Exploration, Instantiation and Evaluation of Social Networking for Learning Support

A number of commercially available software products supporting social networking have emerged over the past few years including FaceBook, YouTube, MySpace, and SecondLife. These products have garnered broad student acceptance and have begun to create high levels of education institutional awareness. For example, FaceBook notes support for studying for which Blackboard has created a dedicated building block. Google has introduced Android as an “open source” operating system for mobile devices and Chinese SecondLife-like products (e.g., HiPiHi) have emerged. In total, these products suggest a range of opportunities for pedagogical application. However, without sound attention to OBTL objectives, customization and interfaces to existing systems (e.g., Blackboard) these potential social networking-based applications are unlikely to have major positive impact on teaching and learning. This proposal is intended to use empirically-driven requirements to develop operational prototypes that will be professionally evaluated to examine impact on learning. The target population is undergraduate students, especially those new to university expectations. The development team is in place and has over five years of experience in creating learning support applications. The project investigators have a demonstrated history of collaboration including journal articles and “best paper” awards at EdMedia, a premier educational conference, that have promoted CityU internationally.