Article Preview
TopIntroduction
Students in the 21st century (referred to as the digital generation, digital natives) are growing up constantly connected to the world around them through smartphones, tablets, and computers. Marc Prensky (Prensky, 2001) defines the term “digital native” and applies it to a new group of students enrolling in educational establishments referring to the young generation as “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, videos, video games, social media and other sites on the internet.
Students from the digital generation thrive on creative and engaging activities, varied sources of information and a more energetic environment. Teachers are faced with the challenge of understanding how they learn, how they communicate and interact with the world in order to meet the needs of today’s students and to teach more effectively. Today social networking as a powerful tool for users for communication, information sharing and discussions on various topics responds to those needs.
The wide academic and research interest in the use of social networking for educational purposes in higher education is the natural result of constantly growing popularity of social networking - according to a worldwide survey, approximately 2 billion internet users are using social networks today (Statista’2018).
According to Pearson (Seaman & Tinti-Kane, 2013, 5 p.), a learning company that promotes the effective use of technology, “A majority of faculty now use social media in a professional context (any aspect of their profession outside of teaching). Use of social media for teaching purposes has lagged even more, but like the other patterns of use, it has increased every year. The number of faculty who use social media in the classroom still does not represent a majority, but teaching use continues its steady year-to-year growth. Faculty are sophisticated consumers of social media. In general, they see considerable potential in the application of social media and technology to their teaching, but not without a number of serious barriers”.
In recent years there has been extensive academic and research interest into the use of social networking for educational purposes related to:
- •
ways to enhance the teaching and learning process (Acharya, Patel, & Jethava, 2013);
- •
introversion and collaborative learning (Voorn & Kommers, 2013);
- •
the use of social networking sites as a learning management system (Wang, Woo, Quek, Yang & Liu, 2011);
- •
information reservoirs (Kropf, 2013);
- •
support of student involvement (Arquero & Romero-Frías, 2013);
- •
the learning communitites and peer-reviews for MOOCS (Rothkrantz, 2015);
- •
advertising campaigns of courses (Zancanaro & Domingues, 2018)
- •
promotion of higher education institutions on social networks (Golubić & Lasić-Lazić, 2012; Golubić, 2017).
A number of surveys have been conducted worldwide on the use of social networks by teachers and students aiming to investigate:
- •
the extent to which teachers use social networking sites to connect with students and parents, and as an education tool (Hendee, 2014);
- •
how many teachers in higher education institutions are using social media, and in what capacity (Faculty Focus, 2011);
- •
the use of social networking technologies in higher education - extent of use, benefits and skills learners acquire from the use of these technologies (Zanamwe, Rupere, & Kufandirimbwa, 2013);
- •
the effects of social media use on collaborative learning (Mardikyan & Bozanta, 2017);
- •
the personal and professional impacts of social media on teaching faculty (Moran, Seaman, & Tinti-Kane, 2011);
- •
the effects of social media on academic performance of students in university (Kolan & Dzandza, 2018);
- •
the influence of social networks on high school students' performance (Abu-Shanab & Al-Tarawneh, 2015).