Social Media as Technologies for Asynchronous Formal Writing and Synchronous Paragraph Writing in the South African Higher Education Contex

This chapter reports on a study—conducted in 2011—that employed two social media networks, Facebook and MXit, as educational tools at one university in South Africa. MXit is a South African-based social networking application. The study involved a cohort of second year Bachelor of Education in English undergraduate students at this university as its participants. The latter were required to utilize Facebook and MXit to engage in both asynchronous formal writing and synchronous paragraph writing, respectively. All this took place outside participants’ tutorial class schedule. In this study, participants were able to produce asynchronous formal writing samples in varying degrees using Facebook. Similarly, they were also able to produce synchronous written paragraphs using MXit even though some paragraphs displayed a high degree of linguistic textisms. Other affordances that these two social media technologies offered the participants in this study are: anytime, any day, and anywhere asynchronous and synchronous learning; asynchronous and synchronous feedback; virtual incidental learning; socially situated online learning; and Presence Awareness Learning (PAL). In conclusion, the study suggests that there are further affordances that these two social media technologies can offer higher education. These are: supplemental teaching and learning; cloud storage for teaching and learning materials (in the case of Facebook); virtual platforms for revision; digital platforms for micro-teaching and micro-learning (in respect of MXit); and value-added platforms for just-in-time mobile teaching and learning.

Leveraging Facebook as a Peer-Support Group for Students

This chapter reports the use of Facebook in a Digital Marketing course in a Finnish university as a peer-support group for a course consisting of 80 marketing students. It identifies seven types of student-/teacher-generated content: (1) course-related posts, (2) substance-related posts, (3) course feedback, (4) course recommendations, (5) event posts, (6) job posts, and (7) business-related posts. It also discusses educators’ problems of using social media as a course support. For example, there is a risk of artificial communication if participation is required but motivation for posting is purely extrinsic. Commercial social networks may be useful in education because they are user-friendly, easy to adopt, and involve less friction than systems isolated from students’ day-to-day usage of the Internet. Peer support frees teachers’ time, but it needs to be devised correctly for students to participate. In practice, the teacher needs to invest time and effort in providing interesting content and guidance. More than technology, barriers of peer support relate to social issues and expertise – the students must differ in their substantive knowledge so that peer support is possible, and students must feel comfortable to ask for and provide help. Interestingly, the drop out of students in the group can be kept low even after the course by posting interesting content. In this sense, the group may demonstrate stronger ties than peer support groups that dissolve after the course.

The Roadmap for Experimental Teaching of Science and Engineering Based Subjects

The continual development of technology represents a challenge when preparing engineering students for future employment. At the same time, the way students interact in everyday life is evolving: their extra-curricular life is filled with an enormous amount of stimulus, from online data to rich Web-based social interaction. This chapter provides an assessment of various learning technology-driven methods for enhancing both teaching and learning in the science and engineering disciplines. It describes the past, present, and future drivers for the implementation of hands-on teaching methods, incorporating industry standard software and hardware and the evolution of learning experiments into all-encompassing online environments that include socializing, learning, entertainment, and any other aspect of student life when studying science and engineering.

Students’ Privacy Concerns on the Use of Social Media in Higher Education

Social media is principally used by students in the private sphere. However, its implementation for educational purposes in higher education is rapidly expanding. This chapter looks into undergraduate students’ perceptions of using social media in the university context. In particular, it examines students’ privacy concerns regarding faculty use of social networks to support classroom work and video calling or online chats to meet for work discussion. Two-hundred-forty-four undergraduate students completed a survey and four focus groups were carried out. The results reveal that although students generally accept using social media in the instructional arena, privacy concerns can easily emerge. Educational institutions are encouraged to take these concerns seriously. Using applications specifically created for learning purposes and developing some guidelines for a correct implementation of these resources for the faculty to follow might contribute to alleviate these concerns.

Justifying the ROI of Social Media Investment in Education

To invest or not to invest? In the context of Higher Education, the decision around social media adoption is ultimately driven by the end users—students—increasingly demanding in their expectations of technology support provided by universities. This presents a new set of challenges to HE institutions of how to effectively adopt social media in a range of modes provided to students, alumni, external stakeholders, etc. This chapter sets the agenda for future research into methods of measuring effectiveness of social media applications in Higher Education. Drawing on a rich account of social media applications throughout the entire student lifecycle, the chapter identifies common objectives to social media campaigns and uses in educational settings. A framework for social strategy adoption by HE institutions is proposed for further empirical testing. The chapter provides an approach to measuring the effectiveness of social media in higher education and offers practical recommendations and identifies areas needing future research.

