An Informal Use of Facebook to Encourage Student Collaboration and Motivation for Off Campus Activities

Abstract

Facebook has become the students’ communication tool of choice. Instant messaging and online presence and the fact the “everyone you know” is on Facebook makes email look slow and clunky. Tutors may well be Facebook users themselves for those very same reasons, and as a way of keeping in touch with friends and family. Indeed, not to have a Facebook and Twitter account may be seen to be out of touch. At the same time, the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is embedded deeply into the higher education landscape. The VLE is an integral part of the student learning experience. The role of the VLE is well established and recognized as the place the students go to access learning materials associated with their unit of study. The VLE used at Southampton Solent University, UK, is MyCourse. A look at the patterns of usage of a selection of media students at SSU suggests that students access the VLE periodically, between classes, to review or preview learning materials and to review assignment briefs. However, by contrast, the students are connected to Facebook for long periods of the day. The VLE offers communication and collaboration tools, but does the “always connected, always checking in” nature of Facebook provide a more effective way of facilitating communication and collaboration? Similarly, the VLE offers the facility to share work via forums and message boards. However, do the instant update, commenting, and like features, combined with the fact that Facebook is a place the students choose to go, have an impact on student motivation if work is shared on a Facebook group?

To Like or Not to Like: Facebook® in the Higher Education Classroom

“…Some scholars believe the benefits of SNSs are greater than the risks (Abe & Jordan, 2013;Joosten, 2012;Kessler, 2010). These reported benefits include increased levels and frequency of communication between faculty and students, as well as between students (Hogg, 2014;Rasiah, 2014); a continuance of classroom discussion and learning beyond the four walls of the classroom (Dogoriti & Pange, 2014;Jaffar, 2014;Saykili & Kumtepe, 2014); and an approximation of real world situations (i.e., a virtual newsroom, a marketing-communications client) for the purposes of teaching and learning (Aayeshah & Bebawi, 2014;Adi, 2013). If the goal is to provide a safe SNS alternative where students can practice social networking skills, this can be accomplished with a learning management system (LMS), such as Blackboard or Edmodo (Howard, 2013).…”

“…Although faculty who teach public relations, journalism, marketing, or other preprofessional courses may share Howard's (2013) deontological obligation to prepare students to use a platform they will encounter on the job in the world beyond the classroom (Aayeshah & Bebawi, 2014;Adi, 2013;Faulds & Mangold, 2014), the use of Facebook for teaching has not been restricted to specific disciplines. Faculty in Media Literacy (Churcher et al, 2014) , Filmmaking (Hogg, 2014), Statistics (Everson, et al 2013), Teacher Education (Baya'a & Daher, 2014; Haipinge, 2013) and other fields have adopted Facebook into their teaching methodology and measured the results.…”

“…Professors of journalism courses in Australia (Aayeshah & Bebawi, 2014), media production in the U.K. (Hogg, 2014), and media literacy in the U.S. (Churcher et al, 2014) have studied the use of Facebook in their courses. According to Aayeshah and Bebawi (2014), after journalism students communicated with each other, shared drafts of stories, and discussed sources on Facebook, they described the experience as great, excellent, useful and the best platform to use.…”

“…According to Aayeshah and Bebawi (2014), after journalism students communicated with each other, shared drafts of stories, and discussed sources on Facebook, they described the experience as great, excellent, useful and the best platform to use. Hogg (2014) tasked students with producing a short film from beginning concept to finished product and posted film clips to the Facebook Group meant to inspire students, along with links to instructional web pages. Soon, students began to share examples of their own work, as well as use the page to send messages to other members of the class.…”

“…Faculty have utilized Facebook in foreign language classes (Dogoriti & Pange, 2014;Saykili & Kumtepe, 2014), statistics (Everson et al, 2013), and environmental studies (Petrovic et al, 2014). Educators who wish to move students from a passive to an active mode of learning can find support to do so through the use of Facebook for the sharing of original student-generated ideas and content (Aayeshah & Bebawi, 2014;Dogoriti & Pange, 2014;Everson et al, 2013;Hogg, 2014;Holland & Judge, 2013;Saykili & Kumtepe, 2014). Faculty who seek to build community between and among students may find the experiences of Churcher et al (2014) and Petrovic et al (2014) particularly helpful.…”