The Use of Social Media in Higher

Education

ByMr. Vijaykumar MetiPh.D Research Scholar,Dept. of Journalism & CommunicationGulbarga University, Gulbarga

GuideProf. B.P. Mahesh Chandra Guru

Professor and Chairman Dept. of Communication & Journalism

University of Mysore, Mysore

March 27 & 28, 2014 SIO Karnataka & Dept. of Education, University of MysoreNational Conference on “Education for Sustainable Development”

Introduction

•Over the last few years the web has fundamentally

shifted towards user-driven technologies such as blogs,

social networking sites and video-sharing platforms.

• The growth of social media over the past few years has

transformed the internet experienced.

•Now the internet is no longer one-way broadcast

delivery system, instead it is now driven by many

ordinary users, which can be described as many-to-

many rather than one-to-many connectivity.

….Introduction• People are actively engaged with a wide variety of social

media platforms, from blogs to social networking to video

sharing site

• Social media applications allow users to converse and interact

with each other; to create, edit and share new forms of

textual, visual and audio content; and to categorize, label and

recommend existing forms of content.

• Along with these technological developments, many higher

education institutions and universities are now finding

themselves likely to catch up with this world of social media

applications and social media users.

Significance of Social Media in Higher Education

• Social media are associated with an increased tendency for

young people to multitask, to rely on a ‘digital juggling’ of

daily activities and commitments.

• They also attain increased control over the nature and form

of what they do, as well as where, when and how they do it.

• The most immediate significance of social media for higher

education is the apparently changing nature of the students

who are entering university.

• Apparently social media users are described as having an

enhanced capacity to self-organize.

Social Media and its Common Uses in Higher Education

Facebook

• Facebook is a popular social networking site that connects

people with friends and others who work, study and live

around them.

• When Facebook launched the fan pages concept in November

2007, many universities jumped at the opportunity to create

an official Facebook presence for their university.

• As of December 2013 there were more than 600 universities

taking advantage of this new feature .

(Wikipedia)

Social Media and its Common Uses in Higher Education

MySpace

• MySpace is an online community that lets to meet

friends' friends, share photos, journals and interests.

• Unlike Facebook, MySpace allows users to fully

customize their profiles by complete changing the

appearance, background and format of their pages.

• Many universities and education institutions joined

MySpace, but with the launch of more attractive

Facebook fan page, many colleges and universities

adapt over MySpace.

Social Media and its Common Uses in Higher Education

YouTube

• YouTube is the leader in online video sharing, and the prime

destination to watch and share original videos globally online.

• It allows people to easily upload and share video clips across

the Internet through Web sites, mobile devices, blogs, and e-

mail.

• Many universities have been making videos for more than 20

years and YouTube has given them a platform to easily

distribute these videos to a much wider audience, and without

the costs of burning to CDs/DVDs and postage to mail to a

narrow audience.

Social Media and its Common Uses in Higher Education

Flickr

• Flickr is a popular online photo site where users upload

photos that can be organized in sets and collections.

• Public photos may be viewed and commented on by

others.

•Universities have Flickr account and it is a great tool

for easily sharing photos with students, alumni, faculty

and staff.

(Wikipedia)

Social Media and its Common Uses in Higher Education

Blogs

• Blogs are a form of online journal. They can have a single

author, or several.

• The most popular use of blogs for marketing in higher

education is having currently enrolled students’ blog about

their lives on campus, as a recruiting initiative in conjunction

with admissions.

• Blogs are also being used by some colleges to post news

articles to open conversations about them.

• Faculty blog about their teaching, travel and research as well.

Conclusion

•Major educational implication of social media is

actually changing nature of learners’ relationships

with information and knowledge.

• It could be argued that social media support forms of

knowledge consumption and knowledge construction.

•Many educationalists believe that universities are in a

good position to utilize social media practices to

support the collective creation of knowledge amongst

students and the wider community.

….Conclusion

•Many universities are now striving to develop ways

of using social media to support these new forms of

learning.

• It is clear that social media tools and applications

present a challenge to the concept of the formal

educational establishment as it currently exists.

• The continued growth of social media presents a

set of clear challenges to the future nature of

higher education provision and practice.

Thank You