Jordan and Weller (2017) came up with Openness in Education: A Beginner’s Guide as a result of people’s different understanding and perspective on ‘Open Education.’ In exploring this concept, the said authors explored various research papers that can be connected with ‘Open Education.’ In this guide, the authors were able to identify various themes related to openness. One of the themes identified

by the authors is Social Media. According to Jordan & Weller (2017), the theme of Social Media emerged during the mid 2000s. In line with this, I believe that Social Media is related to openness because it can support Open Education.

Currently, there are educators who are already using So

cial Media to Open Education. For example, in the article titled, “A New Online Course Using Social Media,” Biddix (2015) discussed how he used the Social Media to teach technology in higher education. Biddix’s course has two goals, namely: to introduce the current events related to the use of technlogy in higher education and to expose the students to different technologies which will allow them to work in higher education institutions. To achieve these goals, Biddix (2015) believes that social-learning approach would be the best strategy to keep his students engaged. I personally agree with Biddix because observing others will allow the students to gain insights on the “real” role of technology in education. In addition, through social-learning approach, students will observe how Biddix models the best practices of using technology to students.

To help the educators ensure that they are using Social Media in education effectively, they can use Social Media Toolkit. According to Gulbahar et al., (2017) Social Media Toolkit analyzes teaching scenario with several questions before making algorithm-based suggestions on what could be the best Social Media to use. The said toolkit also provides advice on how to use the Social Media for teaching purposes. In a research conducted by Gulbahar et al. (2017), the researchers found out that the toolkit is reliable. Moreover, according to the experts, the toolkit is appropriate in terms of content and usability. Online instructors also observed that with Social Media Toolkit, it became easier for them to create collaborative learning communities. Generally, both the educators and learners positively responded toward the toolkit and they also observed that it is convenient to use.

Even if there are educators who are already using Social Media in Open Education and there are toolkits that can guide educators on how to properly use Social Media in education, learners and educators should still be aware of the limitations of using Social Media in education. For instance, Harasim (2012) explained that the continued use of social media like wikis, blog, discussions, Facebook, and Twitter as tools in education have led to the proliferation of technologies that have not been designed for teaching and learning (cited in Mnkandla and Minnaar, 2017). This means that there are some educators who use Social Media but there is no underlying teaching philsophy behind their practice. Accordingly, if the use of Social Media lack necessary functionalities to enable learning, there is no benefit in using them. Moreover, even if the use of social media is widely described in higher education, the tools and specific uses of social media in education are not indicated in literatures (Bates, 2015 cited in Mnkandla and Minnaar, 2017). This implies that even if Social Media is popularly use to enable Open Education, educators should make it sure that they are using Social Media to enable teaching and learning.

In conclusion, Social Media can be associated to the concept of openness because it has the potential to enable Open Education. In fact, there are educators in the field who are already using Social Media in Open Education. If the educators would like to ensure that they are using Social Media effectively, they can use the Social Media Toolkit. The Social Media Toolkit analyzes the teaching context and provides a list of Social Media that educators can utilize. Nevertheless, literatures on the effectivity of using Social Media in Open Education is still limited. In addition to this, there are also some educators who are using Social Media without underlying teaching philosophies. For this reason, learners and educators should be very cautious is using Social Media to enable teaching and learning.

 

References

Gülbahar, Y., Rapp, C., Kilis, S., & Sitnikova, A. (2017). Enriching higher education with social media: Development and evaluation of a social media toolkit. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i1.2656

Jordan, K., & Weller, M. (2017). Openness and educaiton: A beginner’s guide. Global OER Graduate Network.

Major, C. H. (2015). Teaching Online: A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice. JHU P.

Mnkandla, E., & Minnaar, A. (2017). The use of social media in E-learning: A Metasynthesis. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(5). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i5.3014

 

CHECK THIS LINK FOR THE ORIGINAL DISCUSSION POST 2: SOCIAL MEDIA AND EDUCATION