Lenandlar Singh presented on using Facebook groups in undergraduate education at the University of Guyana. The university recently developed a Moodle platform and lecturers are exploring various tools, with Facebook being the most popular. Singh discussed related work showing both benefits and challenges of using Facebook for education. He outlined how Facebook groups are designed at the university to share files, discuss course materials, and communicate between students and lecturers. While not a replacement for an LMS, Facebook groups provide affordances like a central space for contact and modeling social learning.
1. LENANDLAR SINGH
SENIOR LECTURER
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE
UNIVERSITY OF GUYANA
Facebook in Undergraduate Education: An Update
Moodle MOOC 6 Conference
May 05, 2015
@lenandlar lenandlar.singh@uog.edu.gy
2. Outline
Context
Related Work
Facebook Group Design
Facebook in Undergraduate Education @ UG
Experiences
Affordances
References
3. Context: University of Guyana
Recently developed a Moodle Platform!
Lecturers are free explore any tool
A range of technologies are adopted
Social Networking
Yahoo Groups
Blogs – sharing resources, some dialog
Google Sites – sharing resources
Peerwise
Facebook (Most Popular)
4. Lecturers’ Experiences
Technologies are adopted for both formal and informal learning
Blogs are used to post updates, share resources
Yahoo Groups used to share files and communicate
with students
Google sites used to share notes and other
resources
Peerwise (used for implementing contributing
student pedagogy)
Facebook Groups used to share files, discuss course
materials, communicate
5. Challenges for Lecturers
Inadequate understanding of effective technology integration
Little/no support
No reward – a struggle to remain motivated
Do at your own risk and at the expense of research
6. Related Work(1)
Facebook can be used a teaching tool but
problems with accessing real effect (Boghian, 2013)
Facebook useful for reflecting on learning
experiences (Chan et al., 2013)
Facebook was effective a learning environment to
support collaborative learning (DeVilliers &
Pretorius, 2013)
7. Related Work(2)
Engineering Students found that FB supported their
learning(Al-Atabi & Younis, 2010)
Teaching and Learning using FB is a challenge for
teachers and students alike (Gray, Annabel, Kennedy,
2010)
“Social presence is the most important factor that
determines students’ usage of Facebook. The features
of social presence indeed can also encourage students
to collaborate and work together.”
(Cheung, Chee & Lee, 2011)
8. Related Work(3)
McCarthy(2013) identified many ‘positive
outcomes’ associated with first year students use of
Facebook as a learning tool
Johnston, Chen and Hauman (2013) - Students are
more dependent on Facebook than Twitter and
noted “changes in usage, attitude and perception
of Facebook over time”
9. Related Work(4) : vs LMS
Schroeder and Greenbowe (2009)
number of posts on Facebook was nearly four times more
than on WebCT
postings raised more complex topics
generated more detailed replies
DeSchryver et al (2009) - students assigned to Facebook did
not write longer or more frequent postings than the
students assigned to Moodle.
“A possible reason was that the students did not like having discussions in a
separate system—Facebook—as they had been using Moodle in the course” –
Wang et al. (2012)
10. Related Work(5): vs LMS
Wang et al. (2012) – used FB Groups as LMS
announcements
sharing resources
organizing weekly tutorials
conducting online discussions
Students satisfied with “affordances” BUT some limitations
File Format Issues
Thread Management
Uncertainty about Privacy
11. Facebook in Undergraduate
Education @ UG
Singh,L., & Gaffar,K. (2010). Using Social Software to Support
Computer Science Education - A Case of Using Facebook Groups.
Paper presented at the 17th Biennial Conference Caribbean Academy
of Science (CAS) Conference, Antigua, November 15, 2010.
Singh, L. (2011). Structured vs Unstructured Use of Facebook in the
Classrooms at the University of Guyana. In J. Mair (Eds.), Face the
Future: Guyana and the New Media Revolution, (pp. 55-64). Arima
Publishers.
12. Facebook in Undergraduate
Education @ UG
Singh, L., Gaffar, K. (2011). Using Social Software to Support
Computer Science Education A Case of Using Facebook Groups. e-
Journal of the Caribbean Academy of Sciences, 5(1).
Singh, L., & Gaffar, K. (2012). Engaging Computing Students on their
Turf - Facebook Groups at Work. Presented at the Connecting
Online (CO12) Conference. February 3-5, 2012.
