Archive for the ‘Social Media’ Category

Enriching Higher Education with Social Media: Development and Evaluation of a Social Media Toolkit

While ubiquitous in everyday use, in reality, social media usage within higher education teaching has expanded quite slowly. Analysis of social media usage of students and instructors for teaching, learning, and research purposes across four countries (Russia, Turkey, Germany, and Switzerland) showed that many higher education instructors actively use social media for private purposes. However, […]

Why Do Academics Use Academic Social Networking Sites?

Academic social-networking sites (ASNS) such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate are becoming very popular among academics. These sites allow uploading academic articles, abstracts, and links to published articles; track demand for published articles, and engage in professional interaction. This study investigates the nature of the use and the perceived utility of the sites for academics. The […]

Social Learning Analytics applied in a MOOC-environment

In this paper we present an example of a Social Learning Analytics Tool to visualize real-time discussion activities in a MOOC environment. Practitioners and researchers can read how to implement and use such a SLA tool as a plugin in practice. Open Education Europa   

Web-based Collaborative Writing in L2 Contexts: Methodological Insights from Text Mining

The increasingly widespread use of social software (e.g., Wikis, Google Docs) in second language (L2) settings has brought a renewed attention to collaborative writing. Although the current methodological approaches to examining collaborative writing are valuable to understand L2 students’ interactional patterns or perceived experiences, they can be insufficient to capture the quantity and quality of […]

Coordinated Implicitly? An Empirical Study on the Role of Social Media in Collaborative Learning

As social media is widely adopted in collaborative learning, which places teams in a virtual environment, it is critical for teams to identify and leverage the knowledge of their members. Yet little is known about how social media influences teams to coordinate their knowledge and collaborate effectively. In this research, we explore the roles of […]

Exploring the Relationship Between Student Engagement, Twitter, and a Learning Management System: A Study of Undergraduate Marketing Students

Because student engagement is believed to be a predictor of academic achievement, there is significant interest in discovering methods that will improve and increase student engagement at all levels of education. This study investigated the relationship between digital and social media usage and student engagement. In particular, this study sought to investigate how adding (1) […]

The Influence of Social Media on Collaborative Learning in a Cohort Environment

This paper provides an overview of the impact that social media has on the development of collaborative learning within a cohort environment in a doctoral program. The researchers surveyed doctoral students in an education program to determine how social media use has influenced the doctoral students. The study looked at the following areas: a) the […]

Design and evaluation of a Facebook game for self-directed e-learning

Social networking sites (SNSs) such as Facebook have a potential to become a valuable learning environment. Facebook games with appropriate instructional design may provide players with better learning experiences and outcomes. Using an effective educational Facebook game, we aimed to explore the educational effects of Facebook games as self-directed e-learning environments. We tested our hypotheses […]

Supervision on Social Media: Use and Perception of Facebook as a Research Education Tool in Disadvantaged Areas

This exploratory study investigates how a typically disadvantaged user group of older, female learners from rural, low-tech settings used and perceived a Facebook group as a research supervision and distance learning tool over time. The within-stage mixed-model research was carried out in a module of a part-time, advanced midwifery education course in rural South Africa. […]

Download New Book: Teaching Crowds: Learning & Social Media

Teaching Crowds: Learning & Social Media This is a book about how crowds can teach, and how to teach crowds, using the tools and communities of social media. It is about online learning with the help of other people and helping other people to learn online. Whether you are a teacher, a researcher, or a […]