Ellís de Vasconcelos Carvalho. 5. O papel do professor no aprendizado colaborativo: uma revisão da...

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TEACHER'S ROLE IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING:A LITERATURE REVIEW ON THE USE OF SOCIAL

MEDIA IN

EDUCATION

TRABALHO DE GRADUAO

UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE PERNAMBUCOCENTRO DE INFORMTICA

GRADUAO EM CINCIA DA COMPUTAO

ELLS DE VASCONCELOS CARVALHO{[email protected]}

RECIFE2014



ELLS DE VASCONCELOS CARVALHO{[email protected]}

TEACHER'S ROLE IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING:a Literature Review on the Use of Social Media in Education

Trabalho apresentado ao curso de Cincia daComputao da Universidade Federal dePernambuco como requisito parcial para obtenodo grau de Bacharel em Cincia da Computao.

Orientador: Alex Sandro Gomes {[email protected]}

RECIFE2014



I would like to express the deepest appreciation to my

teachers and professors, from pre-school to university.

You are the ones who guided me all the way to

graduation and this paper is dedicated to you.

A special thanks to my family, particularly my parents,

my brother and my sister, that have been supporting me

all these years.



RESUMO

O principal objetivo deste trabalho sintetizar as pesquisas atuais sobre o impacto da adoo

de tecnologias nos mtodos de ensino e aprendizagem e na prtica dos professores. Este

trabalho apresenta uma reviso da literatura sobre a efetividade do uso de mdias sociais na

construo de um ambiente de aprendizagem colaborativo, com foco na rede social Facebook

e na enciclopdia livre Wikipedia. A reviso aponta que diante da popularizao de mdias

sociais, especialmente entre os jovens, importante que professores saibam usar efetivamente

este tipo de tecnologia para prover um melhor ambiente de aprendizagem aos seus estudantes

e apresenta teorias e guias para professores que queiram utilizar estes aplicativos na sala de

aula.



ABSTRACT

The main objective of this work is to synthesize the current research about the impact of

technology adoption on teaching and learning methods and on teachers practices. This paper

presents a review of the literature on the effectiveness of the use of social media to build a

collaborative learning environment, focusing on the social network Facebook and the free

encyclopedia Wikipedia. The review shows that facing the popularization of social media,

especially among the youth, it is important that teachers know to use this type of technology

effectively to provide a better learning environment to their students and presents useful

theories and guidelines to teachers that may wish to use these applications in classroom.

Keywords: collaborative learning, engaged learning, constructivist learning, Facebook,

Wikipedia, social media, educational technology



Table of contents

1. Introd uct ion 7

2. Def ini t ion of con cepts 82.1. Collaborative learning 8

2.2. Constructivist learning 8

2.3. Engaged Learning 9

3. Method 10

3.1. Search parameters 10

3.2. Results 12

4. Effect iveness of social media in educat ion 134.1. Use of wikis for a collaborative learning 13

4.2. Wikipedia as a teaching tool 16

4.3. Educational potential of Facebook 17

5. The relat ionsh ip between teachers and technolog y 20

5.1. Teachers beliefs and practices with technology usage 21

5.2. Teachers role in the use of social media to engage students 24

7. Discussion 28

8. Conclusion 31

References 32

Appendix 1. About Wikipedia 38

Appendix 2. About Facebook 42

Attachments 43

Attachment 1. The STOLEN Principles Tick Sheet 43

Attachment 2. Summary of Traditional Technologies for Engaged Learning 44

Attachment 3. Summary of Web-based Applications to Improve Engagement 45



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1. Introduction

The new generation of students includes interactive and social learners, multi-taskers

and technology learners and each type of student may have diverse needs in the

collaborative learning process (Zheng, et al., 2014). Revere & Kovach (2011) compared

traditional technologies and web-based applications to engage students and concluded

that integrating web-based technologies can increase the level of student engagement

in courses. The existing breadth and depth of technology designed for online

socialization is immense and its portability gives students the advantage of interacting

with the instructor, their peers, and even the course content from virtually anywhere,

using a variety of electronic devices(Revere & Kovach, 2011).

As a consequence, teachers are adapting their beliefs and practices to new learning

methods, that include technology and can engage students to collaboratively construct

knowledge (Scott, 2013). Furthermore, educators are also competing students' attention

with popular social medias, such as Facebook and Wikipedia, that may reduce

academic performance (Kirschner & Karpinski, 2010). Therefore, teachers are facing

the challenge to effectively integrate social media in classrooms.

