Facebook in teaching: strengths and weaknesses

Abstract

pennanently, that is, 24/7. In contrast, lecturers are digital immigrants, but we have the responsibility to convert a technology which is likely to become a distraction into a teaching tool that encourages problem-solving, facilitates the use of information sources, improves collaboration and makes possible interaction among students (Siegle, 2011 ).Social networks consequently pe1mit to publish and share infoimation, self-leaming, teamwork, feedback, and contact with experts; in short, they are a perfect tool for constructivist aud collaborative leaming. However, despite the increased utilisation of social networks, only few students use them for their studies; that is why it would be interesting to analyse whether these networks can become a good complement to the formal training received in university classrooms. Social networks constih1te an attractive tool in the academic field because the student is thoroughly familiar with them and is consequently

Social Media and Higher Education: A Literature Review

“…This is consistent with the findings reported by Pearson's social media for teaching and learning survey [20]. Based on a survey to 191 students in the use of Facebook for a closed group discussion, Gonzalez-Ramirez, Gasco, and Taverner [7] reported that students' perceived weaknesses of Facebook in teaching included privacy issues, time required, and technological deficit; while the potential strengths that students predict include performance, communication, participation, and motivation. Students' perceived usefulness of the tool and students' learning achievements were the most frequently studied factors.…”

“…In order to study the impact of social media in higher education setting, many researchers conducted explorative studies to investigate the students' perceived learning experience [4,7,12,17,[21][22][23]. Veletsianos and Navarrete [24] conducted a case study utilizing Elgg as the online social network in an online course, and investigated students' perceived learning experience.…”

The Impact of Social Media Participation on Academic Performance in Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students

“…These studies found that satisfaction and participation were associated with improved performance. Some authors have highlighted the value of social networking sites as spaces that facilitate the development of cognitive abilities (Alloway, Horton, Alloway, & Dawson, 2013) and as a means to improve academic performance (Al-Rahmi, Othman, & Yusuf, 2015;González-Ramírez, Gascó, & Llopis-Taverner, 2015).…”

Delivering Information Literacy via Facebook: Here Comes the Spinach!

“…After finding that students already use social media networks such as Facebook to converse with their classmates regarding courses and assessment (Donlan, 2014;Towner & Lego Muñoz, 2011), researchers investigated the use of Facebook for formal learning, including language learning (Annamalai, 2016;Leier, 2017;Omar, Embi, & Yunus, 2012), tourism education (Chen, 2018), and sport coaching (Donlan, 2014). They found that formally assessed Facebook activities were not well-received by students, who struggled to maintain the formal strictures of educational assessment, such as appropriate language and deadlines, on an informal platform (González-Ramírez, Gascó, & Taverner, 2015;Leier, 2017). In addition, students may not wish to engage with their lecturers on Facebook (González-Ramírez et al, 2015), or only passively interacted with the Facebook page/group in question (Chugh & Ruhi, 2018).…”