What does social networking have to do with teaching and learning?
What is social networking?
A social network comprises the individuals and the webs of connections between and among individuals who are associated—based upon one or more interdependencies, such as shared interests, values, friendship, family, or profession. These connections range from weak to strong ties (Granovetter, 1973, 1983).
Individuals belong to multiple social networks—and many group-specific social identities—each of which contributes something to his or her concept of self. The manner in which any particular social identity contributes to an individual’s self-concept stems from his or her perception of membership—and the values and emotional significance he or she associates with a group (Tajfel, 1981).
Social Networking is the term that currently refers to use of online services that facilitate the creation and maintenance of online communities via the provision of a variety of means of interaction.
Over the past few years, the term social networking has been commonly used in association with the widespread use of online social network services, such as MySpace and Facebook.
What types of things can you do with it?
Individuals can:
- communicate with friends, groups, and "the world"
- make new friends based upon mutual friendships, group affiliation, interests and activities
- use multiple modes of communication, including:
- synchronous and asynchronous
- individual, group-based, or public
- creative self-expression via text, audio, images, video
- document sharing
- expression of identity (member profiles)
One may also experience a variety of unintended consequences:
- Harassment and cyberbullying
- Misrepresentation of identity
- Blurring of what is private and public
Why have we seen such growth in Social Networking?
Due to the ubiquity of technologies for social networking, the current generation of teens and young adults tend to regard them as part of their way of life rather than as a new set of tools (Salaway & Caruso, 2007; Shier, 2005). The technologies that facilitate social networking are associated with a cultural shift. Along with the ability to maintain connections comes the desire—or at least the expectation of anywhere/anytime connectedness with friends and groups.
What is the relationship between Social Networking and Web 2.0?
Clay Shirky offers a succinct definition: social software is "software that supports group interaction" (Shirky, 2003).
The term "Web 2.0" is a broader term—and refers to a shift in the Web from primarily an information-sharing platform to a one that increasingly facilitates personalized online experiences, interaction, collaboration, and social networking. Some argue that Web 2.0 does not imply a new version of the Web. Its is, however, an acknowledgment of a continual evolution that includes a layering of a wider range of social software that includes:
- group email
- wikis
- social bookmarking
- document sharing
- blogging
- microblogging
- syndication
- photo and video sharing
- multi-user virtual environments
What are some possibilities for higher education?*
The Foundation: Social Learning Theory
Learning can be conceptualized as
a constant process of developing identities
associated with various communities
through engagement in the practice[s] of the communities
in ways that are experienced as meaningful (Wenger, 1998).
Barab and Duffy (1998) suggest that all too often school activities are directed both by and toward the production of grades. They argue that educators need to place more emphasis on the ways identities are formed as individuals make meaning of interactions with the world.
Online Social Network Services (OSNS) and the transition to college
Separation, involvement, and validation are three important interconnected social processes that are fundamental determinants of an individual's personal experience of the transition to college (Astin, 1999; Jalomo & Rendón, 2004; Tinto, 1993). Separation is a process of change and adjustment of social identities, marking a change of state in who one is in relation to others. Potential negative affects of the process of separation can be mitigated by involvement and validation. Both are ways of creating connections and a sense of belonging in a new college environment. Involvement fosters social and academic engagement in college life. Validation of a developing identity as a college student is an individual, personally significant, internal confirmation of acceptance as a part of the community, leading to pride in academic accomplishments, and increased self-confidence and self-esteem.
Student persistence in college depends largely on their ability to negotiate two major interdependent high school-to-college transitions: academic and social (Tinto & Goodsell, 1993; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). College can provide a transitional environment between adolescence and adulthood in which students may experience the benefits of newfound autonomy, new social networks, pride in academic accomplishments, and increased self-confidence and self-esteem (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). However, the transition may be more difficult for some first-year college students, who experience isolation, uncertainty, anxiety, alienation, self-doubt, and poor self-image.
Within OSNSs, students can visualize their place in college as a web of social connections—making a large institution more personal and cognitively manageable (Read, 2006). "Using Facebook, students can build the kinds of connections—with students and in some cases with faculty—that make them feel like they belong and are accepted" (Educause Learning Initiative, 2007, p. 2).
OSNSs and education
Owen, Grant, Sayers, & Facer (2006) suggest that the evolution of social software is converging with the goals of education both in terms of personalizing educational experiences as well as collaboration. Supporting this with several key examples, they suggest that, in relation to education, OSNSs as a whole:
- Provide forums within which groups can coalesce around shared interests.
- Enable many avenues of communication among members of groups or communities.
- Provide systems whereby the resources, knowledge, perspectives, and practices of a community can be shared among novices and experts alike.
- Facilitate collaboration in gathering, understanding, organizing, connecting, combining, and creating knowledge.
- Prompt critical formative feedback for work in progress shared with others by the author.
- Allow access to content and communication in ways appropriate to the creator, recipient and context.
Student perceptions of the benefits and drawbacks of OSNSs
(adapted from Silverman, 2007)
OSNS Benefits
Students keep in touch with friends and meet new people
Sense of community
Entertainment and involvement
Reduce students' inhibitions and enhances their socializationOSNS Drawbacks
Concerns about their safety while online
Mixed feelings about the repercussions of online actions
Can prevent students from completing work and interacting with peers f2f
Accessibility and Marginalization
Anyone considering the use of online social network services for teaching and learning must ensure accessibility. Additionally, all technologies carry with them a reflection of the values and power relationships of the social context in which they were developed. This calls for efforts to recognize and minimize the potential for those technologies to create, perpetuate, or exacerbate existing social inequities and stratification based on, for example, economic status, ethnicity, or gender.