Social Media for Knowledge Workers

This chapter explores social media for knowledge workers. Social media enables people to connect with others beyond their physical social circle. Constraints of space and time, as well as class boundaries, can easily be overcome by the use of social media. Socializing through social media is not merely the virtual version of physical socialization. It allows for different kinds of social interactions. The preservation of expression allows asynchronous communication and learning what others have written, which in turn shows one their interests and identities. The mostly simple and short messages cannot, however, accommodate the sophisticated information, which knowledge workers usually create and exchange at work. Social media is designed to be simple to use so that anyone with access to the Internet can use it. Many users become addicted to social media such that they cannot resist wasting their productive time. However, despite its limitations and potential for distraction, social media can be beneficial for knowledge workers. It may not be a good source of Know-What and Know-Why, but it can provide us with abundant and rich information of Know-Who. The uniqueness and specialty of Know-Who gained from social media is that it contains personal information, which in physical company only close friends possess. It allows us to develop social bonds with people who are difficult to reach through conventional media. It also enables us to develop our identity and makes us more easily discoverable by potential partners or employers.

Leveraging New Media as Social Capital for Diversity Officers

While most have grasped how to utilize social media in their personal lives, very few have been able to bridge the gap in leveraging new media effectively to enhance their careers. This chapter is a how-to guide for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) professionals seeking to use social media to carve a niche in the social networking arena. The purpose of this chapter is to highlight how EDI professionals can benefit from utilizing new media marketing tools to position themselves as subject-matter experts and use this authority to create engaged communities surrounding the topics of equity, diversity, and inclusion in higher education. A current review of new media technologies and emerging strategies starts the chapter. It continues with further details on the steps needed to develop and implement a successful social media marketing strategy. The chapter concludes with how to turn plans into actionable steps and includes a social media marketing planning worksheet.

Teaching Students about Online Professionalism

Many students appear to be continually connected to social media sites such as Facebook. Such social media sites can be pervasive in nature. The use of these sites through mobile devices often extends into the classroom, sometimes to the detriment of scheduled teaching activities. Further, many students do not seem to be aware of the negative effect that ill-considered information placed on social media sites can have towards their future employment. This chapter reviews the positives and negatives of social media as it relates to the future employability of students. Due to the changing nature of this field, the chapter is largely presented from practical experience, rather than a traditional academic research-led approach. Much of the focus is on the ways that students can present themselves online in a manner which should encourage employers to offer students jobs and placement opportunities. The chapter reviews a number of the major Websites where students should establish professional profiles. It also looks at the overall need for students to establish a professional presence online and show that they are a desirable employee. The chapter concludes by looking at the challenges involved with integrating the teaching of employability through social media into existing teaching. A number of research areas for further consideration are also presented.

Recognised Creativity

This chapter explores the importance of acknowledging the creativity and creative work of individuals in creative industries. This phenomenon is investigated from three different perspectives: social-psychological, social and flow of experience, and third drive. The third drive, as a part of a new operating system, is seen as the most important factor in the work of creative individuals. This study examines four empirical cases from the computer games industry from three different geographical regions: Finland, the UK, and Poland. In addition, the authors analyse a stand-up comedian from the United States. Based on these cases, this study concludes that intrinsic drive and the need to be creative are the critical motivations of creative individuals when a new product is developed or a new creative company is founded. Additionally, this study reveals that acknowledgment for creative work is the reason why creative individuals do what they do. This study examines the paradox between creative/artistic work and business interests by analysing creative processes and the social needs of creative individuals. The authors explain how this happens through social media and express how academics may find creative spaces inspiring when teaching the principles of creative industries.

The Utilization of Online Boundaries

This chapter investigates how online social networking services function and correlate with social capital, and how this affects higher education and civic engagement. First, the authors examine how individuals utilize Facebook to communicate with others strategically to build and maintain social ties. They argue that limiting in-person interaction time and multitasking increases the amount of individuals with whom any one individual can communicate during any given time. The authors then introduce direct and indirect boundaries and demonstrate how they restrict specific types of information while building extensive trust-based network ties. The authors follow this discussion by modeling the online world, offline world, and world of higher education using these boundaries. Finally, they claim that the distinction between low and high social capital communities may be blurring due to advent of online social networking, so it is necessary to develop new means of measuring social capital and boundaries.