The Classroom of the Future by Sierra

The Classroom of the Future by Sierra - February 2018 Scholarship Essay

It’s no doubt that social media is taking over the lives of adolescents. Every spare moment is spent scrolling through the latest app soaking in insignificant information about the people around them. But what if students were able to actually grow their knowledge while performing these seemingly mindless tasks? I believe that by the year 2038, social media will become an incredibly important tool in educating the youth.

Since the Internet became widely accessible to the public, the way we interact and communicate as a society has drastically changed. Almost anything you could imagine can be accessed by a simple click of a button. While this has made acquiring information incredibly faster and easier, it has brought with it a whole new type of distraction. Teachers commonly blame social media for the laziness, distractedness, and apathy that is afflicting the rising generation. Schools have begun banning accessing these accounts on campus portals. But what if instead of banning what students enjoy, we turn it into something that is incredibly beneficial to education and still pleasurable for everyone?

Informational stories are already beginning to plague common apps like Twitter, Snapchat, and YouTube. These are sites that most students frequent on a daily basis. Several schools have even begun creating their own accounts so students can access academic information easily. Online schooling is becoming more and more common among teens and even adults. The availability of a classroom atmosphere online has sparked the interest of many younger individuals.

Students are going to continue to navigate these apps no matter how institutions attempt to deter them. Instead of letting these sites fill the minds of our youth with useless facts, let’s instead begin to re-network the information that students are browsing. While imagining Snapchat as a home for future learning may seem ridiculous now, it is already becoming reality. These networks can easily be used to promote the positivity and knowledge this generation needs. Social media is becoming the classroom of the future.