Module 2 Unit 5
What is social media?
Before we embark on our journey of how to use social media in teaching and learning environments, let's first get a very clear understanding on what social media actually is. Review the video below (on YouTube - a social media platform in its own right):
An explanation of what social media is
A social networking website is known by many different names. You might have heard people use terms like “social networks”, ”social media”, “online communities” or “social networking sites”. All of these terms essentially mean the same thing: An online community is a social networking website where people are able to communicate with other people that they know such as family and friends, as well as organizations and the rest of the world.
People can communicate on social networks in a variety of ways, they can send text messages to one another, find and connect with friends, share photos, videos, thoughts, and articles from other websites, create and post their own photos, videos and join online communities where people have the same interests.
The list of social media applications is extensive but for the purposes of keeping within our allocated time for this study unit, we will focus on Facebook, WhatsApp, Google Meet and Google Chat (previously known as Google Hangouts) Please explore the other popular platforms like Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest since you may feel more comfortable using these platforms in your classroom. In terms of social media penetration in Zambia consider the graph below.
Source: StatCounter Global Stats - Social Media Market Share