Since the academia has already been giving some importance to this subject, the

presented paper aims to review the current literature about teachers' role in use of

social media in education. This review will be divided in three main sections. The first

part will show the literature and experiences about the use of wikis (especially

Wikipedia) as a collaborative learning tool and will provide a review on use of Facebook

in education to construct knowledge and help students in communicating and working

collaboratively with their peers. The second part will talk about current research on use

of ICT, especially social media, in classrooms and how educators are responding to this

new teaching approach. Finally, a discussion about the investigated literature is

provided, to contribute to academia with brief and important opinions and questions

about what has been studied for the last five years in the subject.


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2. Definition of concepts

This section will explain some concepts that will be used in this review. They are

learning methods that have been discussed for many years and are getting new

attention with the popularization of technology (Woo & Reeves, 2007).

2.1. Collaborative learning

Many definitions of collaborative learning can be found in academia. Laal & Laals

(2012) study provides a definition that facilitates the understanding of this concept:

CL [Collaborative Learning] is an educational approach to teaching and learning

that involves groups of learners working together to solve a problem, complete a

task, or create a product. In the CL environment, the learners are challenged

both socially and emotionally as they listen to different perspectives, and are

required to articulate and defend their ideas. In so doing, the learners begin to

create their own unique conceptual frameworks and not rely solely on an expert's

or a text's framework.(Laal & Laal, 2012).

By summarizing that idea and bringing the concept to a school environment, it can be

said that the collaborative learning approach supports the idea that students must work

in groups, because they can learn more by sharing information with others.

2.2. Constructivist learning

According to constructivists, learning requires the personal interpretation of

phenomenon such as the construction of a mental model representing complex

phenomenon.(Woo & Reeves, 2007) In other words, constructivism is a philosophy of

learning based on the premise that knowledge is constructed by the individual through

his or her interactions with the environment.(Rovai, 2004)


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Rovai (2004) compared some elements of traditional and constructivist learning

environments and provided Figure 1 as a result.

2.3. Engaged Learning

Congruent to the concepts of collaborative learning and constructivist learning, there is

active engagement in the learning process when the learners are constructing

knowledge from experience through their interactions [or collaboration] with peers and

teachers to make [or construct] meaning or to interpret information and patterns

observed (Hung, et al., 2006)

Figura 1 (Rovai, 2004)Figure 1 (Rovai, 2004)



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3. Method

3.1. Search parameters

The main objective of this paper is to review the current literature, between 2009 and

2014 about teachers role in collaborative learning using social media. The subject is

related to two big areas of study: technology and education. To delimitate the

boundaries of this research, keywords should be chosen to guide the researcher to the

objective of this work. Finally, the chosen search terms were an intersection of the two

defined lists in Table 1.

Keywords of Education area

Keywords of Technology area

Teaching/learning strategies Social Media/Network

Teacher practice Facebook

Cooperative/collaborative learning Wiki

Student engagement Wikipedia

Constructivism Computer-mediated Communication

Table 1 - Search parameters

To make the best decision of which journals should be the main sources, two journal

rankings were analyzed. The first was the SCImago Journal & Country Rank in the

Subject Category Education for the year 2013(Figure 3). Since the ranking was for the

whole area of Education, it was important to find a rank about journals that publish work

in the area of educational technology. Therefore, the search was also based on Google

Scholar rank for publications in this area of study (Figure 2). From these two rankings

and the accessibility of the journals in the available databases, four publications were

chosen (highlighted in Figure 2).



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Figure 3 - Ranking of Education Journals

Figure 2 - Ranking of Education and Technology Journals



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During the research, two other journals were added to the list of sources, because they

indicated that there were important and useful publications on the field to be reviewed.

Finally, the list of journals to be searched was:

Computers & Education

Computers in Human Behavior

Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning

British Journal of Educational Technology

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences

Internet and Higher Education

3.2. Results

A total of 56 articles in the reference listing were either identified during the literature

search or added by the author and data from some articles are described in more than

one section of this review, when appropriate. The balance of the 70 articles cited

included background information.