*This section excerpted from Heer, 2008.
Conclusion: How and Why?
As online social networking technologies continue to evolve, one may well ask, "why would—and how might educators use OSNSs for teaching and learning?"
For most college students today OSNSs provide familiar environments and tools that enable multiple forms of interaction. Considering learning as an inherently social activity, there is an intriguing opportunity to leverage the features and types of and interactions enabled within OSNSs. However, students generally are unaccustomed to using OSNSs at higher levels of cognitive engagement. As with more traditional venues for teaching and learning, educators will still face the broader pedagogical challenges of engaging students more actively in the learning process (see Reynard, 2008).
Selected Resources
A Vision of Students Today. Michael Wesch and the students of Introduction to Cultural Anthropology Class of Spring 2007, Kansas State University
An anthropological introduction to YouTube. Michael Wesch. Presented at the Library of Congress, June 3, 1988
Bloom's Digital Taxonomy. Andrew Churche's wiki connects social software with ways to use them to promote and assess higher-order thinking.
Educause Learning Initiative (ELI) 7 Things You Should Know About... Emerging Technologies
elearnspace: everything elearning. George Siemens on learning, networks, knowledge, technology, community.
Mind Map: Best Online Collaboration Tools 2009 - Robin Good's Collaborative Map - MindMeister
Staying Safe on Social Network Sites: Iowa State University IT Services
Social Networking Technologies: Implications for Teaching and Learning: CELT workshop handouts, April 15, 200 9(620 KB PDF)
Technology and the Global Commons. Diana Oblinger, 2008 NMC Summer Conference Opening Keynote, 2008 NMC Summer Conference, Princeton University
The Chemistry of Facebook: Using Social Networking to Create an Online Community for the Organic Chemistry Laboratory. Article by ISU's Jacob Schroeder and Thomas J. Greenbowe in innovate journal of online education, 5(4), April/May 2009
Brief videos of recent online social technologies explained: In Plain English
Links to a few Online Social Network Services & Social Media Websites
del.icio.us - social bookmarking
Facebook - OSNS
Flickr - photo sharing
Google Docs - document sharing
Ning - OSNS
Pbwiki - wiki provider
Second Life - virtual world
TeacherTube - educational video sharing
Twitter - microblogging
YouTube - video sharing
NOTE: Inclusion on this list does not imply endorsement over any other providers of similar services.
References
Astin, A. W. (1999). Student involvement: A developmental theory for higher education [Electronic version]. Journal of College Student Development, 40(5), 518–529.
Barab, S. A. & Duffy, T., (1998). From practice fields to communities of practice. CRLT (Technical Report No. 1-98) [Electronic version]. In D. Jonassen & S. Land (Eds.), (2006) Theoretical Foundations of Learning Environments. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. (Reprinted with permission).
Educause Learning Initiative (2007). 7 things you should know about Facebook. Retrieved September 3, 2007 from http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7017.pdf.
Granovetter, M. (1973). The Strength of Weak Ties [Electronic version]. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), May 1973, 1360–1380.
Granovetter, M. (1983). The strength of weak ties: A network theory revisited [Electronic version]. Sociological Theory, 1, 201–233.
Heer, R. (2008). Exploring the Congruence of Ethnic Minority Millennial Students’ Transition to College, Identity and Community, and Online Social Network Services. Master’s Thesis, Iowa State University.
Jalomo, R. E. Jr., & Rendón, L. I. (2004). Moving to a new culture: The upside and the downside of the transition to college. In L. I. Rendón, M. García, & D. Person (Eds.), Transforming the first-year experience of students of color (Monograph No. 38) (pp. 3–22). Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina, National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition.
Owen, M., Grant, L., Sayers, S., & Facer, K. (2006). Opening education: Social software and learning. Futurelab: Harbourside, United Kingdom. Retrieved July 20, 2006, from http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/publications_reports_articles/
opening_education_reports/Opening_Education_Report199.
Pascarella, E., & Terenzini, P. (2005). How college affects students: A third decade of research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Read, B. (2006, January 20). Think before you share: Students’ online socializing can have unintended consequences [Electronic version]. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 52(20), p. A38.
Reynard, R. (2008). Social networking: Learning theory in action. Campus Technology. Retrieved March 16, 2009 from http://campustechnology.com/Articles/2008/05/Social-Networking-Learning-Theory-in-Action.aspx.
Salaway, G., & Caruso, J. B. (2007). The ECAR study of undergraduate students and information technology, 2007. In Research Study from the EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research, 2007(6). Retrieved September 12, 2007, from http://www.educause.edu/ers0706.
Shier, M. T. (2005). The way technology changes how we do what we do [Electronic version]. New directions for student services, 2005(112), 77–87.
Shirky, C. (2003). A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy [Electronic version]. (Text of keynote at Emerging Technology conference in Santa Clara on April 24, 2003). Retrieved September 1, 2007, from http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html
Silverman, S. C. (2007). Creating community online: The effects of online social network servicing communities on college students’ experiences. How can student affairs professionals best respond to this emergent phenomenon? Doctoral Dissertation presented to the faculty of the Rossier School of Education, University of Southern California.
Tajfel, H. (1981). Human groups and social categories: studies in social psychology. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Tinto, V. (1993). Leaving college: Rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition. London: University of Chicago Press.
Tinto, V., Goodsell, A. (1993). Freshman interest groups and the first year experience: Constructing student communities in a large university. University Park PA: National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
