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USING SOCIAL MEDIA FOR
ENHANCING STUDENT
ENGAGEMENT IN
LEARNING: THE USE OF
FACEBOOK AND BLOGS
AT CPUT
Dr Eunice Ivala and Mrs Daniela Gachago,
Educational Technology Unit, Fundani, CPUT
Research background
South Africa still struggling with low level of student success and throughput
Student engagement can help enhance student learning and other desired outcomes
Student engagement definition:
Amount of physical and psychological energy students devote to academic activity and the interest in courses (Astin 1984)
Indicators: initiative, self-motivation, independent experimentation, spontaneous collaboration and peer coaching, enthusiasm and frustration (Sandholtz, Ringstaff and Dwyer 1994)
Aim of Current Research
1. How are FB and blogs used for formal
learning at CPUT?
2. Does it enhance student engagement?
What are staff and students perceptions
on the use of FB and blogs?
3. What are the challenges staff and
students are facing?
Theoretical framework
Learning ecology perspective (Barron 2006)
Individuals are simultaneously involved in many
settings;
Individuals create learning contexts for
themselves within and across settings;
The boundaries among settings can be
permeable; and
Interest-driven activities can span contextual
boundaries and be self-sustaining given adequate
time, freedom, and resources.
Facebook and blogs for formal
learning
Facebook:
Set up of groups or pages
Used to improve
communication, feedback, consultations
especially for usually shy students
(Minocha, 2009)
Blogs
Scaffolding of knowledge
Commenting/feedback functionality
Creation of community of practice
Open access (Ferding and Trammell, 2004)
Research methods
3 courses at CPUT investigated:
First year Engineering course (ENG)
Third year Design course (Design3)
Fourth year Design course (Design4)
Literature review on the field
Interviews with course lecturers
Focus groups with students
Analysis of Facebook walls and blog postings
RQ1: how did lecturers use FB and
blogs in T&L?
RQ2: Perceptions on blogs
Class blogs Good for information sharing
Mainly one way communication from lecturer to students
Problems getting students to comment
Modelling function
Developing sense of belonging to class
Perception of “distance” to students’ lives
Individual student blogs Good reflection tool – very honest postings
Sharing of experiences – staying in touch
Creation of content
Marketing themselves to the industry– start of eportfolio
Compulsory nature of activity helped students start process of blogging
Students comments
E: …it helps you socially because you get to
commenting and say now you comment on that
thing and someone’s comments assist with yours
and they agree on something and you are actually
communicating with each other. …it is my first time
to go through this stuff and I start enjoying
commenting and writing stories…
A: The idea of one’s blog was quite exciting… and
the idea of what it’s trying to do. I mean essentially
it’s promoting your thoughts, your opinions, your
works…
Student feedback
“Hey. Today i got a fan From Ireland who likes
my online portfolio i created last year for
POAD. he emailed me and said he stumbled
upon my portfolio when he was doing research
on the net. He is also an archi student in
Ireland. How cool. :-)”
Student engagement?
initiative,
self-motivation,
independent experimentation
spontaneous collaboration,
and peer coaching,
enthusiasm and frustration
RQ2: Perception on FB
Worked well for more mature students
Academic and moral support
24/7 support by peers and lecturer
F: …Another thing is, sometimes lecturers forget often and its human nature to forget about giving us work or something which is needed probably for the next day or for the weekend and maybe she will remember only to give to us maybe the night. Then she will post it, post it like on Facebook for us, 10:00 at night and most of us are awake till frikking 4:00 the morning…its perfect.
I: Facebook [shows us], that we all suffer together. Like one big, happy, sad family.
Peer support!
It helped student interaction and peer
learning, especially FB group
B: The thing is, just coming back to the whole
communication that you actually …know your fellow
students…actually you can go to for advice…not
just highlighting the top students in the
class…gaining confidence in your fellow students
not just asking [the lecturer] all the time.
Improved students-staff
interaction
Also helped student – staff interaction and vice versa (FB)
Staff-student interaction (blogs)
Very honest feedback on Facebook group
A: And the other thing I will say it created that relationship with the lecturers so I believe after this whole Facebook thing I understand like my lecturers better than I thought, you know. And know I am free, I am free like to chat to them….it created that.
Participation of shy students
Both blogs and FB enabled shy students to
participate in class activities
Lecturer: [there is] this quite shy girl, a returning
student…never really participated in class, never
said a lot…and yet she created this blog and named
it after her childhood imaginary friend called Lisa…
which is quite revealing, I thought, and quite a brave
thing to do…
Student engagement?
initiative,
self-motivation,
independent experimentation
spontaneous collaboration,
and peer coaching,
enthusiasm and frustration
RQ 3: Challenges encountered
Time constraints on the part of lecturer to visit and
update FB and blog
Need for lecturers to keep abreast of new
technologies close to students’ lives
Insufficient Internet quotas (50 megabytes) for
younger students
Workload-influenced voluntary participation on blog
and FB
Distractive nature of FB for younger students
Resistance to blurring of social and academic life for
younger students
Student feedback
H:…we just use Facebook most of the time because most of us are on it anyway for social, so it will just, when there is a notification or a brief it will pop up in your newsfeed while you are busy socializing, you’re always up to date…
A: “I think students feel that’s their personal space away from class, that’s how I fell…I don’t want it to be forced on me, that I have to go read there, I have to join this group…this is my personal space, I don’t want to be forced to do something personal.”
Strategies for usage
Know the tools & what they can offer for learning
Select, explore and use tools in collaboration with your students – shared ownership / negotiate social practices
Objective of using the tool- clearly communicated to students
Discuss netiquette with students (egprivacy, befriending lecturers, language used)
Champions should share and spread the word amongst colleagues
Let students take initiative!
Summary of findings
Use of FB and Blogs on-campus & off-campus-
agree with learning ecology perspectives notion
that
Individuals are simultaneously involved in many
settings;
Individuals create learning contexts for themselves
within and across settings;
The boundaries among settings can be permeable;
and
Interest-driven activities can span contextual
boundaries and be self-sustaining given adequate
time, freedom, and resources.
(Barron 2006)
Conclusion
We strongly recommend that lecturers venture
into students’ spaces and try to utilize student
engagement and enthusiasm with social
media for formal learning!
THANK YOU!