Records identified: 88

Records excluded: 44

Additional records identified: 12

Full-text articles assessed: 56

Figure 4 - Proportion of articles by journal



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4. Effectiveness of social media in education

4.1. Use of wikis for a collaborative learning

Lately, it has been common to find in academia articles and studies that discuss the

efficiency of Wikis in the teaching and learning processes (Heng & Marimuthu, 2012)

(Gokcearslan & Ozcan, 2011) (Parker & Chao, 2007). The characteristics of Wiki

technology particularly suit constructivist and collaborative models of learning (see

Figure 5) (Cole, 2009) (Larusson & Alterman, 2009). It allows learners to work

cooperatively/collaboratively and it also allows them to create knowledge, reflect on it

and talk about it (Heng & Marimuthu, 2012).

Wikis serves teachers and students with collaborative tools of creation of knowledge,

allowing students to be more cooperative than competitive and to learn from cumulative

information (Parker & Chao, 2007). Also, it allows learners to be encouraged to reflect

on their knowledge and make it explicit (Parker & Chao, 2007). By automatically

tracking the process of creating content, Wikis also enables educators to assess other

skills, such as leadership, conflict resolution and group management (Palomo-Duarte, et

al., 2014).

Figure 5 (Larusson & Alterman, 2009)



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The benefits of Wikis to construct knowledge collaboratively were confirmed by some

studies Some of them are: Wiki-based approach engage students in collaborative

construction of knowledge (Montero-Fleta & Prez-Sabater, 2011), students increase

their knowledge as a result of a knowledge building task (Kump, et al., 2013) and wikis

improve students writing performance (Li, et al., 2014).

However, some pedagogical issues needs to be taken into account when using wikis in

classrooms in order to equip learners with the competences they need to participate in

global knowledge construction (Pifarr & Staarman, 2011). For instance, when a large

number of students is working in a Wiki activity, it is essential to provide features for

organizing all the content created (Forte & Bruckman, 2006). Furthermore, to achievethe best use of wikis among pupils, it is necessary to have a methodology that leads to

effective learning, real life communication and projection into professional world

(Montero-Fleta & Prez-Sabater, 2011).

Foords studies leaded to a document with some suggested principles to befollowed by

educators. The STOLEN principle (detailed in Figure 6), as it is called, breaks down

some of the features of using wikis educationally aiming to increase the successfulnessof the wiki implementation (Foord). A tick sheet provided by the author can be found in

the Attachments section of this paper.

Figure 6 (Gokcearslan & Ozcan, 2011)



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Therefore, teachers role in a wiki-learning environment is as important as the

pedagogical approach. Educators are moving beyond their comfort zones by using wikis

to enhance the teaching and learning process (Augar, et al., 2004). Hadjerrouit (2014)

defined some roles that may apply to teachers in a wiki collaborative tool:

create an atmosphere of trust and confidence that stimulates students to change

peers contributions and modify content created by others for the benefit of the

group;

provide specific guidance to assist students in the writing and peer-editing

process;

make students aware of the difference between cooperation and collaboration,

and what genuine collaborative writing means;

provide strategies that apply to large and small groups, and explain the variousroles for the participants;

synthesize multiple points of views when discussing a wiki task.

The author also stated that teachers are facilitators, which means that they are not

supposed to restrict the learning materials or the writing methods (Hadjerrouit, 2014).



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4.2. Wikipedia as a teaching tool

Although the use of wikis is spreading among teachers, they look differently to the

particular implementation of wiki technology called Wikipedia, especially because

students might use it as the main source of information for their research projects (Forte

& Bruckman, 2006). Still, Pew Internet Project (2012) concluded that teachers felt that

eliminating the use of all online resources or even particular online resources in

assignments is unrealistic and can be counterproductive (Pew Internet Project, 2012).

The survey also found out that in student focus groups, teens acknowledged that even

when they are not allowed to use Wikipedia in their research, it is still often their first

stop in completing an assignment (Pew Internet Project, 2012).

Apart from the discussion about using Wikipedia as a source of information (see the

section Credibility of Wikipedia in Appendix 1 of this paper), teachers also have the

possibility of using Wikipedia as a mirror of their work, i.e., as a tool that allow[s] and

encourage[s] users to see, simultaneously, a reflection of their use in context (Reilly,

2011). To a better explanation in the context of education, Reilly based her research on

the statement that to effectively avoid approaching Wikipedia as the transparent

window to information [...], students should be taught to approach this technology as a

mirror. From this approach, Konieczny (2012) collected the advantages for students

and educators of using Wikipedia in education.

