Jason Yilmaz

A Learning Tool Whose Time Has Come

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Efforts to incorporate social media into courses at our college have drawn several complaints. A major objection is that Facebook and Twitter are distractions that have no place in the classroom. Based on my own experiences, I must completely disagree. Social media, when used intelligently, will get students more involved with their courses and help them be more successful in college.

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In the first place, social media can help students engage deeply with academic subjects. For example, in a sociology class that I took in high school, the instructor encouraged students to use Twitter in a research assignment. This assignment called for us to record, over one week, the number of times we observed students of different races and ethnic groups interacting outside of the classroom. Each of us made observations in the lunch room, in the courtyard where students liked to hang out between classes, and in other public areas. We tweeted our findings as we did our research, and in the end, we brought them together to write a group report. The Twitter exchanges gave each of us new ideas and insights. Also, the whole process helped us understand what a research team does in the real world.

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In the second place, social media are a good way for students to get help and support outside of class. As a commuter student with a job, it is hard for me to get to my instructors’ office hours, let alone meet with other students. Therefore, I would value Facebook groups that would let me post questions about assignments and other homework and get responses from instructors and other students. Also, I would be able to form online study groups with classmates.

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Finally, social networking can make students feel more confident and connected. In the sociology course where I used Twitter, I found that other students valued and respected the information that I shared, just as I valued their contributions. Also, all of us felt like we were “in this together” — an uncommon experience in most classrooms. I have heard that feeling connected to other students and to the larger college community can make people less likely to drop out, and I believe it.

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New things often scare people, and the use of social media in education is no exception. However, I would hate to see fears about social media get in the way of efforts to make students more engaged with and successful in college. We owe it to students to overcome such fears.

Shari Beck

A Classroom Distraction—and Worse

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Last week, I saw the campus newspaper’s story about new efforts to incorporate Twitter, Facebook, and other social media into courses. What did I think about these efforts? To get my answer, I only had to lower the newspaper. Across the table from me was my fourteen-year-old son, whom I’d just told, for the third time, to go upstairs and do his homework. Instead, he was still under the spell of his phone, thumbs flying as he continued to text a friend about who knows what.

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As you might have guessed already, my answer to my own question is this: Making social media part of a college education is a terrible idea, for a whole lot of reasons.

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One reason is the distraction factor, illustrated by my phone-addicted son. I am confident that he is not the only person incapable of turning his full attention to any subject when the competition is an incoming or outgoing text message, or anything happening on a computer screen. Supporters of the college’s social-media initiative say that students will benefit from discussing course material on Facebook or Twitter. I am concerned, however, that such discussions — when and if they ever take place — would quickly go off-topic, turning into social exchanges. Also, participants’ attention could easily wander to other links and news flashes.

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Another reason I am opposed to social media in education is that students’ postings on Facebook or Twitter might compromise their privacy. I am not confident that all teachers will educate students about the importance of limiting the personal information that they make available in public forums. Tech-savvy students probably know how to maximize their privacy settings, but I doubt that all students do.

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My biggest concern is that students will use social media to cheat. According to proponents of the social-media initiative, one of the biggest educational advantages of Facebook and Twitter is that students can exchange information and form study groups. But it is also possible that they will share answers to homework or test questions or take credit for information posted or tweeted by others. They may not realize that such information theft is plagiarism — something that could cause them to fail a course, or worse. In responding to a 2011 survey by the Pew Research Center, 55 percent of college presidents said that student plagiarism had increased over the previous ten years. Of those who reported this increase, 89 percent said computers and the Internet played “a major role.” It would be a shame to make this growing problem even worse through programs like the college’s social-media initiative.

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From where I sit — once again, across the table from my phone-distracted son — the disadvantages of this initiative far outweigh the benefits. I plan to send an e-mail opposing it to the Student Affairs Office. First, though, I’m taking my son’s phone away for the night.