Using Facebook to Support Academic Literacy

Global perspectives on social media in teaching and learning: Emerging research and opportunities, 2018

The case explores international students' learning experiences with Facebook-based activities within the eight-week study term known as the intensive mode of course delivery. By implementing participant observation and two asynchronous Facebook focus groups, the study investigates the potential values of Facebook for learning from international students' perspective. In addition, the case looks at the challenges faced by students and discusses key factors that may impact international students' experiences with courses that incorporate Facebook as a learning tool. The research is framed in the context of New Zealand tertiary education and intended as a contribution to the emerging body of educational research on social media.

This paper is concerned with the educational value of Facebook and specifically how it can be used in formal educational settings. As such, it provides a review of existing literature of how Facebook is used in higher education paying emphasis on the scope of its use and the outcomes achieved. As evident in existing literature, Facebook has been used mainly for social networking purposes through the establishment and collaboration of social groups in educational settings. However, a set of recent studies has exemplified how Facebook can provide an empowering means for achieving educational goals and supporting students develop crucial skills (e.g., writing, networking, collaborating) by serving as members in various learning communities. Concluding, we argue that Facebook can provide a valuable pedagogical tool that enhances student learning. Hence, future research towards further exploring Facebook's use in educational settings is warranted for the purpose of producing scientific evidence about the ways in which Facebook could be utilized to enhance learning.

Arab World English Journal, 2022

The paper's main aim is to highlight the importance of underpinning English language education with intercultural competence. The authors describe and analyze the experience of the cross-cultural exchange in Facebook movie-based discussions as an innovative approach to English teacher preparation in Ukraine. The study examines the perceptions of American films regarding various social, educational, and cultural issues by American and Ukrainian participants. The authors address the following questions: 1. What are the intercultural differences in the perception of American movies manifested by the representatives of the American and Ukrainian cultures during movie club discussions? 2. What are the participants' attitudes to online discussions in a Facebook group? The research engages 83 participants, including university professors, their family members, and prospective teachers majoring in teaching English as a foreign language. The study applies Hofstede's cultural dimensions model and descriptive, comparative, and qualitative methods. Since the research is empirical and an exciting outcome of international academic collaboration in teacher preparation, its findings have proven the significance of cross-cultural communication for educational purposes. The emphasis on strengthening English language teacher preparation with intercultural awareness, values, and skills for service in the multicultural world has evident benefits for the quality of teacher training in the Ukrainian context. The research also signifies Facebook as a platform for future online educational collaboration.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2014

Facebook is a social media web application used by millions everyday. Students use it comfortably and frequently, as a means of genuine communication, mainly for keeping in touch with friends. Actually, we, as young adults, use Facebook as well, some of us extensively, as we acknowledge its excellent role in conveying verbal written messages and visuals. If Facebook is so good in promoting daily communication it should be also profitable in the school environment. Our research, which was developed with a group of students in French and another one in English, consists in creating a Facebook account for a foreign language class where digital "home assignments" are displayed. Our aim is to stimulate more involvement in the learning activity, mainly in the writing assignments. The research that started in the fall 2012 showed that Facebook has indeed a great potential as a means for teachers to reach to their students and experiment with learning methods. Students who had never written their homework before, started responding on Facebook to a variety of communicative assignments. Our conclusion is that since using Facebook the foreign language class has progressed towards an environment of genuine communication.

Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture, 2010

Proceeding Full Paper, 2010

The emergence of Web 2.0 tools with their interactivity, user-centered design, interoperability, and collaboration opportunities has brought in a new breath to the potential of information and communication technologies for educational purposes. As an increasingly popular Web 2.0 tool Facebook, a social networking site which was initially designed to connect college and university students and has evolved to involve a variety of applications and tools open to the whole world, is an appealing medium to be exploited for educational purposes. Therefore, this study explores the potential of Facebook as an online support system during foreign language learning process. Twenty three university students at an English language preparation class at a university in Turkey involved in the study. In this action-oriented case study, interviews were conducted with participants individually to understand their feelings and views as to use of Facebook as an educational tool to support their foreign language learning experiences. Data reduction and content analysis was carried out on the data gathered from these interviews so that themes can be identified in order to reach a conclusion relating to the purposes of the study. K Ke ey y W Wo or rd ds s: : Web 2.0, Social Networking Site, Facebook, Foreign Language Teaching

Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2019

This article reports on a pilot undergraduate subject that incorporated a range of technology-enhanced learning approaches including online lectures, an online site for in and out of class communications, and strong encouragement for students to blog and use Twitter. This paper evaluates student engagement through the social networking sites (SNS), focusing on the online communication and content platform. We examine whether changing from an educationally oriented SNS platform to Facebook impacted on student engagement and feedback. To achieve this, both empirical data and qualitative student feedback were used.

2014

As Social Networking Sites have come to play a greater part in our lives, more and more people interact with each other in these environments. Because social networking tools have managed to attract billions of users worldwide, they have also drawn the attention of educators. As the largest social networking site, Facebook has captured the interest of educators and educational institutions, regardless of its desirable or undesirable effects on education settings. However, empirical research on the implications of how Facebook can be utilized in English as a foreign or second language (EFL/ESL) learning and teaching setting is limited. This issue needs further exploration to provide deeper insights and meaningful conclusions. This chapter focuses on the utility of a multicultural Facebook special interest group, FaceLearning, which was created by the authors to support the EFL/ESL learning and teaching. The research attempts to map the potentials and the concerns that arise from the perspectives of three instructors involved in the study to explore the value, role, and educational implications of Facebook for EFL/ESL settings.

Nowadays social networks can be considered as psycho-technological environments [1] with a high identity-making value. Pedagogy cannot ignore these new places, with the aim of making formal training increasingly more 'connected' to informal training through Social networks, as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr. This paper aims to present an action-research that is based on new and innovative ways to incorporate technology and social media into teaching methodology [2], as forms of distance and online education programs. While until now most popular researches try to study the social network influence on young people and on their academic performances [3], to analyse the content of user profiles, and try to diversify users and nonusers, our action-research explores the pedagogical relevances of Facebook in interactive laboratorial experiences, carried out with graduating students in the academic year 2012/2013 at the University of Naples "Federico II". We tried to implement frontal lessons with social networks technologies creating a closed group on Facebook and adopting a questionnaire (created ad hoc and tested with a pilot study) to evaluate students' beliefs on educational scopes of Facebook and its usefulness for teaching learning. Through the exploratory experience of the Facebook groups, students have also realized that externalization/construction of meaning and knowledge is not an individual but a social community act. The appearance, therefore, more interesting is the ability for students to turn knowledge from tacit to explicit. Using metaphors, analogies, and especially through reflections on experiences in common, students are able to explain and to share knowledge, which is difficult to express through purely frontal teaching methods. Teachers, as "digital immigrants", do not always seem to grasp the potentiality of social networks, which are the preferential medium of exchange and self-representation of their students, considered as "native digitals" (Prensky, 2001) [4]. Native digitals require a rethinking of the traditional didactic structure, employing e-learning usability. The surprising results of our research demonstrate that according to students, Facebook should be useful for educational practices, first as a platform and as an open virtual space for instructional materials and sharing narratives, second as a virtual community of research, where it's possible to coconstruct knowledge and reflexion upon contents and upon themselves [5].

Adult Learning in the Digital Age: …, 2010