Advantages for educators

The instructor is assisted by other editors from the Wikipedia community in the task ofguiding/assessing students and in other secondary tasks such as identification of plagiarism.

The history of contributors function of each Wikipedia article provides the teacher with an excellent tool

for monitoring the individual activity in group assignments

Table 2 (Konieczny, 2012)

Advantages for students

Students can feel that their work is being useful to the world instead of being wasted and lost amongmany other school projects

Students can strengthen their ability to search for reliable sources and evaluate them critically

Table 3 (Konieczny, 2012)



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4.3. Educational potential of Facebook

Although Facebook users report a lower mean GPA (Grade Point Average) and spend

fewer hours per week studying than non-Facebook users (Kirschner & Karpinski, 2010),

a research found that 70% of the students believe that the social network is a cheap

tool for promoting knowledge (Grosseck, et al., 2011). Those are some contradictory

findings in the literature and there are others: Hew (2011) noticed that students use

Facebook as a tool to get away from study, concluding that Facebook has very little

educational use; on the other hand, the majority of students in Snchez, et al. (2014)s

research stated that they would not mind using Facebook as a learning tool;

furthermore, Grosseck, et al. (2011) observed that 57.3% of students prefer to receive

assignments via messages or posted on the class group. As a conclusion, student useof Facebook can be positively or negatively related to their engagement, based on

which activity they perform (Junco, 2012) on the social network and on the culture and

previous education they have received (Baran, 2010).

Considering the suggested educational use of Facebook by some authors, Mazman &

Usluel (2010) investigated three dimensions of Facebook adoption: communication,

resource/material sharing and collaboration. Studies with students of a South Africanuniversity (Bosch, 2009), with high school students in Canada (Fewkes & McCabe,

2012), with Taiwanese undergraduate students (Jong, et al., 2014) and at a teacher

education institute in Singapore (Wang, et al., 2012) found that students are effectively

using the social media as a Learning Management System (LMS), a tool to

communicate with their peers and instructors or a place to share resources with their

classmates.

On the other hand, studies at language courses (Blattner & Fiori, 2009), (Shih, 2011), at

a private university in Malaysia (Ponnudurai & Jacob, 2014) and others also observed

the productive use of Facebook to build a collaborative learning environment. As a

collaborative learning tool, Facebook allows students to develop communication,

cognitive and social competencies; to participate actively; to increase individual



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responsibility and autonomy and to consolidate self-confidence, among others

(Grosseck, et al., 2011). Since the focus of this review is in collaborative learning, the

literature about the collaborative dimension of Facebook will have further detail.

The implementation of blended learning, mixing classroom instruction and an Facebook

assessment, on an English as a Second Language(ESL) course by Shih (2011) proved

that Facebook can work as a collaborative learning environment. As a result of the

project, some advantages were listed: students had the opportunity to assess others

writings, thus exchanging knowledge and improving their writing abilities; motivation

was enhanced among students, especially because of the like feature; the instructors

could effectively assist the construction of knowledge, by letting the students learn with

themselves (Shih, 2011).

Furthermore, in a private university in Malaysia, Ponnudurai & Jacob (2014) found that

the informal, convenient and safe environment of Facebook to receive instructors

feedback led to increased levels of motivation. Also, the findings suggested that

students would prefer social-networking tools to enhance their learning experiences

because of the collaborative or interactive nature and informal status that Facebook has

in their life(Ponnudurai & Jacob, 2014).

Additionally, the likelihood of connecting with strangers and of learn about others

increase the propensity to collaborate in Facebook (Lampe, et al., 2011). In language

courses, the collaborative environment with native speakers proved Facebook as being

a bridge to learn linguistic varieties that textbooks cannot match (Blattner & Fiori, 2009).

Thus, online peer assessment provided the students with additional

chances to construct and refine their knowledge and skills through social

interactions in a virtual environment. These findings are also consistent

with the principle of social constructivism that meaningful interactions in a

learning environment enhances sharing perspectives and experiences in

communities of practice. (Shih, 2011)



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With this new and innovative role, teachers can improve their pedagogical abilities by

constructing knowledge using the social network cooperatively with their students

(Blattner & Fiori, 2009). Facebook allows educators to accept the student as an

interaction partner, to analyze and compare ways of learning and the knowledge

achieved by students and to perform mentoring for students, among others (Shih,

2011).

