Social Media as a Communication Tool for Learning

Social media are tools that allow people to share information. They depend on mobile and web based technologies to create interactive platforms.  Social media would be a good communication tool for learning especially twitter, Face Book and WhatsApp that seem to be the favorite of the students here at my school. It could help in the following ways;
·         For students to discuss questions or assignments given to them.
·         Teachers could post questions with hash-tags and the children answer directly to him/her and to each other.
·         There would be increased participation from the learners as it helps them to find their voice.
·         Students post their responses on in class readings and discuss aspects of a topic without so much as disrupting others who are reading.
·         Can be used to keep students up to date on tests and due dates.
·         It would give time to the students to discuss even outside class.

It is however, not without its pitfalls some of which include;

·         Addiction
·         thought fragmentation
·         distraction
·         suffocates face to face interaction
·         mindless banter
·         hinders critical thinking etc.
My learners have been using WhatsApp and FaceBook for chatting mostly, apart from a few who have used it for discussing assignments that have been given to them, sharing notes, playing brain teasing games and asking questions of what was studied at school in case one has been absent/ away from school.
I would use Facebook and WhatsApp for posting questions that learners can discuss collaboratively. I would also post images that they would have to analyse and interpret. WhatsApp would come in handy when it gets to video clips of literature text books.
The learners would have assignments to look for resources online and if they found a valuable one they would be tasked to tweet it to the group.