2.

) Academics
A lot of criticism has been leveled at social media and the effect it has
on the way students process and retain information, as well as how
distracting it can be. However, social media offers plenty of
opportunities for learning and interactivity, and if you take a moment
to think about it, its not too hard to see how students benefit from
using social media. As younger generations use such technology in the
classroom, they remake the educational landscape.
Students are experiencing the world through more than just books and
assignments; they are learning and adapting to the world using a
relatively new form of communication. In a world where connections
are important, graduates are coming into the workplace with a lot to
offer. But what exactly are they learning?
Connections
Social media networks are designed for the purpose of communal
connections. Todays students are accessing Facebook, Twitter and
even Instagram to connect and share with those around them. One of
the most interesting things about social media is that users can
interact and engage with each other solely through a Web presence,
perhaps never even meeting in person.

Knowledge
Social media users share among themselves day in and day out, giving
and receiving information at rapid speeds. This information is more
than funny cat videos; they share views and opinions; tips, tricks, and
even DIY projects; and, among students, helpful information for
classes. Their ability to assess, analyze, retain and share information is
skyrocketing and they often dont even realize theyre developing
these skills. Only people born before the Internet was invented are
likely to understand the magnitude of this new style of communication.
Our students have become prone to frequent fluctuations in mood and
self-control. If one of a students friends posted about his or her
present relationship with someone, then other friends are pressed to
do the same thing. Actions that attract more public attention hold more
value, even despite some of them being immoral or illegal. We even
see that many students are worried about their looks, and so they

always try to upload nicer pictures than their friends. A recent survey
has stated that whenever someone uploads a profile picture, it
immediately affects the moods of friends. It often produces stress,
anxiety or fear about their identities as people. Consistently thinking in
this way can sometimes lead to depression.
The system generates a competition to make as many new friends as
possible and the so-called social quotient of a person is decided by
how many friends they have and not on how good-natured and
congenial the person really is. Often, students who are not old enough
to accurately analyze the world like or comment on social or political
issues, and this leads sometimes to serious controversies
The negative effects of these social networking sites overweigh the
positive ones. These sites have caused some potential harm to society.
The students become victims of social networks more often than
anyone else. This is because of the reason that when they are studying
or searching their course material online, they get attracted to these
sites to kill the boredom in their study time, diverting their attention
from their work. Other negative side effects of social networking
websites include the following:

Sub headings
E-Learning
Learning is the process of absorbing information and retaining it with
the goal of increasing skills and abilities in order to achieve goals but
it's more than that. Learning is what we go through when we want to
be equipped for non-specific and unexpected situations and the two
are not mutually exclusive. While you do learn to do something
specific, you are also inadvertently equipped with the knowledge
and/or skills to face future challenges. In essence, learning is all about
equipping a person to tackle not just today's issues, but preparing
him/her to creatively come up with ways to tackle tomorrow's issues.
E-learning allows both students and business executives to learn
anywhere and at any time. You can learn from 25 virtually any place
with a computer or mobile device and internet connection, meaning
you can study from home, on vacation or in your break. But e-learning
is more than about convenience and there are fundamental differences
between e-learning in the corporate sector and in education.
E-learning is here to stay. As computer ownership grows across the
globe e-learning becomes increasingly viable and accessible. Internet
connection speeds are increasing, and with that, opportunities for more
multimedia training methods arise. With the immense improvement of
mobile networks in the past few years and the increase in
telecommuting, taking all the awesome features of e-learning on the
road is a reality with smartphones and other portable devices.
Technologies such as social media are also transforming education
constantly. Generally speaking, learning is expensive, takes a long time
and the results can vary. E-learning has been trying for years now to
complement the way we learn to make it more effective and
measurable. The result now being that there are a number of tools that
help create interactive courses, standardize the learning process

and/or inject informal elements to otherwise formal learning processes.

