How To Use Social Media’s Charisma To Push the Educational Agenda

There are over 100 social media sites globally. Many of them are vying for your child’s attention. From Tik Tok to Instagram, social media has made parenting harder than it was 20 years ago. What if we were to view social media as a friend instead of the enemy? How can we use the platforms our children love to help them learn? Here’s how.

social media

Challenge your child to share knowledge

Of course, your child’s social media page is a sacred place. You could, however, create a weekly challenge that inspires your child to use that space in a creative way.

  1. Ask your child to choose the biggest lesson he or she learned in class for that week.
  2. Tell them to create a social media post that creatively explains the concept to those who follow the page. Let’s say your child has a Tik Tok page and learned about potential and kinetic energy that week. Your child could do a creative video that shows the difference between potential and kinetic energy in a fun way.
  3. Encourage your child to create a hashtag for these weekly challenges so that it’s easy to keep track of them.
  4. Reward your child when the post goes up. The rewards don’t have to be anything big; just something to show that the effort is appreciated.

 

Follow the hashtags

Encourage your children to follow hashtags relevant to concepts they’re learning, especially the difficult ones. Let’s say your child is having challenges with simultaneous equations. Here’s how social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram and Tik Tok can help.

  1. Type in #simultaneousequations in the social media platform’s search engine.
  2. Filter the results (if applicable). Twitter, for instance, allows you to filter the results in these categories:
    • Top
    • Latest
    • People
    • Photos
    • Videos
  3. You’ll find a host of practice questions, discussions, and how-to videos that can be really helpful.
  4. Scroll through the results to find what you need.
  5. Follow the steps using the hashtag relevant to what your child wants to learn.

 

Have some Youtube knowledge time

Youtube is one of the most popular social media platforms. Not only does it provide entertainment value, but it also provides a wealth of teaching and learning opportunities.

If your child is struggling with a concept, watching a Youtube video could help. This strategy, however, does have its drawbacks. As an example, you would need to decipher whether the Youtube creator is sharing valid information.

One way to combat this is to research the most credible education providers on Youtube. For instance, Khan Academy is great for elementary, high school, and college math, science, arts and humanities, computing, economics, and finance. Do your research. Find the right channels. Help your child learn.

 

Final words

Social media is already a huge distraction for both children and adults. Why not use it to your child’s advantage to create more learning opportunities? The strategies mentioned in this article can be adapted to suit your child’s learning needs.

Whatever strategy you choose, monitor your child so that you can ensure learning is actually taking place.