It is therefore essential that instructors have a plan for the use of Facebook on their

learning projects and inform students of the objectives of the project, the intended

learning outcomes, how to identify them and what they need to do when learning occurs

(Kabilan, et al., 2010).



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5. The relationship between teachers and technology

The diversity of learners in conjunction with the idea of using technology to build a

collaborative learning environment brought the concept of a pedagogical approach

known as Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). By integrating e-

learning systems into classroom activities teacher create an interactive and

collaborative learning environment which will support pupils in the process of

assimilating and understanding the information transmitted. (Eftimie, 2013)

This new approach, especially after the popularization of Web 2.0, has lead to

innumerous works in academia, including a dedicated journal, with the same name. In a

volume of this journal, Dohn (2009) argued that there are some very real challenges to

face in the merging of Web 2.0 and educational practices. For instance, the author

stressed that the use of Wikipedia, Facebook and other Web 2.0 tools should be

balanced between being collaborative and maintaining individual authorship (Dohn,

2009). On the other hand, Rahimi, et al. (2014) supports that technology has enabled

students to control their learning process and, from that, built a learning model with

practical directions to develop a personal learning environment (PLE).

Although Revere & Kovach (2011)s contribution to the area with a summary of

advantages, disadvantages and implementation of some technologies for education

(Attachments 2 and 3), it is important to analyze practical cases of technology to build

knowledge. Chan (2011) implemented a CSCL environment in schools in Hong Kong.

The study concluded that CSCL is more than designing the best tools or providing

technology for teachers and students. External forces, such as cultural influences,

political forces and social mechanisms need to be coordinated to the best

implementation of a collaborative learning environment (Chan, 2011). Furthermore, after

implementing knowledge building using online technologies in two different courses,

Joubert & Wishart (2012) concluded that it is important to make the goals clear and to

ensure that the participants are engaged in the objective of the project.



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5.1. Teachers beliefs and practices with technology usage

When studying teachers participation in new Web-based learning environments, the

first thing to look at is their beliefs and how familiar they are with technology. Pew

Internet Project (2013) collected interesting data from US middle and high school

teachers about the current use of digital tools in schools (Figures 7 and 8). Half of the

interviewed teachers approve the use of technology to improve students writing.

However, the second graph shows that students use of digital tools in school are still

limited to search tools (95% of teachers have suggested its use) and assessments

submission tools (79% of teachers have suggested its use), while some online actions

such as post work on wikis and participate in discussions are being forgotten by most

teachers (Pew Internet Project, 2013). That was the same founds of Smeets (2005)study: only a minority of teachers used ICT applications that support cooperative

learning and the emphasis in ICT was on remediating tasks for low-achieving pupils

instead of stimulating high-achieving pupils (Smeets, 2005).

Figure 7 (Pew Internet Project, 2012)



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Usually, teachers tend to use technologies that contribute to their own professional

development instead of their students needs (Ottenbreit-Leftwich, et al., 2010) and this

may occur not only because their knowledge about technologies are limited, but mainly

because their beliefs of ICT effectiveness are still very conservative (Prestridge, 2012).

Knowledge is external to the self, in the sense that it requires evaluation or

judgement to reach a consensus. Whereas, beliefs are formed by non-

consensus, they stem from affective feelings and emotive evaluations as well as

personal experiences, which are not open to outside appraisal or critique.

(Prestridge, 2012)

Teacher beliefs seem to be at least as important as technology-related teacher

characteristics such as computer experience, general computer attitudes and gender

(Hermans, et al., 2008). Additionally, besides the behavioral beliefs - the ones about the

Figure 8 (Pew Internet Project, 2012)



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efficacy of technology in classrooms, control beliefs, such as infrastructure, time and

supporting personnel, and normative beliefs, like the approval of the parents, also

influence the adoption of ICTs by teachers (Chien, et al., 2014).

Gradually, teachers beliefs related to the use of ICTs are changing (Aldunate &

Nussbaum, 2013) (Chien, et al., 2014). Ottenbreit-Leftwich, et al. (2010) found that

teachers are willing to use technology in classroom because it has enhanced student

motivation and engagement. According to Ertmer, et al. (2012), not only were their

[teachers] attitudes and beliefs not a barrier, they served as a facilitative factor.

Additionally, teachers are able to put in practice technology integrations that are closely

aligned with their beliefs (Ertmer, et al., 2012).

