Are Social Media Platforms Appropriate for Communication between Instructors and Students?

"Some say it can provide a platform for learning and allow students to collaborate and communicate with each other. Yet other educators say Facebook has little educational value and does not serve any academic purpose." (Bugler, 2014  eLearning Africa News)

The concept of connecting or communicating students via social platforms is thought provoking for some instructors.  Initially, I prefer not to connect with students due any boundary issues or gray areas of teacher-students relationships.  Since September 2015, I embarked my teaching journey and over time I learned from other instructors or trainers that communicating with students via social platform is convenient. 

My experience: I really love emails as I think they are the most comfortable and informal approach but with a class of 11 students (I know it is small a group) and sending an en mass email could lead to a long thread of responses that can be confusing to see the flow of the conversation. I can only imagine how challenging that would be with a class of 20 or more students!!!  There would be times I simply want to share FYI information and not expect a response. By doing so an email doesn't always allow me to know if the students received it or seen it. After one month of teaching, I decided to join the private Facebook group page which one student created for our class. I realized the students in today's world are social-tech people and I should embrace that community. Many students may be open to communicate with other students via some social media platforms to enhance their learning abilities and/or develop social learning relationship. Once I joined the Facebook page, immediately some students wanted to add me to their Facebook Friends list, I decided to wait until I felt it was comfortable (I did accept their requests close to Christmas). I am thankful my personal Facebook is limited in what I share! Overtime, I accepted the fact communicating with students via Facebook was the most effective and convenient form of connection! I provided updates, preparation for the next lesson, or anything that was not mentioned in the class was posted on the Facebook, and general information relating to the lesson such as a YouTube video of cardiovascular system. Also, what I love about it is that I can tell who seen the message and if anyone has not seen it within 48 hours, I would send them a private message either via email or Facebook emails. The reason I chose 48 hours because I noticed many of my students have Facebook app on their smartphones or tablets which they frequent to on  a regular basis.  Some cases a student may be busy or away from the phone for a long period of times, and I feel it is  a good idea to inform them there is a posting on Facebook and please respond as soon as possible. That usually works for me. Also, the layout of responses after my post, is often clear, fluid, and easy to understand the flow of the conversations. Honestly, I absolutely love communicating to my class via Facebook when I am not teaching in class, I would post at least once a week which I think it is plenty for my class. Other instructors may need to post regularly depending on the education style.

Some instructors may find Facebook is not the best social platform for them to communicate with students. Perhaps Pinterest or Instagram.

Pinterest is a collection of ideas from Pinterest fans who share them via blogs, websites, online articles of ANY categories beneath the sun, ranging from antiques to finding a baby names starting with "z". I personally enjoy Pinterest for recipes and perhaps an educator in culinary industry would create Pinterest account to share their own personal recipes and students can follow accordingly to the curriculum. 


Instagram is solely personal photos or photos of something such as quotes, nature, hobbies and travelling. Instagram is often shared by individuals or business. However, I feel Instagram could be used in education for many reasons such as photography, finding 
                 images for assignments, or posting images relating to the subjects.

Blog is another great platform to connect with students. Perhaps students could create blogs or online journal-like entry, where instructors can see the students' perspectives on the  subject or course and to enhance healthy educator and learner relationship, instructor could provide a comment or feedback. Instructors can also share their blogs if they feel it is relatable to the subject they are teaching. Some instructors are open to share other interests or hobbies (outside of their teaching profession) and students have the option to follow due to their similar personal interests. 

LinkedIn is another social media platform which is like an online resume however many people  are customizing the page by posting blogs, tips, or online articles relating to their professions. LinkedIn may be useful for professional relationship between the educator and the learner especially if both are in the same industries.  Similarly to Facebook, one can put as much information on LinkedIn and a student or instructor can look into LinkedIn for additional information based on work experiences, education, and hobbies or interest. 

Twitter is another option of communicating to the students using a few characters. 

There are variety of social media platforms on internet and it is up to the instructor/teacher if they want to communicate with the students through sources like Facebook. Some cases the instructor and teacher may be forced to do so. A good suggestion is to create more than one account for Facebook where you have control of the audience and have effective communications with the students. Also I would suggest to those who are attempting to try connecting with students, pick one or two social media platform to become comfortable with it.  I think Facebook group page is the best  one to begin  as it is the one of the popular social media connections. Once the instructor  embraces the concept and idea of communicating with the students, the educator can add on more social media platforms if needed.

I provided some links below that were shared by the online-classmates in my PIDP 3240 course. I hope you find the links very interesting as I certainly did.

This shows the consensus of Yay or Nay for teachers to communicate with students via Facebook. There are very good insights to both sides.
 http://www.debate.org/opinions/should-teachers-and-students-be-friends-on-facebook

 Whether it is your first time or a regular activity as an instructor, this link provides a list of ideas how to utilize Facebook with your students.. Some ideas may be great, others you may  ponder if it is beneficial to utilize to your students.
http://www.onlinecollege.org/2012/05/21/100-ways-you-should-be-using-facebook-in-your-classroom-updated/

This article discussing about whether technology is effective in post-secondary education. 
http://ela-newsportal.com/social-media-Facebook-higher-education/ 

References
www.facebook.com
www.pinterest.com
www.instagram.com
www.twitter.com 
www.linkedin.com
http://ela-newsportal.com/social-media-Facebook-higher-education/