[Whitepaper] Socializing our Education - Social Media as Global Classroom

www.TheSocialPeople.net

2012

Socializing our Education: Why Collaboration matters

A Whitepaper on how Social Media can enable Education break the 4 walled barrier of classroom and

make it go global by making learning collaborative and interactive.

2012 © TheSocialPeople | www.TheSocialPeople.net

About TheSocialPeople

TheSocialPeople is a Social Media Strategy firm headquartered in Chennai, INDIA. Founded in 2011,

TheSocialPeople is a hardcore Social Media Strategy firm that builds customized solutions for businesses

to unleash the power of Social Media across all their business verticals. Our clients can range from large

corporations and national news publications to local businesses and niche blogs. Honestly to us, Size is

not nearly as important as the ambition and the drive to succeed.

Some have called us a Social Media Public Relations firm. Others perceive our abilities to run a

Marketing campaign on the social networks. Fact is that we do much more than just marketing which is

just one aspect of a business. Our company identity has never been as important to us as results we can

bring to your business and its dynamics. To be simply put – We’re TheSocialPeople and we make your

business into a Social Entity; we call it a Social Business.

Contact Us:

TheSocialPeople (@thesocialppl)

#232 (Old No. 186) Purasaiwalkam High Road 206-1A CitiCenter Building Chennai - 600007. Tamil Nadu. INDIA. Phone: +91 44 4330 7348. Email: [email protected] Web: www.TheSocialPeople.net Facebook: www.facebook.com/thesocialpeople

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Socializing our education Why Collaboration matters.

Twelve year old Ria is very excited today. She has just been given her latest assignment on ‘rainwater

harvesting’ which she and her 7th standard classmates have to complete in a week. The assignment is

due in a week hence the planning was critical. As they did not have time to meet in school they were

planning to meet after school hours.

Ria reaches home and switches on her computer and logs into the school network which has an inbuilt

social sharing platform to chat. Others login in and over the chat they come up with the plan for the

assignment and divide the work amongst themselves.

As most of the group was not familiar with the topic, they put up a discussion on Facebook. Soon they

had 30 ‘likes’ and 10 comments. One of the comments was from Ria’s best friend Avika who lived in an

apartment block practicing Rain water harvesting.

Avika interviewed the water management group for Ria and posted the video on You Tube. Soon Ria had

other questions which she then SMSed the water management expert who was prompt in his reply.

Over the week the group works on the assignment posting their portions, videos, pictures and graphs on

their school group. Come presentation day the assignment is sent to their environmental studies

teacher, again through the school platform. By evening they know their score; they have managed an

A+.Ria and her group have just socialized education and proved why collaboration matters.

This is not an imaginary scenario but a recent experience that one of our authors had while talking to

some children in their apartment block. Though all names have been masked but this is one of the

scenarios as to how social media is being used in the area of education.

Learning is fun In 2010 the IT industry was allowed to visit engineering campuses to recruit in 7th semester instead of the

8th. This created a need for students to be trained on interview concepts almost six months in advance.

The situation was ideal for Classle one of the pioneers of education to use their revolutionary concept of

integrating their social learning platform and game dynamics engine. The result was a seven day event

where more than 485 colleges took part in a giant game of creating quizzes based on probable questions

that were then circulated and answered by other students. This is one of the first examples of user

generated content that was used in the education sector. For more on this story please visit

www.classle.net

http://www.classle.net/


The Evolution of Education sector in India

India has been considered as the back office of the world. This would not have been possible if we

would not have taken our education seriously. There has been a phenomenal growth for education

awareness in the Indian crowd and that too at all levels. We can see many a crowd coming out of

Graduation and Post-Graduation schools and bringing laurels to the crowd. However, education is not

reaching to the masses because

a. The quality education institutions are clustered in cities

b. The other institutions don’t have a good faculty

c. Many families can’t afford the higher education

d. Very minuscule usage of technology in education sector

In the advent of Web 2.0 and Social Media, it will be very beneficial and helpful to use this tool in

education sector. In other words the stage is set to socialize education. Some steps have been taken in

this direction, like, for e.g., for many people, the term distance education now conjures up the images of

computers and internet. However, nothing much has been done to use social media in education sector

in India.