In a longitudinal case study, Scott (2013) highlighted that the development of changes

in beliefs and practices is an iterative process and that gender, age and prior

experience may affect teachers uptake of e-learning. Furthermore, Kreijns, et al. (2013)

found that colleagues use and previous use of ICTs have direct effects on teachers

intention to use it in classrooms: the more they used ICTs in the past, the more they feel

pressured to do so in the future. Mama & Hennessy (2013) developed a typology that

effectively summarize the relation between teachers beliefs and practices on use of ICTin education (Figure 9)



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Figure 9 Mama & Hennessy (2013)

5.2. Teachers role in the use of social media to engage students

This study aims to review the literature about teachers and technology, but it also wants

to delimit its scope to social media, such as Facebook and Wikipedia (there is one

section for each of them in this paper). Different social software tools have uniquefeatures that can be used in teaching and learning and the details of wikis and social

networking sites are provided in Figure 10 (Minocha, et al., 2011).

Figure 10 (Minocha, et al., 2011)



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Research proved that right use of social media in education contributes to better

learning outcomes to students and better satisfaction (Cao, et al., 2013). Wang & Kang

(2006) proposed a model of Cybergogy for Engaged Learning (Figure 11),

considering three domains that might be considered by instructors to design appropriate

strategies to engage students.

At the core of cybergogy is engaged learning, in which students establish their

own goals, explore appropriate resources, work with others in groups, and

construct knowledge in meaningful ways. [...] The instructors can use this model

to profile each learner and then design tactics to engage individuals accordingly,

a process we call "customized engagement". As a consequence, learners will not

only have the opportunity to accomplish their learning goals, but also will be

actively involved in the learning process. (Wang & Kang, 2006)

Figure 11 (Wang & Kang, 2006)



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However, teachers still claim that the educational value of social media is impacted by

their lack of knowledge of the best social media resources (Rambe & Nel, 2014). The

decisions of which social media should be used and what is the best way to use it are

influenced by external pressure, perceived usefulness and task-technology compatibility

(Cao, et al., 2013).

Dabbagh & Kitsantas (2012) proposed a framework for using social media in PLEs. It is

based on the levels of interactivity that social media tools enable, where Level 1 is for

personal information management, Level 2 is related to social interaction and

collaboration and Level 3 is about information aggregation and management. Figure 12

shows how this framework could be implemented in some social media (Wiki and social

networking sites).

From the figure above, it can be noticed that teachers (referred as instructors) have an

important role on any level of the framework. Regardless of the kind of impact on the

learning process caused by the introduction of technology to develop a collaborative

environment, it needs to be observed that teachers role on this new teaching andlearning environment is also changing (Mahimi, et al., 2012). The results of a discussion

board initiative highlighted the importance of the teacher, both in moderating the online

discussion and in providing instruction and guidance (Joubert & Wishart, 2012).

Figure 12 Dabbagh & Kitsantas (2012)



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Furthermore, Rovai (2004) stated that the role of an instructor in a constructivist

learning environment may vary: teacher can be the source of knowledge for the

students, an expert in the studied area; or he/she can assume the role of a tutor,

engaging students in problem-based learning based in collaborative activities. In both

cases, it illustrates the complex role that teachers are required to fulfill: they need to

give feedback about learning content, academic task and social participation; they also

need to vary the focus and type of feedback according to the students needs at

different points of the teaching process (Coll, et al., 2014). All the roles described in the

mentioned literature can be summarized in Fig XX, provided by (Minocha, et al., 2011).

The author highlighted the importance of teachers role in a social software initiative

against the current literature mainly focused on the characteristics of the tools.

Figure 13 (Minocha, et al., 2011)



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7. Discussion

The purpose of the paper is to present a review of previously published empirical

studies about the educational value of social media, focusing in Facebook and

Wikipedia, and the teachers role facing the new collaborative learning environments. In

the five years of literature searched, very successful cases of social media

implementation in classrooms gives an overall prove that use of this technology in

education has been effective.

The review was divided in two main sections. The first one talks about wikis and the

social networking Facebook and their use to build a collaborative environment.

