Social Media And The Digital Age

The three most significant new developments in society during my lifetime thus far would be: technology, social media, and education. For my father, the three most significant new developments in society throughout his lifetime would be the Soviet/Afghan War, migration, and technology.

Ever since World Wide Web came out in 1990, it has opened a floodgate for sharing and communicating over the internet in the form of social media. People can keep in touch with their friends and families from across the world, know what they are up to, and see all the interesting things that goes on in their lives. Keeping up with everyone and everything no longer requires tedious phone calls and email messages. Instead, we have easier, better looking, more interactive, and all around more fun ways to communicate. These new, and seemingly better in everyway, methods of communication is of course a hit with tech savvy young people and more surprisingly, also their old folks. Every new thing that came out, from Facebook to Twitter to Instagram to Snapchat, is hailed as groundbreaking and completely essential to daily lives by its users. Yet they all come with less recognisable, but just as important dangers. And I am not talking about drunk tweeting, either. These are bigger and much more complicated threats. Yes, social media is a new and wonderful way to communicate and share. However, this new way to communicate has created a new face for crime and a new class of criminals, and this new way to share has destroyed our privacy and personal security. For all their savviness at using these social media outlets, many fail to realize that there are people with less than innocent intentions following their every move through their shared feeds. Social media is a threat to our

The online world has ensured various learning capabilities that make use of communication through writing. The aspects of communication provided have led to varied knowledge and skills that are essential for learning. The online world has instilled the discipline of patience and the skills of critical thinking as learners communicate through discussion boards and other social media platforms. The online world has increased knowledge capabilities on different minds as it ensures various aspects of asking questions from a varied line of resources. Human minds have been a great source of information as members share their experiences and learning modalities with each other (Hansen, 2008).

This paper presents a theoretical model of online instruction and learning to mirror a constructivist approach to education. Constructivism is a common approach to learning and more and more districts are employing online learning environments in its schools. Course content and delivery elements are explored as they apply specifically to online learning in a K-12 environment. Other components of the construction of a web-based learning environment includes student motivation, student assessment, and the role the teacher plays in the online environment. The findings of this research paper depicted that whether learning takes place completely in an online course, or as part of a blended approach to learning, there still needs to be a strong structural foundation for the online learning environment to be effective. Overall, interaction between the teacher and learners, as well as peer interaction, is critical to the success of any online learning.

The internet is a huge part of everyday life. One could argue that it has also consumed the zeitgeist of the twenty-first century. Social media is a big component of this as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat are a huge part of the millennial culture. It seems that many people cannot go a few hours without feeling anxiety from being away from their phone or social media applications. This is something that has become a huge problem: the millennial generation is having a hard time with social skills, and in times when they feel as though they are in an awkward situation, the solution is to just pull out their phone and engage people they are comfortable with through their media platforms. Technology seems to be taking over, and the internet is a huge reason why. Without the internet, millennials, perhaps, would not have all the social media, or many of the social anxiety issues they have. Millennials, however, have grown up with the internet, and so they do not necessarily fear it. For others, however, especially in Japanese popular culture, the internet provoked a profound sense of fear. The Japanese horror films Pulse and Ringu depict a sense of fear over the internet, and the impact it has on people, especially the feelings of loneliness and the thought that someone or something is watching.

“Interaction is conducive to the emergence of the community of practice” (Collins et al; 1991) and a virtual community of learners (Collison, Elbaum, Haavind, & Tinker, 2000). “Learning from your peers in a structured way can ameliorate the social isolation online students often experience “. (Boud, Cohen, & Sampson, 1999) as compare to traditional classroom learning. Collaborative learning groups solve problems while sharing and clarifying ideas (Cox et al., 2004), which is normally difficult to get in individual learning on their known. In the community of practice novices learn from experts by observing authentic tasks and executing progressively more

Technology has become a major part of daily living. Serving as a source of entertainment for many years, it has evolved into a dynamic source for enriching a student’s educational experience. Many educators and educational institutions have begun to incorporate course management systems, Web 2.0 tools, virtual classrooms and stimulations into their course work in an effort to enhance the learning experiences for their students and staff. Technology has become a method of reaching the new digital generation. The use of technology in the classroom provides an enhanced learning solution that engages each user visually, audibly and intellectually. With the recent advent of wireless broadband Internet access and mobile communications devices provide remarkable opportunities for 21st century blended learning models – simultaneous online and face-to-face – and seriously called into question the industrial-age traditional “egg crate classroom” model of teaching and learning. (Fisher, 2010)

