INF20011 Report: Social Media Usage in Australian Education

This report examines the integration and impact of social media within the Australian education sector. It explores the evolving role of social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram in student learning, communication, and access to resources. The report highlights the benefits of social media, such as improved communication, collaboration, and access to peer-reviewed sources, while also addressing potential negative impacts, including distractions and time management challenges. It analyzes student perspectives on social media's influence on their studies and the broader educational environment, and discusses the implications for the future of education in Australia, considering the balance between leveraging the benefits of social media and mitigating its potential drawbacks.

STUDENT DETAILS
SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE FOR
TERITORY ORGANIZATIONS IN
AUSTRALIA

Social media and education sector 1
Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
The role of social media in the Educational sector of Australia................................................3
Impact of social media on the educational sector of the nation.................................................4
Social media is re-shaping today’s education system................................................................5
Empowering effects on education system..............................................................................5
Social technology has created benchmarks in the educational sector to................................5
Forms stronger community....................................................................................................5
The perspective of students about the interference of social media in educational sector.........6
Students also agreed for the negative effects of social media on their study schedule..............7
Question arises that is social media useful for students as per the culture of Australian
Education?..................................................................................................................................8
Communication and collaboration.........................................................................................8
Availability of peer-reviewed source:....................................................................................8
Conclusion................................................................................................................................10
References................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
The uses of internet connectivity in the educational sector of Australia has become essential.
Increased bandwidth, enhanced functionality and availability of broadband network are the
prime reason behind the growing importance of social media and internet in the educational
sector too. Even students are using social media and other websites for sourcing information
(Carbo, et. al., 2016). Furthermore, the educational institute is using various social media
tools like search engine optimization, automated tools, etc. for promoting their institute.
Apart from this, the educational department of Queensland had provided all the state schools
and students an Education Queensland email hosted in Microsoft office 365 (Carbo, et. al.,
2016). Under this program, it also provides a platform to school where they can store files,
shared with each other and synced them. It is the official government software, specially
designed for the educational sector. In this study, there will be a discussion about how
territory organizations are using social media sites for accomplishing their objectives.

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The role of social media in the Educational sector of Australia
Social media tools are engaging in learning habits among students and educational institutes.
Through social media, students can incorporate plugins that are used for sharing and
interaction. Students are also getting benefit from various pages of Instagram, Facebook, etc.
They are getting a video tutorial on the homepage of their social media accounts (Bertot,
Jaeger & Hansen, 2012). Apart from this, many colleges and schools are also uploading their
specific videos on their youtube channel. In Australia, the major platform of social media that
are being frequently used by institutes are youtube, google plus, facebook and Instagram
(Chen & Bryer, 2012). Through these channels they are communication important news,
making effective announcements and enable students with important information. Social
media tools also provide help to institute for tackling the student issues though group
interactions feature (Constantinides & Stagno, 2012).
Social media tools make possible for schools and colleges of Australia, to initiate hashtags
for fascinating the interest of students. Such as #schooldays #oldschool, etc. Education
institute believes that video posting is a prominent tool rather than only posting pictures with
messages. Social media tools also enable the educational sector to extract data (Carbo, et. al.,
2016). Government of the country is introduced enhanced learning management system. It is
the networking software that delivers educational content to the students. Its learning in LMS
includes instant chat functions on official websites of school and collages, pre-recorded
videos, forums, quick guides, live conferencing with students, webinar capability, group
views, blogs, etc (Gikas & Grant, 2013).
Apart from this, from the student's perspective, social media helps the students in creating a
strong student career (Neier & Zayer, 2015). For example, A digital marketing course can be
able to inspire students and motivates them. Currently, the Australian educational system is

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adapting parameters of social media so each student will be able to make his/her own
decision through his experience.