Unfortunately, regarding to the specific social media applications Wikipedia and

Facebook, the results were not so helpful. One focus was to understand how Wikipedia

has been used in education, but few studies about the encyclopedia were found in this

research, and none of them was from the reliable sources. On the other hand, the

literature about wikis in general proved very complete, including guides and proposed

roles for teachers aiming to work with wikis in their courses. On the other hand, the

discussion about the use of Facebook by students has very controversial findings. Since

the social networking site is very popular among the youth, educators cannot decidewhether Facebook should be used to improve the learning process. This may be the

reason why many searched articles have similar and not constructive conclusions about

the educational use of Facebook for the academy. Nonetheless, with respect to

implementing a collaborative learning environment, the social media has proved very

effective, with successful case studies in different countries.

The last section of this paper exposed the literature regarding how technology,

especially social media, has been used to build a collaborative and constructivist

learning environment. Many studies were found useful and provided different and

important result about the subject. The findings about the evolution of teachers role with

social media usage were valuable, showing that teachers are now working as a

facilitator of the learning process instead of giving orders to the learners. Teachers are,



29

gradually, creating a community in classrooms without forgetting to stand as an expert

of the studied subject to give guidance on the learning process.

A summary of the literature review can be found in Tables 4, 5 and 6:

Topic: Use of wikis in education

Subtopic Main finding

Wikis to build a

collaborative learning

environment

Wikis have a lot of properties that are effective in building a collaborative

learning environment with their students and some implementation issues

must be analyzed

Teachers role in a Wiki

environment

Teachers role change substantially when using Wikis in classroom and the

STOLEN principle may help instructors with the implementation of a Wikienvironment

Wikipedia as a teaching

tool

Wikipedia has advantages for educators and students, but teachers are still

conservative in relation to the use of it in classrooms

Table 4 Review of use of wikis in education

Topic: Educational potential of Facebook


Pros and cons of

students use of

Facebook

The discussion of Facebook usage among students does not have a final

conclusion, with pros and cons as a result of the studies

Educational use of

Facebook

There is a model that helps authors to analyze the educational use of

Facebook, considering three dimensions. Many case studies proved the

efficacy of Facebook implementation

Collaborative

environment using

Facebook

There are many advantages of using Facebook to build a collaborative

learning environment. The case studies found in this research were

successful

Teachers role using

Facebook in education

Since Facebook is a very informal tool, teachers are required to have a plan

when using Facebook in classroom

Table 5 Review of educational potential of Facebook



30

Topic: The relationship between teachers and technology


Integration of technologyin classrooms

Integrating Web technologies in courses can lead to an improved studentengagement

Collaborative learning

with ICTs

ICTs provide the interaction and collaboration needed to engage students

and build a collaborative learning environment. Many factors contribute to a

correct implementation of ICT for collaboration

The impact of teachers

beliefs in technology

usage

Teachers beliefs are as important as teachers knowledge about the

technology to be used. The beliefs are gradually evolving to a more open-

minded thought about use of technology in classrooms

Social media in education Social media has been proved appropriate to build an engaged learning

environment. There are useful models and frameworks that can help

instructors to implement it

Teachers role in the use

of social media

Teachers are evolving from an individual role of being an expert about a

subject to a range of roles related to facilitating the learning process

Table 6 Review of the relationship between teachers and technology



31

8. Conclusion

This study sought to bring to the academic debate an overview of literature over the use

of social media, such as Facebook and Wikipedia, to build a collaborative, constructivist

and engaged learning environment. Although most teachers are not actively using

technology to engage their students yet, gradually they are discovering the advantages

of teaching the students to learn and construct knowledge collaboratively. Facebook

and Wikipedia are just two of many popular Web tools that can be potentially applied for

teaching and learning.

Therefore, it is important that educators expand the concept of teaching to have less

lectures and more research and discussion. The understanding of models and

frameworks summarized above can help teachers establishing the best way to use Web

tools to create a community of practice among students in a course, thus accelerating

their learning process.

Hence, with the key points provided in this literature survey, it is expected that future

research lead to case studies of practical applications of the use of Wikipedia and

Facebook in classrooms. Consequently, it is desired that such applications return goodimpacts on the learning process.



32

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Appendices

Appendix 1. About Wikipedia

Wikipedia is known to be the largest free encyclopedia available in the web. It belongs

to a group of web-applications called Wiki, often described as one of the most popular

Web 2.0 technologies (e.g. Leslie and Landon, 2008). It is defined as "a collection of

web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content,

using a simplified markup language" (Ramanau & Geng, 2009).

