
Case Study on adult learning at SIM University, Singapore,Procedia Social and
Behavioral Sciences 93, 1158-1161 doi: 10.1016/sbspro.2013.10.007
 Kolokytha, E., Loutrouki, S., Valsamidis, S., Florou, G. (2015) Social Media
Networks as a learning tool , Procedia Economies and Finance 19, 287-295, doi:
10.1016/S2212-5671(15)00029-5