In our current delivery we do not provide instructors to facilitate the programs. Instead we offer tutors, subject matters and support services that our students can contact at any time. Comparable to Salmon’s Five Stage Model, we ensure the learner feels welcome to our online community. We repeatedly confirm with the student they know how to reach out to each team member and where to find their information for guidance and technical issues, to reinforce that no matter what the topic they have support. The responsibility of the student’s learning is left in their hands, they are professionals in the same line of work in which they are taking their program. However, we are lacking the online communities of building relationships, constructing knowledge and exchanging information with peers. Currently my team is amidst the process of building a community online for our learners to connect with each other within similar programs. Learning should be fun and the exchange of information that can be found in the connections they make with other students will be beneficial. It will help the learner identify new knowledge that is useful within their

As digital media improved and became increasingly available to ordinary people, various forms of social media became incorporated into everyday communications. Digital texting has become one of the most common preferred social media because they permit multitasking more than traditional telephone calls, notwithstanding the convenience of modern cell phones. For better and worse, texting is now routinely used among and between coworkers, because it provides real-time, 'round the clock availability. It is used extensively for social planning and coordination and a higher level of privacy control for confidential topics than is possible in any verbal telephonic communication in public (Adams, 2011).

Education paradigms are shifting to include more online learning, blended and hybrid learning as well as collaborative learning. With online learning students are offered different opportunities compared with physical campuses. This method of learning opens up the opportunities for increased collaboration while giving students an avenue to develop stronger digital skills. Online learning has increased the potential for collaboration because it integrates various means by which students can access outside of the classroom to meet and exchange ideas about a subject or project. This trend also identifies the quality of communication and interaction and how they are becoming key discriminators among hybrid learning environments. These emerging digital tools make it easier for students to ask each other questions and provide answers to these questions.

Today’s consumer demands and expects a certain level of technology to be available to them at all times. Phrases like “21st Century Skills” (Grunwald Associates, 2010) and “Web 2.0” are becoming commonplace to the layperson and considered to be expected competencies by hiring managers. Online education has shown steady growth over the last several years and this rate of growth is projected to continue or increase over the next several years. Instructors or “facilitators” in the online setting are faced with challenges and opportunities unique from those faced by instructors who teach in a face-to-face setting. Without proper training instructors may not use technology effectively and risk losing opportunities for interactivity (Sessoms, 2008).

Social Media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube are web-based activities that provide individuals access to build a public or a semi-public profile within a confined system, connect and find users that they share a connection with as well as view and navigate the list of connections that are made by other participants of the systems (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). Social media is widely used by young adults contributing to about 84% of the total usage (Smith, 2011). Some of the popular reasons for widespread use of social media are staying in touch with near and dear ones especially with friends and family, making new friends, following famous politicians and celebrities and also in search of potential relationships (Smith, 2011). However as the use of social media becomes more widespread, we cannot help but express concerns over the effects that social media usage may have on our behavior. Over the past couple of decades, research has strongly linked social media usage with negative behavioral outcomes and is known to affect one’s overall well-being. This essay will begin by discussing some of the behavioral issues that result from social media usage, followed by criticisms of this argument. The recommendation will then highlight some ways by which the behavioural problems could be dealt with, acknowledging that self-monitoring and self-regulation are the main ways to tackle the issue.

First, reality cannot be discovered because it does not exist prior to its social appearance. Second, individuals construct meanings through interactions with each other and within their environment. And third, significant learning occurs when people are engaged in social actions (Kim, 2001). Delving into the research would lead to make a scrupulous review of the criteria of credibility and integrity, which will be directly related to this qualitative research in the field of digital education. Creswell (2013) suggested that ‘a qualitative research includes emerging questions and pro¬cedures, data analysis inductively done, and interpretations of the meaning of the data.’ Here the researcher stood as much a part of the process as the participants and data they provided (Corbin & Strauss, 2015). Therefore, this research finds different ways to connect the researcher and his research participants, to see the world of social and cognitive commonalities among young people and the Web 2.0 tools, and to enjoy playing with words through thematic analysis.

Shifting attention to the virtual learning to meet the interests of students in the 21st-century

In addition to this Poore (2013) argued that the new social media has reformed the traditional media resources such as the usage of newspapers, books and magazines have reduced due to the availability of information on online resources such as Moodle and WebCT. Hence, it also provides intellectual benefits such as children can learn how to analyze, interpret and synthesize the information. Okoro (2012) acknowledge that integrating social media technologies into higher education can enhance ongoing communication between teacher and student which helps in promoting collaborative learning activities. His findings laid stress on effectiveness of teaching and student learning outcomes with an appropriate example of understanding the usage of electronic media in making strategies and practicing skills in business