Using Social Networking Sites for Teaching and Learning

Abstract

This study investigates students' involvement in Facebook Õ as a course management system (CMS), Facebook acceptance, and the relationships between the two. The study used Facebook as a CMS in two freshman courses and employed mixed method as part of an action-research approach. Forty-two students participated in the study, and 12 of those students were selected for face-to-face interviews through maximum variation sampling. Quantitative data were collected through questionnaires and course Facebook page logs. Qualitative data were collected through the interviews. The quantitative data analysis consisted of descriptive statistics and correlation analyses. The findings indicate that the relationships between course Facebook page involvement and Facebook acceptance differed according to the course. The findings support that Facebook as a CMS has the potential to increase student involvement in discussions and out-of-class communication among instructors and students.

Giving up technology and social media: why university lecturers stop using technology in teaching

“…While Albayrak and Yildirim (2015) discuss how in a successful use of Facebook, students commented on the timeliness of responses from the course instructor via Facebook as opposed to other methods of communication. They note that this was because the instructor increased her availability.…”

Embedding Online Based Learning Strategies into the Engineering Technology Curriculum

“…Furthermore, focusing only on facts replication might increase performance on known procedures and examples and might leave students without skills needed to produce a solution when needed if it is out of the scope of what was covered in previous education (Kirschner et al, 2006). These problems are even more important in online learning and teaching since they are related to the technology acceptance constructs: perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use (Al-Azawei & Lundqvist, 2015;Albayrak & Yildirim, 2015). As student engagement in online learning community is essential for student learning since it is not that hard to feel disconnected, researchers have developed Online Student Engagement scale (OSE) with which students can self-report their engagement level and make instructor aware of some underlying problems that might occur (Dixson, 2015).…”

“…Regularity or irregularity of log-in intervals is shown as a good predictive of learning performance (Il-Hyun, Dongho, & Meehyun, 2015). Various course management system platforms such as Blackboard and Moodle have embedded communicative and interactive features but they are still not widely used by instructors and students (Albayrak & Yildirim, 2015).…”

“…A variety of social media mediums can be used as platforms of interaction and engagement in online environments as well as a tools to enable social aspect of student involvement and learning (Albayrak & Yildirim, 2015). One of them is Twitter in which students can post 140 character thoughts, ideas or updates, or re-tweet posts made by other students in their class which engages students in critical thinking (L. E. Rohr, Costello, & Hawkins, 2015).…”

“…Additional commonly used social media among students today is Facebook which can be used as a communication method for discussion and out of class communication among instructors in students (Albayrak & Yildirim, 2015). It has been reported that students are more prone to use Facebook for their online discussions than collaborative tools which are available in regular course management systems (Miller, 2013).…”