Are Social Media Sites a Platform for Formal or Informal learning? Students’ Experiences in Institutions of Higher Education

Mpungose, Cedric Bheki

doi:10.5430/ijhe.v9n5p300

Cited by 28 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…This can directly address one of the main challenges of ITS related to the decision of contacting and directing students so they receive support only when needed (D'Mello et al, 2010). Formal higher education courses have slowly started to extend their learning activities to include social media, although there is a call to intensify such initiatives (Mpungose, 2020). In this study, iCollab was used as an additional support to students available through social media, where they could access course content and formative learning activities, such as quizzes.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enabling adaptive, personalised and context-aware interaction in a smart learning environment: Piloting the iCollab system

Oliveira

Barba²,

Corrin³

2021

AJET

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Smart learning environments (SLE) provide students with opportunities to interact with learning resources and activities in ways that are customised to their particular learning goals and approaches. A challenge in developing SLEs is providing resources and tasks within a single system that can seamlessly tailor learning experience in terms of time, place, platform, and form. In this paper we introduce the iCollab platform, an adaptive environment where learning activities are moderated through conversation with an intelligent agent who can operate across multiple web-based platforms, integrating formal and informal learning opportunities. Fifty-eight undergraduate computer science students were randomly assigned to either an intervention or control group for the 12 weeks of the pilot study. Learning analytics were used to examine their interactions with iCollab, while their course performance investigated the impact of using iCollab on learning outcomes. Results from the study showed a high level of interaction with iCollab, especially social interaction, indicating an interweaving of formal learning within their informal network spaces. These findings open up new possibilities for ways that SLEs can be designed to incorporate different factors, improving the ability of the system to provide adaptive and personalised learning experiences in relation to context and time.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enabling adaptive, personalised and context-aware interaction in a smart learning environment: Piloting the iCollab system

Oliveira

Barba²,

Corrin³

2021

AJET

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“…Such prescriptions intended to introduce structures in teaching that produce high performance, addressing professional needs (Budden, 2017;Makumane & Khoza, 2020). In societal reflection, academics reflect on their current usage of social media sites (SMSs) (WhatsApp, Google, Facebook, and others) with the aim of addressing societal needs (Mpungose, 2020a;Sokhulu, 2020). In personal reflection, academics reflect and critique their experiences in order to produce new actions for both formal (LMS) and social network technology usage (AlDahdouh, 2018;Maxwell, 2013).…”

Section: Transformation Experiences Of Academics On the Use Of Lmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This was evident when they reflected on their experiences of using digital technologies. The personal values such as collaboration, democracy, diversity, and others, are formed by a competence-based digitalised curriculum through interaction with SMSs and other digital technologies, for community of learning (Khoza, 2019;Mpungose, 2020a). Achievement of learning outcomes is the driver of this curriculum, in forming the above-mentioned values.…”

Section: Theme Five: Transformation By Reduction Appreciation Interpmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…, as the name used in this study, abruptly, rapidly, and radically changed the world situation to a new revolution (abrupt/radical change) demanding Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies or resources (Schwab, 2016). As a result, countries and education institutions have been trying to introduce a digitalised curriculum (Khoza & Biyela, 2020;Mpungose, 2020a). A digitalised curriculum is defined as a plan for and/or a plan of teaching, learning, and research, driven by specific hardware, software, and theories/pedagogies (Khoza, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Digitalised curriculum to the rescue of a higher education institution

Mpungose

Khoza

2020

African Identities

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This time of COVID-19 has compelled higher education institution (HEI) academics to embrace a digitalised curriculum in teaching, learning, and research. A digitalised curriculum is a plan for and/or a plan of teaching, learning, and research, driven by specific hardware, software, and theories. HEI leaders of teaching and learning have been unsuccessful over the years in promoting the use of various kinds of learning management systems (LMSs) with the aim of embracing a digitalised curriculum. The unsuccessful promotion of LMSs was caused by the lack of compelling situations that forced digital technology refugees to use the LMSs. In 2020, when COVID-19, which originated in China, started to affect other countries, academics desperately transformed their minds in embracing the digitalised curriculum. They started to attend any workshops on the use of digital technologies through Zoom. The findings of the study reveal that the transformation experiences of these academics were reflections, translation, rotation, enlargement, and reduction. These transformation experiences addressed the tension between a performance curriculum and a competency-based curriculum. This study explored the transformation experiences of academics at an HEI in South Africa. Zoom observations, semi-structured interviews and focus-group discussions were used for data collection. A mixed method and pragmatic paradigm were used to frame this study. The study applied purposive with convenience sampling in selecting twenty participants. This study concludes by recommending the identification of values or ideologies relevant to the enactment of the digitalised curriculum that comes to the rescue of HEIs at this time of COVID-19 and beyond.

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“…WhatsApp has become one of the most popular social network sites (SMSs) for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). WhatsApp is number three in terms of the number of users after YouTube (number two), and Facebook (number one) (Khoza, 2020;Mpungose, 2020a;Simon, 2020). WhatsApp took students by surprise while they were still enjoying the use of other SMSs such as Facebook, YouTube, inter alia.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Students’ Habits Appear Captured by WhatsApp

Khoza

2020

IJHE

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Exploring students’ habits of using WhatsApp is important: such introspection helps students to reflect, and improve their actions. Habits are subconscious thoughts that drive students, for example, to use WhatsApp, even without concentrating on their learning actions. Habits are formed after students have repeated the same action. Twelve students, registered for a Bachelor of Education degree in Mathematics Education at a university in South Africa, were selected to participate. The objective of this study was to understand students’ habits of using WhatsApp in the learning of mathematics. Reflective activities, focus-group discussion, and one-on-one semi-structured interviews, framed by interpretive case study, were used for data production. The students’ habits revealed that The Tree Three Rings Theory was useful when applied as the learning framework. Such application of the theory generated three categories of habits of WhatsApp usage. Categories were social, discipline/disciplinary, and personal habits. The university at which these students were registered prescribed Moodle as the learning management system (LMS). However, the students mostly used WhatsApp. As a result, they used WhatsApp even during face-to-face classes. It appeared that students had been ‘captured’ by WhatsApp, using it as their ‘master’, instead of using it as both their ‘master’ and ‘servant’. The study concluded that, although there were elements of both personal and discipline habits, the social habits drove the learning. Consequently, this study recommends that students should reflect; using social, discipline, and personal actions as taxonomies of education habits, in order to address societal, individual, and the mathematics education needs.

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Are Social Media Sites a Platform for Formal or Informal learning? Students’ Experiences in Institutions of Higher Education

Cited by 28 publications

References 37 publications

Enabling adaptive, personalised and context-aware interaction in a smart learning environment: Piloting the iCollab system

Enabling adaptive, personalised and context-aware interaction in a smart learning environment: Piloting the iCollab system

Digitalised curriculum to the rescue of a higher education institution

Students’ Habits Appear Captured by WhatsApp

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