13. Facebook in Undergraduate
Education @ UG
Singh, L. (2013). Guided Assessment or Open Discourse: A
Comparative Analysis of Students’ Interactions on Facebook Groups.
Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 14(1), 35-43.
Singh, L., & Gaffar, K. (2013). On the Formal Use of Facebook in
Education in Deutsch, N. (Ed.).(2013). Connecting online for
instruction and learning: International perspectives. Charleston:
Createspace.
14. What is known?
Facebook is easy to use
Facebook can support elements of learning and student
engagement
Facebook works best for Informal Learning opportunities
work
Do not use Facebook like your traditional LMS – It is NOT!
23. Analysis: Facebook Group Design
Other Features
Polling/Asking Questions
Tagging e.g @Lenandlar
Group Chat – not very intuitive
No Threaded Forums – was presented in earlier versions
24. Facebook Activities in Undergraduate
Education @ UG
Groups form the basis for all support activities
Set up for all classes
Students locate group and ask to join
Communication
Notices, updates, etc
Resource sharing
Lecture notes, other reading materials
Discussions
Any topical discussion allowed
Some tutorials – some formal use was explored, Group Chat
28. Why Facebook/Groups?
Students always on
Students expect some element of social engagement
Quick and easy way to communicate with students, sharing
information, post updates, etc
Low overheads – easy to set up, easy to use
Separate from personal Facebook profile (you don’t have to engage
outside of groups)
29. Facebook as LMS?
Facebook Groups support some aspects of Learning Management
Threads/Discussions
File Sharing
Searching
Enrolment Management
Biggest challenge
User Management
Who are legitimate group members?
Locating Content
Finding discussion topics
30. Affordances
A central space for 24/7 contact among students and
between students and lecturers
A space that could help first year students adapt
quickly to university life
A way for lecturers/instructors to develop working
social relationships with students
A space to model social learning
31. References
Al-Atabi, M., & Younis, O., (2010). Use of Facebook to support module delivery for undergraduate
engineering programmes. Proceedings of the 2010 AaeE Conference, Sydney.
Boghian, I. (2013). Using Facebook in Teaching. In M. Pătruţ, & B. Pătruţ (Eds.) Social Media in
Higher Education: Teaching in Web 2.0 (pp. 86-103). Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference.
doi:10.4018/978-1-4666-2970-7.ch005
Chan, R.C.H., Lee, C.W.Y. Chan, B., Leung, C.K., & Chu, S.K.W. (2013). The application of blogs and
Facebook in scaffolding the internship learning process. Paper presented at the CITE Research
Symposium 2013, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Cheung, M.K.C., Chiu, P., & Lee, M.K.O.(2011). Online social networks: Why do students use
facebook? Computers in Human Behaviour, 27, pp. 1337–1343
Cheung, C. M., Chiu, P. Y., & Lee, M. K. (2011). Online social networks: Why do students use
facebook?. Computers in Human Behavior, 27(4), 1337-1343.
32. References
DeSchryver, M., Mishra, P., Koehler, M. & Francis, A. (2009). Moodle vs. Facebook: does using Facebook for discussions in
an online course enhance perceived social presence and student interaction? In I. Gibson et al. (Ed.), Proceedings of
society for information technology & teacher education international conference (pp. 329–336). Chesapeake, VA:
Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).
deVilliers, M.R., & Pretorium, M.C.(2013). Evaluation of a Collaborative Learning Environment on a Facebook Forum. The Electronic
Journal Information Systems Evaluation, 16(1), pp. 56-70
Gray, K., Annabell, L., & Kennedy, G. (2010). Medical students' use of Facebook to support learning: Insights from four case studies.
Medical teacher, 32(12), 971-976.
Johnston, K., Chen, M., Hauman, M. (2013). Changes in use, Perception and Attitude of First Year Students Towards Facebook and
Twitter. Proceedings of the European Conference on Information Management, p. 135
McCarthy, J. (2013). Learning in Facebook: First year tertiary student reflections
from 2008 to 2011. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 29(3), pp. 337-356
Schroeder, J. & Greenbowe, T. (2009). The chemistry of Facebook: using social networking to create an online community for the
organic chemistry laboratory. Journal of Online Education, 5, 4.
Wang, Q., Woo, H.L., Quek, C.L., Yang, Y., & Liu, M. (2012). Using the Facebook group as a learning management system: An
exploratory study. British Journal of Educational Technology. 43(3). p 428–438