Learning from Social Networks
The benefits of using SNSs as learning tool for students are to support collaboration and communication between students, enhance learning (especially that of language), increase students’ motivation and provide psychosocial benefits. (Henderson et al., 2010) stated that SNSs are increasingly accepted by educators due to its ability of offering strong communication and collaboration areas for the activities in classes. Additionally, (Hosny & Fatima, 2012) revealed that learning through SNS can help students to engage actively in the learning process, while eliminating the traditional lessons taught through presentation materials. (Wang C.M, 2012) reported that SNS usage in education introduces comprehensive learning that benefits both the students and teachers. It was also found that students are more serious toward online materials as opposed to conventional materials.
Apart from learning tool, SNSs are also useful in increasing students’ motivation and engagement. (Hoffman, E. 2009) stated that adapting SNSs as a learning tool provides a supportive environment and contributes positively on student engagement, motivation, and interaction. According to (Griffith & Liyanage, 2008), the motivation for students is proportional to the amount of information presented on SNSs by their teachers.
Furthermore, there are some psychological benefits for students who use SNSs as a learning tool. (Tynes, 2007) and (Griffith & Liyanage, 2008), the two psychological benefits are facilitation of identity exploration and improvement in social cognitive skills.
One of the other benefits of SNSs is “learners’ centricity” when used as a learning tool for students. In the cyber space, SNSs allow individuals to interact with others that have similar interests within a subject area.
Despite the many advantages associated with using SNS as a learning mechanism for students, naturally there are always drawbacks in a method. The major problem is the extraneous cognitive load in SNSs. In SNSs, learners need to acquire knowledge through knowledge sharing with other participants. However, without a support such as ITSs, learners have to organize knowledge sharing themselves and this could induce extraneous cognitive load (Grosseck et al. 2011).