Essay done for Educational Technology.

1. University of Trinidad and Tobago
School for Studies in Learning Cognition and Education
EDFN112B - Educational Technology
Student Name: CHRISTINA SOOKDEO
Student ID: 52927
Assignment Due Date: 24th February, 2011
Assignment: – Critique on the Use of Social Networking in Education
Instructor: Mr R Birbal

2. CRITIQUE ON THE USE OF SOCIAL NETWORKING IN EDUCATION
Thesis: The use of social networking in education has many implications that are both positive
and negative which prominently impact students and teachers.
Social networking can be defined as the software that allows people to come together
around an idea or topic of interest through the internet. Many people have a frame of mind that
social networking is simply ‘Facebook’ or ‘Twitter’ but it is much more than that. For
educational purposes they are tools of communication that offer students and teachers to connect,
interact, research and collaborate with each other. There are many pros and cons involved in the
topic of social networking in education.
Some of the challenges in using this software tool are that it is time-consuming, there can
be miscommunication and information or knowledge gained can be subjective and/or false. To
address the first issue- ‘it can be time consuming’, we must note that not all social networking
sites is time consuming. Some such as Diigo, Linked In and Ning are websites that foster
cognitive development. However websites such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and others are
scientifically proven to be addictive. According to Facebook, there are more than one hundred
and fifty million users and such spend approximately five billion minutes a day on the site.
One of the main purposes of social networking sites is that it creates communication
between people. However, the wave of this communication can be corrupted because virtual
reality is not actually reality. When students or teachers cannot communicate in person,
misunderstandings about assignments, dates, classes and instructions can occur because
individuals cannot perceive physical clues such as body language, tone and inflection.

3. Social networking sites are not only used for communication but it can be used in
education to share knowledge. Websites such as Wikipedia for example, is frequently used to
gain knowledge of basically anything. However the information that these websites pose can be
edited by any user which makes it difficult to distinguish from what is accurate or inaccurate.
Also, because of the anonymity of information submitted students can use it incorrectly. Other
challenges are privacy concerns, disclosing too much information and health issues related to the
time and energy that students put into social networking.
Some of the opportunities or pros involved concerning the use of social networking in
education include; access to using, creating and distributing knowledge, collaboration and also
increased awareness.
The internet is being made accessible to all students in schools through computer labs or
libraries. Because of this accessibility and the fact that the cost to use the internet in school is
free of charge students are provided with the opportunity of using these networks to gain
knowledge. In formal educational institutes, such as a public middle school for example,
teachers often lack adequate textbooks for students to each have their own copy (Baraniuk 2008).
By using social networks to connect the classroom and eliminating costs, teachers can create or
publish their own work online for free. Social networks also diversify the voice of knowledge
because any person can distribute knowledge through these websites for others to gain access to
and learn from.
Besides gaining access, creating and distributing knowledge social networking sites
create the opportunity for students and teachers in education to interact in a non-physical
environment where the boundaries of space and time are unlimited. Here, students can now

4. collaborate or cooperate with peers or their educators to do possibly any type of work online,
share knowledge, post links to information, updates and many more.
Because of all these factors- students can increase their awareness in the digital world in
order to become more adequate in the real world. When students interact on these websites they
become tech- savvy, globally knowledgeable and even more self-aware. Social networking sites
such as Youtube or Google are proven to increase the global awareness of students through its
up-to-date information and popularity. Students are inevitably exposed to these issues through
websites like these.
As the numbers and popularity of social networking websites increase new opportunities
present themselves as well as their boundaries become expanded. Facebook and Twitter have
certainly redefined what it means to become someone’s friend. However, they have also created
a level of interconnectedness that cannot be achieved physically and is more efficient. The
challenges that social networks cause and the potential benefits are still emerging. While social
networking is not a new or unpopular phenomenon in the digital world, it is slowly starting to
become embraced in the educational world. The technology that enables this level of connection
has the potential to open up more information to people that we can imagine possible.