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Impact of social media on the educational sector of the nation
Every technology and innovation have both positive and adverse aspects. However, the
occurrence of social sites has also an adverse and positive effect. When social media is used
for educational purpose in the education sector then undoubtedly it enhances the knowledge
and beauty of the institute. On the other hand, when social sites are used for non-educative
information then it creates major challenges for students and complete sector (Rennie &
Morrison, 2013).
Since 2012, the reading habits of most of the students have been washed down the drain
because of the advancement of social media (Rithika & Selvaraj, 2013). Reading forms the
greatest foundation in human beings and reading self-improvements books, the article about
positivity, quotes, etc are extremely essential for the overall development of students (Rice,
et. al., 2016).
Social media channels like Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, etc are the major obsessions of
most Australian youth. It is impacting overall education sector also. According to the study,
over 200,000 youth in the country are students and more than 95% students have the
availability of interest through data connection and their school or collage’s wi-fi network
(Selwyn, 2012). However, even teachers are also concluding that social media is the effective
tool to communicate with the students but it is up to every individual student that how he
wants to utilize this ultimate tool (Ashley & Tuten, 2015).
Moreover, there is no problem in social media networking sites. Teachers, educational
institute and other highly educated persons are also using this in Australia. It depends upon
the student how he/she wants to manage their time and learning (Bertot, Jaeger & Hansen,
2012).

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Social media is re-shaping today’s education system
Empowering effects on the education system:
Insights demonstrate that more than 95% of the students are using social media for both
educational and non-educational purpose (Constantinides & Stagno, 2012).
Social technology has created benchmarks in the educational sector too
Professor Dawson has an admirable statement that history demonstrated to every one of us
that regardless of how solid the opposition, mechanical advancement and new patterns will
eventually become a standard (Carbo, et. al., 2016). This applies to developed nations that
have a well-organized educational system framework.
Forms stronger community
The advantages of social media do not end at just making student-teacher relationship. For
example, principals or educational administrators can locate approaches to incorporate social
media (Gikas & Grant, 2013). Like sharing important updates, school news and other
essential information via means of social networks. In Australia, school are even holding an
online conversation gathering with the guardians (Neier & Zayer, 2015).

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The perspective of students about the interference of social media in the educational
sector
In 2018, a study is conducted on 2000 students at the University of Tasmania for finding out
their views about the use of tools like cloud computing, google docs, YouTube, google plus
and Instagram. After the question and answer session, it has been concluded that students are
strongly agreed that the interference of social media helped them in improving their
educational results (Williams and Nettlefold, 2018). YouTube allows them to practically
understand the various laws of science with great translation and as per their timings.
Students also concluded that social media helps them in enhancing their spiritual knowledge
also. By following spiritual reality pages they get timely post and quotes about the spiritual
related knowledge in their newsfeed (Williams and Nettlefold, 2018).
Apart from this, in this study it is has been observed that since social media is incorporated
the reading habit of the student are slowly vanished. Now, students even complete their
projects via computer and can read the book through e-books medium. Students have
concluded with an example that social media quickly identify and bring a creative solution
for their untold problems (Moore, 2013). For example, previous students had to read the
quotes and books in order to grab information but nowadays through a mobile application,
students can listen to the quote or even books just with a single click. In this way, students
had made many arguments in the support of social media (Ball, 2016).

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Students also agreed for the negative effects of social media on their study schedule
Students also agreed that they are investing majority of their time on the social platform but
not all the time they listen or read educational content. According to the students, Instagram
and YouTube’s virtual intelligence knows very well that what content and which thumbnail
will people click first. So, its virtual intelligence arranges those content systemically that act
as an eye-catcher. In this way, the majority of the time of the students goes towards accessing
social sites. However, students accept that social media is a great weapon if they use it in the
correct manner. If they access their social media account by managing their time and stick to
the specific content then it can act as the great motivator. So, this study showed that
Australian Students have both positive and negative perspective for social media in the
educational sector.

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Question arises that is social media useful for students as per the culture of Australian
Education?
Major platforms provide free access to this student. Thus, it acts as the major benefits for the
students but at the same time institute prefer to upload their coaching or lecture videos on the
paid application or their official website. Students are claiming that using various tools of
social media are helping them in catering to different requirements. Thus, education and
social media are working effectively and efficiently in the modern world (Paula & Fragouli,
2018).
Communication and collaboration:
The greatest advantage of social media is that it improves communication. A student can
associate with anybody anytime by means of WhatsApp or others (Rice, et. al., 2016). They
can utilize such stages through their cell phone, tablet or PC and students can trade questions,
make telephone calls or video calls. Social media also promotes learning by offering sharing
documents facilities like Google Drive Box, Google Docs, Cloud sharing, etc (Seaman &
Tinti, 2013).
Availability of peer-reviewed source:
Various web pages and social media sites are giving a lot of data that can be useful to
students. For example, Social media accounts enable students to follow new channels,
television media channels and education channels like Discovery and National Geographic
(Rithika & Selvaraj, 2013). By following these channel pages, students get information as the
news feed in the loop on the home screen of the application. Contingent upon their interests,
students can discover answers to their inquiries. For example, Tumblr and Pinterest offer
motivations for school ventures or pragmatic critical thinking.

