Social-Media-Assisted Learning: A Case Study ofTeaching Computer Science on Facebook

Abstract

The rapid development of social media brings a new change to education: students can share information and discussion with colleagues to learn new knowledge. Since social learning theory claims that people construct their cognition from continuous reciprocal interaction in the social environment, it is interesting to investigate whether and how social media foster computer science learning. In this study, we discuss the influence of students’ interaction on social media upon computer science learning by a case study of teaching computer science on Facebook. An experiment was conducted in the computer science class in a senior high school. Students were asked to discuss lecture topics with each other on Facebook in each class. The discussion issues need exploration and higher-level thinking. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses were applied to understand how social interaction affected computer science learning. We also applied techniques of social network analyses to mine more information of learners’ behaviors. The experiment results show that students’ learning attitude toward computer science was improved in a social-media-based environment. However, there was no significant difference in learning achievements between high-interaction and low-interaction groups. The major reason is that students need a clearer guide for discussion. Therefore, discussion guide strategies should be developed to prevent meaningless statements so that the discussion can be converged and then students can benefit more from social interaction on the social media.