Blended learning environments: Using social networking sites to enhance the first year experience

By Josh McCarthy. 2010

330 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This study explores blending virtual and physical learning environments to enhance the experience of first year by immersing students into university culture through social and academic interaction between peers. It reports on the progress made from 2008 to 2009 using an existing academic platform, the first year design elective course Imaging Our World , in the School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design at the University of Adelaide. Over one semester, 120 design students, including 27 internationals, engaged with their peers through an online forum within the host site Facebook , in addition to the traditional teaching mechanisms of lectures and tutorials. Students were required to submit work online to Facebook and provide critiques of peers' submissions. Resulting discussions were then transferred into the physical classroom with the aim of building meaningful relationships between peers based on the embryonic online connections. The evaluation process involved pre and post semester questionnaires, weekly feedback from students and project-specific reflections at the completion of the semester. The findings are discussed in light of the conflicting attitudes and assumptions regarding the 'digital native' student cohort, and the use of social media to support learning and teaching in higher education.

Subfields: Education, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/63db4d4208308853a674ac53938afc57e530a148

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Citations in the corpus

Can Web 2.0 technology assist college students in learning English writing? Integrating Facebook and peer assessment with blended learning (2011, methodology): “Facebook, currently the most used global social networking website, has not been widely used in tertiary education (McCarthy, 2010).”
Factors affecting students’ learning performance through collaborative learning and engagement (2021, result): “Overall, students use social media for collaborative learning and engagement which improves their learning performance as evidenced by this study and previous studies (Janssen et al., 2010; McCarthy, 2010).”
The role of social media in higher education classes (real and virtual) - A literature review (2013, background): “McCarthy (2010) suggested that Facebook was the ideal host site for a blended learning environment.”
Is it a tool suitable for learning? A critical review of the literature on Facebook as a technology-enhanced learning environment (2013, background): “With a specific focus on cross-cultural communication, one study (McCarthy, 2010) examined the role of Facebook in mediating interaction between local and international students and found that it increased the interactions by suppressing language barriers and social inhibitions.”
Enhancing feedback in higher education: Students’ attitudes towards online and in-class formative assessment feedback models (2017, background): “…SNSs have been formally and informally utilised within tertiary education, and the successful integration of Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Pinterest into curriculum has been reported in recent years (Irwin et al., 2012; Kurtz, 2013; McCarthy, 2010, 2012, 2013a; Rambe, 2012; Shih, 2011).”
Blended Learning in Higher Education: Three Different Design Approaches. (2014, background): “…design approaches (Boyle, Bradley, Chalk, Jones, & Pickard, 2003; Garrison & Vaughan, 2011; Hoic-Bozic, Mornar, & Boticki, 2009; Huang & Zhou, 2005; McCarthy, 2010; Newcombe, 2011), much less research has tried to classify these design approaches and compare them to identify the benefits and…”
Students' perceptions of using Facebook as an interactive learning resource at university (2012, background): “Using Facebook as a host site to incorporate assessment, McCarthy (2010) reported positive student feedback for its integration into the learning environment.”