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The instructive advantages of social media also allow the student to prepare for specific
lessons with great efficacy (Selwyn, 2012). These sites contain the most recent information
on different school subjects, thus it allows studying and investigating what's going on. Social
media is a Wikipedia for students nowadays. Fortunate, Australia is witnessing an era of
social media learning (Bertot, Jaeger & Hansen, 2012).

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Conclusion
It has been concluded that the interference of social media sites has both positive and
negative effects on the educational sector of Australia. The reason behind the adoption of
these tools into this sector is the high broadband speed, bandwidth, etc. In the educational
sector, social media tools helping the students to learn rapidly and it is also helping them to
connect with the outside world. Major social media sites are Instagram, YouTube, Facebook
and Google Plus. For the educational and document sharing purpose, educational institutes
also use google docs, cloud sharing, etc.

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References
Ashley, C. and Tuten, T. (2015) Creative strategies in social media marketing: An
exploratory study of branded social content and consumer engagement. Psychology &
Marketing, 32(1), pp.15-27.
Ball, S.J. (2016) Following policy: Networks, network ethnography and education policy
mobilities. Journal of Education Policy, 31(5), 549-566.
Bertot, J.C., Jaeger, P.T. and Hansen, D. (2012) The impact of polices on government social
media usage: Issues, challenges, and recommendations. Government information
quarterly, 29(1), 30-40
Chen, B. and Bryer, T. (2012) Investigating instructional strategies for using social media in
formal and informal learning. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed
Learning, 13(1), 87-104.
Constantinides, E. and Stagno, M.C.Z. (2012) Higher education marketing: A study on the
impact of social media on study selection and university choice. International Journal of
Technology and Educational Marketing (IJTEM), 2(1), 41-58.
Corbo, J.C., Reinholz, D.L., Dancy, M.H., Deetz, S. and Finkelstein, N. (2016) Framework
for transforming a departmental culture to support educational innovation. Physical Review
Physics Education Research, 12(1), 109-113.
Gikas, J. and Grant, M.M. (2013) Mobile computing devices in higher education: Student
perspectives on learning with cellphones, smartphones & social media. The Internet and
Higher Education, 19(1), 18-26.
Moore, M.G. (2013) Handbook of distance education. Abingdon: Routledge.

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Neier, S. and Zayer, L.T. (2015) Students’ perceptions and experiences of social media in
higher education. Journal of Marketing Education, 37(3), 133-143.
Paula, C. and Fragouli, E. (2018) Internationalization strategy of British Higher Education
Institutions and student satisfaction. International Journal of Higher Education, 4(2), 12-89.
Rennie, F. and Morrison, T., (2013) E-learning and social networking handbook: Resources
for higher education. Abingdon: Routledge.
Rice, E.S., Haynes, E., Royce, P. and Thompson, S.C. (2016) Social media and digital
technology use among Indigenous young people in Australia: a literature
review. International journal for equity in health, 15(1), 81-89.
Rithika, M. and Selvaraj, S. (2013) Impact of social media on student’s academic
performance. International Journal of Logistics & Supply Chain Management
Perspectives, 2(4), 636-640.
Seaman, J. and Tinti, H. (2013) Social media for teaching and learning. London: Pearson
Learning Systems.
Selwyn, N. (2012) Social media in higher education. The Europa world of learning, 11(2), 1-
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Williams, K. and Nettlefold, J. (2018) Insight Five: University of Tasmania. [Online]
Available from: https://www.utas.edu.au/social-change/publications/insights/insight-five-
media-literacy-in-australian-schools [Accessed on: 20th August, 2019]