Social Media and Education Pros and Cons

In recent years social media has played an influential role in modern society, especially with children and teenagers. So much so that social media has been banned from many schools. Pupils are accessing social media during school hours and causing disruption to lessons. The whole social media revolution has many pros and cons, some of which I have listed below:-

Pros

• Raises student collaboration within a classroom and at home by having the ability to contact classroom peers regarding school projects, homework or help from each other.
• Encouragement of participation by pupils who do not participate regularly in the school environment, giving them the opportunity to express their thoughts through social media.
• Quick sharing of resources such as posting websites that are useful to pupils on a social media site.
• Useful for homework by requesting help via a social media site.
• Involves all parties i.e. the parent, teacher and pupil.

Cons

• Distraction during lessons.
• Can be abused for personal interactions such as general chat.
• Cyber bullying.
• Decrease human interaction within a classroom.
• Difficulty in monitoring the content being posted which can lead to appearance of innapropriate content that could be offensive to other users. 

Website Extensions

This post is a reference guide to help me through university. It allows me to choose reliable and useful websites when researching information. Each website extension is different however, the reliability of some are questionable, especially when referencing for academic work. Here's a list of website extensions and their meanings

Extensions are categories of Internet domain names.

•  .com - Commercial

The most widely used extension in the world. Most businesses prefer a .com domain name because it is a highly recognized symbol for having a business presence on the Internet

•  net - Network

Most commonly used by Internet service providers, Web-hosting companies or other businesses that are directly involved in the infrastructure of the Internet. Additionally, some businesses choose domain names with a .net extension for their intranet Websites.

• .org - Organisation

Primarily used by non-profits groups or trade associations.

• .co.uk

is the country code for UK. The .co portion of the extension indicates the domain name is for commercial purposes (similar to a standard .com extension). It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

• .org.uk

is the country code for UK. The .org portion of the extension indicates the domain name is for an organization. It is unrestricted and may be registered by anyone, from any country.

Importance of Websites

What information do i need to know when choosing a website?

After my lecture today, i have learnt that it is important to understand what websites i am using and for what purpose. If i intend to use a website to help guide my research in my academic work then the following points will help me determine whether the website is valid.

• Checking adverts - academic websites have adverts that are related to the specific topic of the website. For example part of my task was teaching the class on synchronised swimming. The website i used had adverts that were linked to swimming.

• Website extensions indicate the reliability of a website, extensions such as ".ac.uk" ".gov" are considered reliable as gov is identified as a government based website and ac.uk is recognised with a variety of universities. Additionally .org can be reliable in some circumstances however research to check the extent of its reliability is needed such as being partnered with recognised organisations.

• Personal websites can be very unreliable sources, this is due to the fact that in many circumstances the author of the website can not be found in any academic sources. 

• If the website is updated regularly will indicate sufficient and up to date information. 

• Purpose and use of intended website - this is an important factor when deciding on a website to use. If the intended use is for academic purposes then research and background information about a website and the author is needed to understand if the information provided is relevant and trusted. For an academic purpose it is advised that Wikipedia is avoided due to the fact that information can be changed by anyone and anywhere, which can question the truthfulness of information. However,  if the website chosen is intended to be used for leisure or gaining a small idea of a chosen area then websites such as Wikipedia may then come in use. 

By following these tips i can identify what websites are useful to me for different purposes.