Exploring the role of facebook as collaboration platform in a K-12 MOOC

Abstract

This paper investigates the role of a Facebook group as a complementary communication and collaboration platform to the Udemy Q&A forum, in a computer programming MOOC developed for Greek vocational high-school students and hosted on the Udemy platform for two succeeding school periods. Students’ contribution to the course content, as well as their interaction and collaboration with their fellow students and the instructor were observed, recorded and comparatively analyzed for both collaboration platforms. The results revealed that Facebook has the potential to play an important role in supporting the collaborative learning communities for the next generation of MOOCs.