Several e-learning trends give us a view to how e-learning and learning
tools will be shaped in the future:
Micro-learning
Focuses on the design of micro learning activities through micro-steps
in digital media environments, which already is a daily reality for
today's knowledge workers. These activities can be incorporated into a
learner's daily routines. Unlike "traditional" e-learning approaches,
micro-learning often tends towards push technology through push
media, which reduces the cognitive load on the learners. Therefore, the
selection of micro-learning objects and also pace and timing of microlearning activities are of importance for didactical designs. Microlearning is an important paradigm shift that avoids the need to have
separate learning sessions since the learning process is embedded in
the daily routine of the end-user. It is also perfectly suited for mobile
devices where long courses can be overkill.
Gamification
The use of game thinking and game mechanics in a non-game context
to engage users and solve problems. Personalized Learning is the
tailoring of pedagogy, curriculum and learning environments to meet
the needs and aspirations of individual learners. Personalization is
broader than just individualization or differentiation in that it affords
the learner a degree of choice about what is learned, when it is learned
and how it is learned. This may not indicate unlimited choice since
learners will still have targets to be met. However, it may provide
learners the opportunity to learn in ways that suit their individual
learning styles and multiple intelligences.

Digital Libraries
The term Digital Library is used in articles for the first time in the
early 1 990s. Since then research and practice in Digital Libraries has
become standard. Plenty research funding, especially in the United
States and United Kingdom, has made sure that both researchers and
librarians have been actively involved in Digital Libraries projects.
Conferences and journals in the topic are thriving. A search in Google
on the exact phrase Digital Libraries returns almost 2 million hits in
early 2006. But what has happened in these 1 5 years since the term

first was used, that forced this explosive activity? And what does the
concept Digital Library really mean? Well, to answer the first
question, what happened was that the flow of information got even
worse as the Internet established itself as the number one channel for
exchanging data. The World Wide Web (WWW) and the Hypertext
Transfer Protocol (HTTP) became the communication tool of choice and
made producing and disseminating data so much easier. In the early 1
990s the first web-browser appeared, pioneered by Tim Berners-Lee at
CERN. With the web-browser came the capability to use hyperlinks. In
the middle of the 1 990s
Netscape made browsing a possibility for everyone. At the start of the
new millennium we have, at least in the developed countries, enough
bandwidth and connection possibilities, for sending and exchanging
very heavy loads of data.
The backbone of any Digital Library is of course computer
software, hardware and the reliance on high speed networks. Any
Digital Library would rely on components such as local networks with
connections to the Internet; databases with user friendly interfaces for
searching and administrative purposes which can index full text
documents for fast access. The OPACs (Open Public Access
Catalogue) of most libraries are systems that embrace all kinds of
content and functions of the organization in one single system. This is
not necessarily true for the Digital Library that most likely is a
collection of different systems and resources connected through a
network and searched and reached by a web-interface Building the
Collection
One of the major issues of Digital Libraries at the moment is the
question of creating a digital collection with some sort of scope and
critical mass. This is especially true when it comes to offering full-text
records. Building the collection usually means four things:
Acquiring original digital works created by original authors. This
could be articles, books, conference proceedings, pictures etc.
Converting paper originals into digital format.
Purchasing or using free external material by either incorporating
the material, such as electronic books and journals, or creating
pointers to external websites.

 Dealing with rights management issues, such as keeping track of

copyright of the digital material, identifying and authenticating
users and their access to the material.

Digital Library types and content

The Digital Library community is clearly increasing in number and
volume as more and more people get connected to high speed internet
connections, more people get involved in distance learning, more
people get used to online communication, governments, institutions
and commercial companies realize the potential in digital deliveries.
Developments like these have prepared the ground for a large number
of different types of Digital Libraries throughout the world. It is difficult
to classify a phenomenon with a definition still under debate but for
the purpose of this short introduction I would like to group Digital
Libraries into 5 types and give a few examples of each:
Digital Libraries at scientific societies or organizations
Digital Libraries at Commercial publishers
Digital Libraries at National Libraries
Digital Libraries at Universities
Digital Libraries at Museums and other cultural heritage
organizations

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