Can Twitter Improve Educational Outcomes?
New research reveal the stunning secret about social
networking sites.
Can Twitter, Facebook and Related Tools Improve
Educational Outcomes?
Online social networking sites, such as Twitter, can help
students become academically and socially integrated as well as improving
learning outcomes, according to a study by researchers in China and Hong Kong.
Writing in the International Journal of Networking and Virtual Organisations,
explain that Twitter usage is around 90% across campuses and many educational
institutions offer new students orientation on how to capitalize on social
networking to improve their experience of their course and their final results.
Many previous studies of social networking have focused on
identity presentation, privacy, and how social networks form. Much of the
popular response to the advent of web 2.0 tools is that they can have a
detrimental effect on students by being nothing more than trivial distractions
from serious study. However, Stella Wen Tian of the University of Science &
Technology of China (Suzhou Campus) and Angela Yan Yu, Douglas Vogel and Ron
Chi-Wai Kwok of City University of Hong Kong, suggest that students' online
social networking directly influences social learning and can positively
influence academic learning.
The team carried out discussions with college students to
understand current online social networking experience and attitude towards
using Twitter for education. They hoped to understand the influence of online
social networking and how educational institutions might improve pedagogical
orientation and practices, especially given that peer pressure has been
recognized in various studies as one of the most important influences on
student life.
"The typical social network pattern on Twitter is
often in a core-periphery mode: an individual has close relationships with core
friends and weak relationships with many others," the team says.
"Online social networking applications such as Twitter offer an efficient
platform for college students' socialization by expanding their network scope
and maintaining close relationships."
There were two main aspects of student Twitter use, the
team found: one social and one educational. Students reported that it could
enhance and maintain friendships, build social networks/establish virtual
relationships , diminish barriers to making friends, follow peer trends, share
photos, for fun and leisure and to keep in touch with family. In terms of
learning, students reported that Twitter allowed them to connect with the
faculty and other students in term of friendship/social relationship, provide
comments to peers/share knowledge, share feelings with peers, join Groups
established for subjects, collaboration: notification, discussion, course
schedule, project management calendar and to use educational applications for
organizing learning activities.
The team says that, "Twitter greatly influences
college students' social life and shows good potential in coping with the
challenges that students face." They conclude that, "Educational
institutions may need to adopt active (but somewhat restrained) actions to
utilize existing social network applications such as Twitter for education.
Teaching activities will need to be appropriately designed for different target
populations. The breakthrough point may start from students' social
learning."
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