scholarly journals Online social networks as formal learning environments: Learner experiences and activities

Author(s):  
George Veletsianos ◽  
Cesar Navarrete

<p>While the potential of social networking sites to contribute to educational endeavors is highlighted by researchers and practitioners alike, empirical evidence on the use of such sites for formal online learning is scant. To fill this gap in the literature, we present a case study of learners’ perspectives and experiences in an online course taught using the Elgg online social network. Findings from this study indicate that learners enjoyed and appreciated both the social learning experience afforded by the online social network and supported one another in their learning, enhancing their own and other students’ experiences. Conversely, results also indicate that students limited their participation to course-related and graded activities, exhibiting little use of social networking and sharing. Additionally, learners needed support in managing the expanded amount of information available to them and devised strategies and “workarounds” to manage their time and participation.<br /><strong></strong></p>

Author(s):  
Jaymeen R. Shah ◽  
Hsun-Ming Lee

During the next decade, enrollment growth in Information Systems (IS) related majors is unlikely to meet the predicted demand for qualified IS graduates. Gender imbalance in the IS related program makes the situation worse as enrollment and retention of women in the IS major has been proportionately low compared to male. In recent years, majority of high school and college students have integrated social networking sites in their daily life and habitually use these sites. Providing female students access to role models via an online social network may enhance their motivation to continue as an IS major and pursue a career in IS field. For this study, the authors follow the action research process – exploration of information systems development. In particular, a Facebook application was developed to build the social network connecting role models and students. Using the application, a basic framework is tested based on the gender of participants. The results suggest that it is necessary to have adequate number of role models accessible to students as female role-models tend to select fewer students to develop relationships with a preference for female students. Female students likely prefer composite role models from a variety of sources. This pilot study yields valuable lessons to provide informal learning fostered by role modeling via online social networks. The Facebook application may be further expanded to enhance female students' interests in IS related careers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 0-0

The wide use of social media technology boosts many online innovation platforms, providing effective communication channels for innovation spreading among online users. From the social network perspective, this paper investigates the impact of online interactive relations on user innovation by holistically examining online relations from relational and structural embeddedness, qualified by both the ego-centered and the entire network, respectively. User interaction data from LEGO Ideas are used to empirically test the effects of relational and structural characteristics of online social networks on users’ idea contributions. The results for relational characteristics reveal that the number of online ties has an inverted U-shaped relationship with user innovation, the strength of online ties positively affects user innovation, and neighbor characteristics cannot affect user innovation. For structural characteristics, both centrality and bridge location positively affect user innovation. The findings provide reasonable suggestions for both online users and innovation platforms.


Author(s):  
Enilda Romero-Hall

This chapter discusses the current use of social media for professional growth, focusing on a case study that uses social media to increase instructional design graduate students' awareness and participation in professional growth opportunities. Social media metrics were analyzed from three social networking tools (Facebook Page, Twitter account, and/or Google+ community) that are used to communicate with the students in the program. Additional data was collected using an electronic questionnaire with open and closed-ended questions. The results show that graduate students' participation in the social media initiatives for professional growth provided awareness of self-directed, voluntary, and informal learning opportunities; engaged students in conversations with their peers and the instructors; and allowed the learners to expand their learning experience outside the traditional classroom format.


Author(s):  
Enilda Romero-Hall

This chapter discusses the current use of social media for professional growth, focusing on a case study that uses social media to increase instructional design graduate students' awareness and participation in professional growth opportunities. Social media metrics were analyzed from three social networking tools (Facebook Page, Twitter account, and/or Google+ community) that are used to communicate with the students in the program. Additional data was collected using an electronic questionnaire with open and closed-ended questions. The results show that graduate students' participation in the social media initiatives for professional growth provided awareness of self-directed, voluntary, and informal learning opportunities; engaged students in conversations with their peers and the instructors; and allowed the learners to expand their learning experience outside the traditional classroom format.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ling Cao ◽  
Tingting Zhang

This study aims to find out the relationship between the use of SNSs and educational adaptation process of Chinese international students (from China) in New Zealand. Based on interview data, this paper addressed how Chinese international students use SNSs (RenRen, Facebook, etc.) to expand and manage their online social networks to help their adaptation to new educational environment. As a case study of Chinese international students in New Zealand and from the narrative of students, we examined the relationship among educational difficulties, life satisfaction, and the use of SNSs. This study would help in further understanding how and why SNSs can be adopted in higher education to support effective overseas learning experiences.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
PANKAJ PANKAJ

In present scenario an Individual user will have multiple social network accounts to stay involved with friends in several social networking sites. Online social network users aren’t attentive to the varied security attacks like privacy violation, fraud, etc. Different on-line social users can assume it as real users and that they could be capable them that aren’t truly the real user.It is estimated 1.96 billion user are active on social networking sites. Only Facebook have 1.87 billion active user in a month.. During this research paper, I had tried to analyze social network knowledge supported attributes similarity. The planned system will cite as several similar social network profiles as a potential and analyze them so as to seek out whether or not it belongs to same or totally different persons. It makes different user straightforward to speak with one another during a safe and secure manner.


Author(s):  
Steve Chi-Yin Yuen ◽  
Harrison Hao Yang

This chapter provides an overview and development of sense of community and social networking; discusses the potential uses of social networking in education; and presents a case study that integrates social networking into two graduate courses for the purpose of building a sense of community, improving communications and interactions, and promoting student-centered collaboration. The construction of class social networking sites, the implementation of these networks, and their effects on the students’ learning experience are examined. In addition, an analysis of feedback from students on the value of social networking in learning is included.


2010 ◽  
pp. 1096-1119
Author(s):  
Steve Chi-Yin Yuen ◽  
Harrison Hao Yang

This chapter provides an overview and development of sense of community and social networking; discusses the potential uses of social networking in education; and presents a case study that integrates social networking into two graduate courses for the purpose of building a sense of community, improving communications and interactions, and promoting student-centered collaboration. The construction of class social networking sites, the implementation of these networks, and their effects on the students’ learning experience are examined. In addition, an analysis of feedback from students on the value of social networking in learning is included.


Author(s):  
Maria Macià ◽  
Iolanda García

<p class="3">Teachers participate in social networking sites to share knowledge and collaborate with other teachers to create education-related content. In this study we selected several communities in order to better understand the networks that these participants establish in Twitter and the role that the social network plays in their activity within the community, especially related with peer production. We analyzed the topology of these networks in two ways: a) the indirect relations by counting <em>followers</em> and <em>followed</em> people; and b) the conversational networks by counting mentions in <em>tweets</em>. We also analyzed the communities’ websites in order to elucidate whether their production was lightweight or heavyweight peer production. Results indicate that teacher networks adopt a community clusters archetype in which some teachers act as bridges between several groups. Although these networks do not form a tight crowd, their degree of tightness is superior to that of the general networks established in Twitter. Our results also indicate that the degree of tightness is important for sustaining heavyweight peer production and strong leadership can play a crucial role in establishing long-term commitment to a collective task. </p>


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