Social Media as an Educational Tool

Year 2018, Volume: 9 , 368 - 376, 18.08.2018

Naciye Guliz Ugur Merve Turkmen Barutcu Burcak Basak

Abstract

With the high percentage of young
people on social networks, where students feel at home, social media is no
longer a trend, but part of everyday life and each year it becomes a greater
part of education. It’s a way that students, teachers, administrators, and
community members interact and exchange information with each other. Their
experiences with technology, compared to those of teachers and administrators
who possibly remember when the Internet came to fruition, are drastically
different. This provides a very different understanding of the twenty-first
century student as a digital native. Specifically, this study examined how
schools and educators use social media, and whether being connected presents a
better way to educate the twenty-first century learner. It investigated the
level of parent and community engagement using social media and the students’
perceptions of social media use in their education. Limited research exists on
how teachers and schools actually use social media to enhance education and
communication with school stakeholders, i.e., teachers, parents, students, and
administrators. This empirical study attempts to fill this research gap and
make some useful recommendations in the light of statistical findings.

Keywords

Social media, Empirical study, Student, Teacher, Parents

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