Oskar R. Harmon, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Connecticut, Economics Department, Storrs, CT 06269
Co-authors:
William T. Alpert, Associate Professor of Economics, University of Connecticut, Economics Department, Storrs, CT 06269
Matthew Histen, Graduate Student, University of Connecticut, Economics Department, Storrs, CT 06269
As online delivery formats grow in popularity, so does online class size and/or the number of sections per course. The problems of keeping track of those students and the challenges of conducting meaningful discussions seem to increase rapidly with class size. The widely used LM systems have tools for email and discussion boards but their power and accessibility pale in comparison to the tools of social media. Many of these social media have the consequential advantage of students’ everyday use; hence their classroom use does not force students into an additional electronic portal that they would not naturally use. In this paper we describe how we used Facebook and Twitter as complementary tools to our LM system and report empirical findings regarding learner engagement and outcomes as compared to WHAT?
Facebook and Twitter have much to recommend as instructional tools for student/faculty communication. First, for almost all students there is no learning curve. Students, with few exceptions, know how to use them and have accounts. Thus there is no need for the instructor to write up an instruction sheet. Students already book mark these sites, or have apps installed on their mobile devices. Instructors, however, may experience a learning curve. Our paper seeks to make that curve less steep. Second, the messages once sent are fairly quickly read, and responded to in a timely manner. This is not a behavior usually attributed to the standard LM system.
Being used as they are for spontaneous social discussion, some thought has to be given to how to use Facebook and Twitter for instructional purposes. When using Facebook for instructional purposes care has to be given to choosing the optimal privacy protections. This includes informing users of the optimal privacy settings, students tend to overlook these settings. Creating a group as a secret Facebook group adds a protective layer approaching that of the standard LM system. Creating discussion threads on the group wall and using the message tool are of great help for moderating discussions and keeping track of students. A discussion thread on the group wall allows the instructor to have the posts easily grouped and allows easy access to review and evaluate student contributions to the discussion topic. The message posting facility organizes and displays private messages for easy review.
We collected data on student usage and surveyed student opinion in several online/blended classes. Our hypothesis is that our empirical analysis will find a positive correlation between student usage of Facebook in the online/blended classroom and student satisfaction and learning outcomes.