This topic on “online participation” and “digital literacies” really opened my views on the current approach to education. Prior to this, I have taken for granted the platform that our institutions provided which has enabled our education to move to a “virtual” mode at the onset of pandemic. Truthfully, this has sort of set me in the comfort zone where I just simply used what has been provided for me.

However, not everyone has such resources prepared for them. This change in education mode actually provided them the opportunities or prompt them to explore new platforms out there (most which I have not heard of prior). It is also encouraging to see the initiatives and that encouraged me to boost my digital literacy and online participation. Not everything need to be done by PowerPoint!

At this current age, I think most people are familiar with social media (Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok etc) and I am curious on how social media has shaped education or can they be used to facilitate education. In the article done by Zhu et al. (2021), they investigated the relationship between information literacy and social media competence in university students. They concluded that while students are equipped with basic knowledge and ability to use social media, they are weak to communicate meaningfully with others. Hence, one would wonder if social media is effective tools to transfer knowledge if communication cannot take place. Furthermore, what about online lessons done via video recordings, like those on video streaming sites? Are they effective in replacing face to face lessons?

Certainly I am not an expert in this area, but would be very interesting to find out. MOving forward, what is the best mode of education? Is it physical, virtual or a hybrid of both modes?

Other interesting reads:

Tandoc Jr. et al. (2021), Developing a Perceived Social Media Literacy Scale: Evidence from Singapore, International Journal of Communication 15

Tsvetkova et al. (2021), The Use of Social Media for the Development of Digital Literacy of Students: From Adequate Use to Cognition Tools, International Journal of Emerging Technology in Learning 16(2)

References

Zhu et al. (2021), Investigating the Relationship Between Information Literacy and Social Media Competence Among University Students, Journal of Educational Computing Research 59 (7), 1425-1449