The research revolves around identifying and understanding the usage of Social Media in education

sector in India. It will also be focused on identifying which social medium will be more effective for

knowledge sharing and mentoring. It will also focus on if we have to introduce Social Media in education

then at what level of education it should be introduced for optimum output.

In the month of March this year TheSocialPeople came up with an interesting thought to actually

understand the advent of social media in our schools and colleges today. The other objective was to

identify at what level of implementation of Social Media in education sector be more effective. And

finally to recognize the number one social media channel used in India today.

We surveyed more than 100 individuals across different age groups to get their perspective on the

current state and the future implications of social media in the sector.


The usage of social media in the group interviewed was very interesting almost 40 % of them did not use

social media for more than an hour. In some of the respondents it was much lower than that and some

of them did not use it for more than few hours a week. Interestingly this was seen in the age group

between 25-40 years of age and mostly among men.


Interestingly an overwhelming majority agreed that education needed socialization, 65 % of the

respondents either agreed or strongly agreed on the topic. 19 % disagreed while 16 % were neutral.

This clearly showed that though there was some opposition to the introduction of social media the vast

majority felt that it was a good idea to introduce social media in educational institutions.

When asked about the increase in learning using socialized education, almost 70 % respondents felt that

the learning would be enhanced by the medium. Almost 20 % again felt that there would be no

enhancement in learning. This was a surprising finding considering the growth in number of learning

videos across the globe. But still the number is in sync with the previous finding where 19% were

opposed to the introduction of social media in educational institutions.

In both the above questions the age group above 40 was the clearly against the move with almost 100 %

respondents in the age category against socialization of education and feel learning will not be faster

with its introduction.

When asked at what level in the educational life cycle of a student social media should be introduced

the majority wanted it introduced in secondary school followed by senior secondary school and then

graduation. Surprisingly the number of respondents opposed socialization of education fell to about 4%.

This could be a result of the broader understanding of education lifecycle as it includes graduation and

post-graduation as well. There is a possibility that the opposition in the earlier questions was to

introduction of social media in schools while most I think were fine with the introduction in colleges.


When asked about sharing of educational information among students using social media an

overwhelming 94 % of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement. Mostly all felt

that social media is a good platform for collaboration between students.

9%

33%

24%

24%

6% 4%

Levels of Implementation

Primary School

Secondary School

Higher Secondary

Graduation

Post Graduation

Should not be allowed


When asked about the best social media channel for education sector, the results were very surprising.

Almost 23% felt that You Tube was the best channel for social education followed by Blogs (22%) and

finally the surprise package Slide Share (20%). Facebook the most popular social media channel came in

4th with 12 % respondents favoring them.

39

22

34

73

13

6864

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Facebook Google+ Skype Youtube Twitter Blogs SlideShare


Research Conclusion

In conclusion the following are the important findings of our study: 1. 50% respondents agree that introducing socialization of education will be of immense help. This

is supported by 15% people who strongly agree about the same. 2. 61% respondents suggest that students will learn more by using Social media. 3. 56% respondents strongly agree followed by 56% respondents who agree that after the

implementation of socialization of education, subject related educational audio/video/power point presentations, etc. should be shared among the students.

4. 33% respondents suggest that introduction of Social Media should be done in secondary school, followed by higher secondary (24%) and graduation (24%).

5. Respondents of age 15 to 25 years as well as of age 25 to 40 years suggest usage of Social Media in education; however, respondents over age 40 years have not shown any sign for the same.

6. Secondary school, Higher Secondary School followed by Graduation respectively has been suggested as the level at which Social Media be introduced in education

7. Respondents agreeing upon introducing Social Media in Education agree upon implementing at Higher Secondary education level, followed by secondary schooling and then followed by Graduation level.

8. The preferred medium of Social Media in education is through Youtube, followed by Blogs and then Slide share. Facebook is the 4th preferred medium.

Finally social media according to the survey there are many advantages of using social media in

education, the most important aspects are collaboration and sharing of information.

As education in India evolves it has no choice but to leverage technology in order to socialize education.


#232 (Old No. 186) Purasaiwalkam High Road, 206-1A CitiCenter Building, Chennai - 600007. Tamil Nadu. INDIA. Phone: +91 44 443307348 | Email: [email protected] | www.TheSocialPeople.net

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.thesocialpeople.net/