A 2012 whitepaper release from TheSocialPeople on how Social Media can be leveraged to be make education go global - We call it as the Global Social Classrooms. Download to read more!

1. www.TheSocialPeople.net
2012
Socializing our Education: Why
Collaboration matters
A Whitepaper on how Social Media can enable Education break the 4 walled barrier of classroom and
make it go global by making learning collaborative and interactive.

2. 2012 © TheSocialPeople | www.TheSocialPeople.net
About TheSocialPeople
TheSocialPeople is a Social Media Strategy firm headquartered in Chennai, INDIA. Founded in 2011,
TheSocialPeople is a hardcore Social Media Strategy firm that builds customized solutions for businesses
to unleash the power of Social Media across all their business verticals. Our clients can range from large
corporations and national news publications to local businesses and niche blogs. Honestly to us, Size is
not nearly as important as the ambition and the drive to succeed.
Some have called us a Social Media Public Relations firm. Others perceive our abilities to run a
Marketing campaign on the social networks. Fact is that we do much more than just marketing which is
just one aspect of a business. Our company identity has never been as important to us as results we can
bring to your business and its dynamics. To be simply put – We’re TheSocialPeople and we make your
business into a Social Entity; we call it a Social Business.
Contact Us:
TheSocialPeople (@thesocialppl)
#232 (Old No. 186) Purasaiwalkam High Road
206-1A CitiCenter Building
Chennai - 600007. Tamil Nadu.
INDIA.
Phone: +91 44 4330 7348.
Email: solutions@thesocialpeople.net
Web: www.TheSocialPeople.net
Facebook: www.facebook.com/thesocialpeople

3. 2012 © TheSocialPeople | www.TheSocialPeople.net
Socializing our education
Why Collaboration matters.
Twelve year old Ria is very excited today. She has just been given her latest assignment on ‘rainwater
harvesting’ which she and her 7th
standard classmates have to complete in a week. The assignment is
due in a week hence the planning was critical. As they did not have time to meet in school they were
planning to meet after school hours.
Ria reaches home and switches on her computer and logs into the school network which has an inbuilt
social sharing platform to chat. Others login in and over the chat they come up with the plan for the
assignment and divide the work amongst themselves.
As most of the group was not familiar with the topic, they put up a discussion on Facebook. Soon they
had 30 ‘likes’ and 10 comments. One of the comments was from Ria’s best friend Avika who lived in an
apartment block practicing Rain water harvesting.
Avika interviewed the water management group for Ria and posted the video on You Tube. Soon Ria had
other questions which she then SMSed the water management expert who was prompt in his reply.
Over the week the group works on the assignment posting their portions, videos, pictures and graphs on
their school group. Come presentation day the assignment is sent to their environmental studies
teacher, again through the school platform. By evening they know their score; they have managed an
A+.Ria and her group have just socialized education and proved why collaboration matters.
This is not an imaginary scenario but a recent experience that one of our authors had while talking to
some children in their apartment block. Though all names have been masked but this is one of the
scenarios as to how social media is being used in the area of education.
Learning is fun
In 2010 the IT industry was allowed to visit engineering campuses to recruit in 7th
semester instead of the
8th
. This created a need for students to be trained on interview concepts almost six months in advance.
The situation was ideal for Classle one of the pioneers of education to use their revolutionary concept of
integrating their social learning platform and game dynamics engine. The result was a seven day event
where more than 485 colleges took part in a giant game of creating quizzes based on probable questions
that were then circulated and answered by other students. This is one of the first examples of user
generated content that was used in the education sector. For more on this story please visit
www.classle.net

4. 2012 © TheSocialPeople | www.TheSocialPeople.net
The Evolution of Education sector in
India
India has been considered as the back office of the world. This would not have been possible if we
would not have taken our education seriously. There has been a phenomenal growth for education
awareness in the Indian crowd and that too at all levels. We can see many a crowd coming out of
Graduation and Post-Graduation schools and bringing laurels to the crowd. However, education is not
reaching to the masses because
a. The quality education institutions are clustered in cities
b. The other institutions don’t have a good faculty
c. Many families can’t afford the higher education
d. Very minuscule usage of technology in education sector
In the advent of Web 2.0 and Social Media, it will be very beneficial and helpful to use this tool in
education sector. In other words the stage is set to socialize education. Some steps have been taken in
this direction, like, for e.g., for many people, the term distance education now conjures up the images of
computers and internet. However, nothing much has been done to use social media in education sector
in India.
The research revolves around identifying and understanding the usage of Social Media in education
sector in India. It will also be focused on identifying which social medium will be more effective for
knowledge sharing and mentoring. It will also focus on if we have to introduce Social Media in education
then at what level of education it should be introduced for optimum output.
In the month of March this year TheSocialPeople came up with an interesting thought to actually
understand the advent of social media in our schools and colleges today. The other objective was to
identify at what level of implementation of Social Media in education sector be more effective. And
finally to recognize the number one social media channel used in India today.
We surveyed more than 100 individuals across different age groups to get their perspective on the
current state and the future implications of social media in the sector.