According to Gokcearslan & Ozcan (2011), there are some properties that an

application must have to be considered as a wiki: not a single author is permitted [...], it

has a simplified format language [...], its focal point is its content [...], it provides version

follow-up [...] and it is followed up by the community" (Gokcearslan & Ozcan, 2011). As

stated in the Wikipedia article about the encyclopedia itself, Wikipedia fulfills those rules

by being a collaboratively edited, multilingual, free-access, free content Internet

encyclopedia that is supported and hosted by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.

Volunteers worldwide collaboratively write Wikipedia's 30 million articles in 287

languages, including over 4.5 million in the English Wikipedia" (Wikipedia, 2014)..Figure 1 shows statistics about English Wikipedia provided in real-time on the

encyclopedia website.

Figure 14 (Wikipedia, 2014)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_editinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilingualismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_contenthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_encyclopediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_encyclopediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_communityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_of_Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Size_of_Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_communityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_encyclopediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_encyclopediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_contenthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratishttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilingualismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_editing



39

Credibility of Wikipedia

Given that all of the content in Wikipedia is provided by anonymous individuals

with unknown degrees of topic expertise, there has been a great deal of concern

regarding the credibility of this information, particularly compared with more

established venues like Encyclopdia Britannica. (Flanagin & Metzger, 2011)

The quote above summarizes a very shared opinion in the academic community. It also

mentions Encyclopedia Britannica as a reference to evaluate Wikipedias information

credibility. As opposed to Wikipedia, since the 18th century Encyclopedia Britannica has

been a trusted source of information since it utilizes significant resources for hiring staff

to solicit and edit articles, and to manage the content(Kubiszewski, et al., 2011). Manyscholars have focused their research on finding factors that influence students and

teachers to rely on and make use of one encyclopedia or the other.

A study directed by Kubiszewski, et al. (2011) aimed to find if the perception of

credibility of an online encyclopedia article would be affected by peripheral cues inside

the article. Through an online survey, members of academia, from freshman to

professors, were asked to answer some questions about their perceptions of an specific

encyclopedia article. After a compilation of data collected, results of the study

demonstrate that one of the most significant influences on perceptions of an online

articles credibility is the subjects belief about the identity (i.e., name) of the

encyclopedia presenting the information. In other words, participants evaluated

Wikipedias article as less credible than the same information appearing in

Encyclopedia Britannica.

Such conclusion may be the reason why many teachers do not allow students to useWikipedia as a reference in their schoolwork (Pew Internet Project, 2012). A survey

among US teachers (Pew Internet Project, 2012) found that just 5% of teachers

participating in the survey say that all or almost all of the information they find using

search engines is accurate or trustworthy (Figure 2) and that 75% of teachers believe



40

their students are very likely to use Wikipedia or other online encyclop edias in a typical

research assignment (Figure 3). Considering these facts, it can be said that the

perceived credibility of online sources of information such as Wikipedia directly

influences students knowledge creation and must require further attention from

teachers.

However, Wikipedias credibility may have been underestimated by teachers and

surveys participants. A study carried out by Nature magazine (Giles, 2005) revealed



41

numerous errors in both encyclopaedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in

accuracy was not particularly great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained

around four inaccuracies; Britannica, about three.(Giles, 2005). The investigation also

found that more than 70% of Nature authors have heard of Wikipedia and less than

10% help to update it, which suggests that authors of scientific articles are still getting to

know more about the free encyclopedia. The steady trickle of scientists who have

contributed to articles describe the experience as rewarding(Giles, 2005) and, as the

involvement of researchers get bigger, the quality of articles will also increase. In

consonance with the finds shown by Nature, it is expec ted that, gradually, Wikipedias

credibility in academia will grow and students will be able to get reliable information from

online free encyclopedias and generate accurate knowledge about it.



42

Appendix 2. About Facebook

Facebook is a computer-mediated Social Networking System that was created by Mark

Zuckerberg to help residential college and university students identify students in other

residence halls in 2004. By that time, it is described as an online directory that connects

people through social networks at colleges and universities (Kirschner & Karpinski,

2010). The social network has reached 1 billion users worldwide in 2012 (Ponnudurai &

Jacob, 2014). More statistics are provided in Figure 15 (Facebook, 2014).

Figure 15 Facebook Statistics



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Attachments

Attachment 1. The STOLEN Principles Tick Sheet



44

Attachment 2. Summary of Traditional Technologies for Engaged Learning



45

Attachment 3. Summary of Web-based Applications to Improve Engagement

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