draft

Huang 2

Haoyu Huang

WRIT-1133

07/04/2022

Cyber Ethnography

The mobile app version of TikTok enables users to share educational content. Any educational endeavor has a better chance of being fruitful if it is brief and interesting. This is especially true in science because students and content creators may demonstrate scientific experiments. Students regularly use writing services because they make the process of studying more manageable; similarly, social applications have the potential to have the same effect on education by making it more user-friendly and easily accessible to all users. Teachers can use TikTok to capture their students' attention, particularly for more engaging science lessons, and repeating the short video clip severally increases the retention rate and better understanding. Students would rather spend their time viewing interesting videos on the internet than listening to their professors for extended periods. TikTok allows teachers to capture their students' attention in a manner that is more appealing to students. Because of this, this program has been incredibly successful as a platform in the entertainment industry, but it also has the potential to be an effective educational tool in the field of science.

Following up on discussions concerning how TikTok can benefit users in learning about science, most people argued that the technology only encourages individuals to seek shortcut ways of learning instead of focusing in class to learn in detail. Others argued that TikTok simplifies what learners are taught in school in theory through live practical demonstrations. I observed that most people preferred the easier way of understanding lectures provided by content creators rather than what they learned in class. I observed that individuals argued by saying that in three minutes provided time limit to make a video on TikTok, creators are utilizing each second to absorb content that even young individuals can easily understand.

Being a platform widely used by both students and scientists, TikTok has benefited people by expanding their thinking through science experiments that give people a chance to try out using appropriate steps. From the forum, I learned that TikTok has already collaborated with academic institutions, such as the #EduTok initiative in India, which attracted 126.5 billion views for films on motivation, wellness, and education. On TikTok, though, you can discover excellent instructional videos almost anywhere. The app has included well-known people teaching math and acting courses, such as Countdown's Rachel Riley and actor Sean Sagar. It has turned TikTokers into social media stars who can make uncommon topics engaging and educational. It is Generation Z's (free) response to Masterclass, a website on which you can study anything online from a subject matter expert.

From what I have experienced from the TikTok application, I have come across tutors who do live videos to help solve math problems such as calculus and some creators who have experimented on what we have already learned in class. I have interacted with fellow students who have had teachable experiences with the application. From what I have learned about the app on the internet, some individuals find the application not only entertaining but also educative. In contrast, other people find technology entertaining.

I have observed that TikTok was a useful application, especially at the beginning of the covid 19 pandemic, because most people were educated about the virus through this application. Young individuals found a chance to learn and share appropriate information concerning covid 19, and more than one billion people had a chance to see some of these videos shared (Corey et al. 20). As an application highly dominated by the young generation, TikTok allowed individuals to make videos for entertainment and contribute to learning how to prevent the spread of the covid 19 virus. And since most young individuals use the application, creators have partnered with schools and learning institutions to help these young individuals learn in an entertaining way (Bossen & Kottasz, 20). Although Tiktok has its benefits in providing education through short videos, learners are also encouraged to not only depend on it for learning but to utilize what they learn in class and demonstrate their understanding in real-life activities. From the discussion forums, educators are seen to discourage the use of Tiktok in class because they believe TikTok is meant for entertainment purposes, so if they turn it into an educational tool, it may not serve its purpose. However, some educators utilize the platform by making short videos to tutor their students (Luke, 21).

My experiences with TikTok speak to my research question: I have encountered videos demonstrating scientific methods of conducting real-life activities. I have also attended live videos where a tutor conducts experiments on what we learn in class. In these videos, students interact in the comment sections sharing how they did their experiments in class and how they did not learn well from what they did in class. However, from the algorithms of TikTok, you may find after such an educative video, the next video coming up is an entertainment video which may make it hard for some people to remember what they saw previously. From this, some of the questions that came to mind were how can TikTok ensure their algorithms match the interests of learners? And how can educators efficiently utilize TikTok to teach in class?

Works cited

Basch, Corey H. et al. "COVID-19 On Tiktok: Harnessing an Emerging Social Media Platform To Convey Important Public Health Messages". International Journal of Adolescent Medicine and Health, vol 0, no. 0, 2020. Walter De Gruyter Gmbh, https://doi.org/10.1515/ijamh-2020-0111. Accessed 28 June 2022.

Bucknell Bossen, Christina, and Rita Kottasz. "Uses and Gratifications Sought By Pre-Adolescent and Adolescent Tiktok Consumers." Young Consumers, vol 21, no. 4, 2020, pp. 463-478. Emerald, https://doi.org/10.1108/yc-07-2020-1186. Accessed 28 June 2022.

Edwards, Luke. "How Can Tiktok Be Used In The Classroom?” Techlearningmagazine, 2021, https://www.techlearning.com/how-to/how-can-tiktok-be-used-in-the-classroom.