5. 2012 © TheSocialPeople | www.TheSocialPeople.net
The usage of social media in the group interviewed was very interesting almost 40 % of them did not use
social media for more than an hour. In some of the respondents it was much lower than that and some
of them did not use it for more than few hours a week. Interestingly this was seen in the age group
between 25-40 years of age and mostly among men.

6. 2012 © TheSocialPeople | www.TheSocialPeople.net
Interestingly an overwhelming majority agreed that education needed socialization, 65 % of the
respondents either agreed or strongly agreed on the topic. 19 % disagreed while 16 % were neutral.
This clearly showed that though there was some opposition to the introduction of social media the vast
majority felt that it was a good idea to introduce social media in educational institutions.
When asked about the increase in learning using socialized education, almost 70 % respondents felt that
the learning would be enhanced by the medium. Almost 20 % again felt that there would be no
enhancement in learning. This was a surprising finding considering the growth in number of learning
videos across the globe. But still the number is in sync with the previous finding where 19% were
opposed to the introduction of social media in educational institutions.
In both the above questions the age group above 40 was the clearly against the move with almost 100 %
respondents in the age category against socialization of education and feel learning will not be faster
with its introduction.
When asked at what level in the educational life cycle of a student social media should be introduced
the majority wanted it introduced in secondary school followed by senior secondary school and then
graduation. Surprisingly the number of respondents opposed socialization of education fell to about 4%.
This could be a result of the broader understanding of education lifecycle as it includes graduation and
post-graduation as well. There is a possibility that the opposition in the earlier questions was to
introduction of social media in schools while most I think were fine with the introduction in colleges.

7. 2012 © TheSocialPeople | www.TheSocialPeople.net
When asked about sharing of educational information among students using social media an
overwhelming 94 % of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement. Mostly all felt
that social media is a good platform for collaboration between students.
9%
33%
24%
24%
6% 4%
Levels of Implementation
PrimarySchool
Secondary School
Higher Secondary
Graduation
Post Graduation
Should not be allowed

8. 2012 © TheSocialPeople | www.TheSocialPeople.net
When asked about the best social media channel for education sector, the results were very surprising.
Almost 23% felt that You Tube was the best channel for social education followed by Blogs (22%) and
finally the surprise package Slide Share (20%). Facebook the most popular social media channel came in
4th
with 12 % respondents favoring them.
39
22
34
73
13
68
64
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
Facebook Google+ Skype Youtube Twitter Blogs SlideShare

9. 2012 © TheSocialPeople | www.TheSocialPeople.net
Research Conclusion
In conclusion the following are the important findings of our study:
1. 50% respondents agree that introducing socialization of education will be of immense help. This
is supported by 15% people who strongly agree about the same.
2. 61% respondents suggest that students will learn more by using Social media.
3. 56% respondents strongly agree followed by 56% respondents who agree that after the
implementation of socialization of education, subject related educational audio/video/power
point presentations, etc. should be shared among the students.
4. 33% respondents suggest that introduction of Social Media should be done in secondary school,
followed by higher secondary (24%) and graduation (24%).
5. Respondents of age 15 to 25 years as well as of age 25 to 40 years suggest usage of Social Media
in education; however, respondents over age 40 years have not shown any sign for the same.
6. Secondary school, Higher Secondary School followed by Graduation respectively has been
suggested as the level at which Social Media be introduced in education
7. Respondents agreeing upon introducing Social Media in Education agree upon implementing at
Higher Secondary education level, followed by secondary schooling and then followed by
Graduation level.
8. The preferred medium of Social Media in education is through Youtube, followed by Blogs and
then Slide share. Facebook is the 4th
preferred medium.
Finally social media according to the survey there are many advantages of using social media in
education, the most important aspects are collaboration and sharing of information.
As education in India evolves it has no choice but to leverage technology in order to socialize education.

10. 2012 © TheSocialPeople | www.TheSocialPeople.net
#232 (Old No. 186) Purasaiwalkam High Road, 206-1A CitiCenter Building, Chennai - 600007. Tamil Nadu. INDIA.
Phone: +91 44 443307348 | Email: solutions@thesocialpeople.net | www.TheSocialPeople.net