INCREASING ROLE OF SOCIAL MEDIA IN REVOLUTIONIZING EDUCATION

Science has revolutionized the world beyond any imagination. From the invention of electricity the changes the mankind has gone through is enormous. The rapid growth of internet and social media has revolutionized the way the world works.

Social media has greatly changed the way the world communicates. The greatest impact of internet and social media is in the field of education. Social media has become a tool in spreading the latest methods of education to the farthest corners of the earth.

Once there was a time when schools/colleges banned their students from joining social networking sites to prevent them from wasting their time online. But in a span of 6 years the whole scenario has been turned upside down. Now every school/college is using social media as tool in helping students study. Many faculty members are using social media sites in their classroom to make students understand concepts easily and also it used has a medium of communication.

The introductions of Facebook’s group, Microsoft’s skype and Google’s hangout have completely revolutionized the education sector. Facebook’s group allows the members of a group share videos, links, word documents etc. These features can be used by students to share their subject oriented materials. Google’s hangout and Microsoft’s skype have truly changed the way conferences are held. Now thanks to these tools any one can engage in video conference for free from one corner of the world to another. These tools help students from the remote corners of the world to engage with other teachers and students in the well developed and gain knowledge. Thanks to social media distance is no longer a hindrance in education.

Thanks to the development of internet and its global availability many social learning platform like COURSEEPLUS, EDMODO, TIDWIT etc. offer various features to make learning easy. COURSEEPLUS offers many features such as groups, forums, quizzes, discussion board, hundreds of free online courses and live conferences. They also provide cloud platform schools and colleges to turn the institutions into a CLOUD CAMPUS, so students can access them from anywhere at any time.

The 21^st century has one through tremendous change due to the development of internet. It is high time schools and colleges use the social media to develop the skills of the students rather than preventing them from using it.