As social media becomes more popular, more and more people become more interested in it. Students need socialization, so they are hesitant to take online courses or their daily schedules make it easier to take online classes. Privacy is a concern in regards to social dimension of students. A study conducted addressed questions such as: Does social media and social learning promote educational opportunities for better student understanding? Do students view social media as an asset to courses, enhance understanding and keep students engaged? What problems do university students see with social media usage?
Thirty four questions were incorporated into an online survey regarding demographics of 1376 university students between ages 18-50 and over as the sample. 32% are male, 68% are female, 79% full time and 21% part time students, 21% live on campus and 79% live off campus. The procedure in the research consisted of an 18 question online survey analyzed and disbursed to 8,486 students. The students had one month to complete the survey and only 16% replied. Perhaps maybe a face to face survey or a classroom survey may have gotten them a bigger return on replies. I know when I get online survey request I tend to ignore them. In peoples busy lives they don’t have the time to look at what may be considered “junk” online. Maybe also since the research being done is in regards to social media, perhaps putting an online chat for discussion on the college website to seek feedback from the diverse student body.
Analysis consisted of percentages, t tests, and correlations. Overall results indicated that students were positive regarding the use of social media learning in courses online. It also resulted in implications for teaching improvements with distance learning. It is believed that learners interact with each other and improves learning with social media.
A problem university students consider with social media use is that it depends on the person, gender, full time, part time, on or off campus students. At this time social media is not used a whole lot, but results indicate professors should train to achieve comfort with social media in their classroom.
http://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/jsr/article/view/2136/1779
I believe that a social aspect to life is a great thing. I am taking a couple online courses this semester and feel as if I don’t really get the full effect of the class. I don’t know anyone in the classes so it’s hard to ask questions through email. I also never get to interact with my classmates which makes it kind of tough. I have four classes in the classroom, and, I have made friends in them already, it’s great. We study together, bounce idea’s off one another and hang out from time to time. I do however, have one class that has a student in it that makes it very difficult to learn with their constant acting out, so I suppose that could be a damper on the social aspect. So when you mentioned the question above: Does social media and social learning promote educational opportunities for better student understanding? I say yes to this question! I think that being social is very important, it’s part of what makes you who you are!
A lot of students are now not the traditional students going to college right after high school and the online classes are a great balance for the life when balancing school, work and a family. There is the social interaction that is missing to an online class but some people are not looking for that and learn better this way. This research was very interesting, I would agree with you that the online survey was not the best way to conduct the survey because if they don’t do the survey right away the likelihood of them doing it later is not going to happen as you can see from the response being 16%.
I agree. Being social is “part of who we are”. I do miss being in classroom settings. Just to be able to have clarification to a question right away. I am a people person so it is harder to push myself to log-in, sit, and read. Unfortunately my schedule doesn’t allow me to ever be in a classroom. I have to say, this class lecture wise, has been the best. Hearing Stacy speak makes it easier to follow along with the writing.
People are missing out when it comes to interacting with one another. We have become a technology based society which takes a lot of social aspects away from everything. Such as sitting at the bus stop. Most people sit there on their phones or I Pods and never even say hi to the person right next to them.
I too miss the social aspect of being in a classroom. Although I like the freedom of online classes, in some ways it was easier to be expected to attend a class a couple times a week. Questions can be answered more quickly and efficiently and it’s definitely easier to make friends face to face rather than through a computer screen. But in some ways, learning through social media is easier. Students can learn at his/her own way at their own pace. Social media learning affects everyone differently; some people are visual learners while others are auditory learners. Visual learners may have an easier time with online classes and auditory learners may do better in a classroom. I also agree that the online survey was probably not the best way to gather information. I know I tend to skip them when possible and obviously many other people do too, since only 16% replied.
Although it does seem like it would be easier to take an online class, due to the convenience of a busy life, it is sometimes a little more difficult. The reason why we go to school is to learn, and sometimes when taking an oline coarse it can be hard to focus, with all of the other “social media” around us. It is nice to be around other people, for example I may have a hard time grasping something on my own either because I just don’t get it or because I am not very interested in the subject. Being around other people can help because sometimes their explanation of something can help you better understand, plus they may be able to put something in a perspective that makes it a little more interesting.
Last semester I took an online history course, and I really enjoyed that I could attach pictures or link in videos and even music to my posts! I could look up pictures and compare them to make a point, or illustrate my posts just to make them more attractive. I often enjoyed looking at others’ posts, and appreciated getting comments on mine. During a real classroom discussion, you cannot share music or websites or pictures, just as they come to your mind! I was really surprised to see that studying online has its advantages over being in a classroom.
I think younger students definitely look for that social aspect of a classroom more than older ones who might have a family and a full time or part time jobs. When you attend college straight out of high school, you’ll probably be living on campus, and unless you have lots of financial aid or money beforehand, you’ll probably have a job too. So taking online courses can be much easier on your schedule, but when you live on campus you’re really there to learn. Off campus students will probably have a much busier life and would therefore want to study and go to “class” when they have a quick half hour or so. Also, social media does add to normal classes. I’ve used moodle for both online and offline courses, and it even enhances the offline ones. The forums for my online BCC courses are great because you can add online references which are becoming incredibly prevalent. As mentioned earlier, you can’t do that in a lecture. I think that social media can really help enhance learning in any class, but the social interaction and face-to-face discussion with teachers and students is also very important if you have the time.
My first question about this is whether we are discussing the social aspect of online learning or “social media” such as Facebook and Twitter or if we are using the two interchangeably.
Secondly, why is it that the general consensus seems to be that it is more difficult to make friends and get to know each other online, when there are so many people who today meet and marry people that they only know from an online dating site. This would indicate to me that we are either not using this social media for its full capability (didn’t Stacy set up a forum for us to introduce ourselves and discuss things?) or that this site isn’t as well designed as other social sites for the purposes of social relationships. Are we logging on to make friends or complete assignments?
Thirdly, if we wanted to get to know each other, which would probably assist in a Sociology class, we could find each other on Facebook or create a GroupMe or Tweet. I think I would be more interested in someone else’s kids if I saw pictures instead of just reading about it online.
Fourthly, (and this has little to do with the topic), why does my friend who is taking the exact same Sociology class in person get to make a family tree and I have to write an essay on the 3 paradigms??? I love family trees!