A Shorter Summary of the Chapter I: Social Networking as An Educational Tool

     

    As the times change, the human change; as the human change, the way the human teach changes. Currently in this progressive process, we now have the web 2.0 applications as tools. These web 2.0 tools like blogs have profiles, publicly articulated social networks -which means a ‘’friends’’ or ‘’contacts’’ list- and semi persistent public comments that are ‘’posts’’ that can be removed afterwards. Such sites’ give users the ability to create and share, rather than just consuming. But a connection to such a mass of information that is created by users themselves can be a waste of time as it is not filtered and may not be reliable. Millennial students that are not equipped with critical thinking and filtering are likely to be exposed to false or useless information as they do not consider the quality of the sources objectively. Millennial students also have short attention spans, and they lack reflection. They prefer visuals or videos over text while learning and not excellent readers, but they can multitask. So we can say that web 2.0 can be used in accordance with these behaviors. One of the ways is using collaborative learning that is a great method to teach as it involves interactive and collaborative work. As stated previously, the learner changes, ‘’digital natives’’ are familiar with technology, so the technological mediums should be used while applying these methods. Student centered course design that gives students some control and further includes them into the class cannot be unseen at this point, obviously because if we look from a constructivist point of view, students construct information rather than simply acquiring which requires participation. To make students more interested in the course, a number of objectives can be picked as goals while creating a course which is called outcome-based design. This, especially in online learning, way students can choose courses as they please by looking at the outcomes and deciding what to learn. It will improve efficiency in learning by saving time and directing students to areas that they are interested. However, some say that what makes learning valuable and interesting is its unpredictability, interactivity and infinite variety and thus the course must be dynamic. No matter what, technology provides us with such possibilities. How we use them will change and improve, surely but we cannot be sure at what pace. There are some limitations such as lack of understanding tools and appropriate guidance, immaturity of the tools and organizational barriers which influence this pace. In the end, it is the teacher that makes these tools useful or useless. As a conclusion, we can say that learning is participating, cooperation, creating together and sharing and social networking can be used as a great tool.

Mason, Robin & Rennie, Frank. (2008). E-Learning and Social Networking Handbook. London, UK: Routledge. From the course book of Instructional Technologies and Material Design by Assoc. Prof. Tuncer CAN

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