Impact of Abundance of Social Media in Education in Developing Countries

Abstract

Education is globally challenged from different circles. There ARE some 2.2 billion children (UNICEF, 2010) who need to access quality education among other basic necessities. A large number of them cannot get the right education to move forward. Additionally, 114 out of 208 countries have a shortage of teachers with majority being in Africa. In many third world countries the right to education is not there as some associate education with western culture and maybe not conforming to the society's expectations. Many challenges that affect societies in developing countries also impacts on education hence the need to address the root causes. Selecting the right tools that will enable each of us to connect into and exploit the collective intelligence of the most relevant communities of practice is one of the new digital literacies professionals and students will need to draw upon. Therefore, there is need to rethink about education critically. Technology ought to have brought an entirely fresh way to make learning better since it has succeeded in many sectors of the economy. With the emergence of avantgarde software and technologies aimed at bringing information alive, traditional teaching and brick-and-mortar structures common in most countries in developing countries may remain important only for two main reasons, namely, to aid with encouraging an organized way of doing things, and providing a relatively safe place for youngsters to be while guardians go off to work. Simply adding the extraordinary technology of the 21st century to processes developed in the 20th century has not made learning better. Too many of the practices of the past that still exist today are just plain wrong in any case. Various researches have shown that, any type of technology when well integrated or used is capable of making a change in the learning and teaching process of the current generation of students. Researchers have noted that the various technologies in the hands of leaners had an influence in the way they learn, communicate and even socialize. New social sites like Facebook, twitter, instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Ning, Bebo and others are in use amonghighereducation students hence the need to leverage them for education purposes. Access to mobile electronic devices is the norm at the moment and many institutions in developed and developing countries are taking advantage of them for teaching and learning purposes. Significant trends have been realized in use of technology and especially use of social media sites for various purposes. Illich (1970) theorized on self-help 'learning webs' which has now become a reality. Freire (1993) talked of the open democracy unleashed by new social media and how it has fomented an erosion of the oppressive pedagogical practices as envisaged in traditional education. This shows that the new modes of acquiring knowledge brought about by technological innovations is a plus in the everyday learning and teaching in educational setups. Moreover, it is argued that educational environments could be gre...