RESEARCH PAPER TEMPLATE

North American University

Education Department
M.Ed. in EDLE & CUIN
EDUC 5324: INTEGRATING TECHNOLOGY INTO EDUCATION
Name: Ali Guven

Date: 09/20/2015

Topic Selected:

What are the Educational uses of Facebook or other social media?

1. LITERATURE REVIEW:
What does the literature/research say about this issue/topic? By using NAU
Library or Online Search engines, conduct a literature review.

You need to include 5 different sources (book, journal article, web article
etc.) in your review. Try to use current sources as much as possible.

You need to summarize and synthesize your sources by discussing a

common theme or issue.

You don't need to critique your sources

You don't need to evaluate your sources (if the sources are trustworthy,
weather the author has a bias or not)

You need to provide background information such as history and

definitions

Brief Literature Review:

First example for educational uses of social media is "Six ways to use social media in
Education" from Lynne O'Brien who is director of academic technology and instructional
services for Perkins Library at Duke University.
Here are some uses of social media for teaching and learning that Ive been following.
1. Aggregating images and information to share with classmates or with interest
groups that cut across courses and institutions
Example: A. Adam Glenns article How Educators Are Using Pinterest for Showcasing,
Curation provides several examples of collecting and sharing images in art, journalism
and business classes (from the PBS blog Mediashift, March 20, 2012).
2. Gathering and sharing data collected with mobile devices during field work or
travel abroad
Example: Professor Margaret Rubega uses Twitter for data collection and sharing in her
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology class at the University of Connecticut (from Andrew

Revkin in hisNew York Times blog, May 5, 2011.)

3. Creating a public profile to showcase personal research interests and to connect

with a broad audience
Examples: Mark Anthony Neal in Duke Universitys African & African American Studies
department uses a blog, Twitter, Facebook and other media to share his work with the
public, while Misha Angrist in Dukes Institute for Genome Sciences and Public Policy is
a regular contributor to the Public Library of Science blog. When MITx launched its
open-access course in Spring 2012, it also provided an MITx Facebook page where
instructors gather feedback from students and attract public attention to their new course
model.

4. Using Twitter in class to keep students engaged and to get a sense of what students
are thinking about during lectures
Examples: Prof. Monica Rankin and students at University of Texas at Dallas created a
video to show their use of Twitter in a large history course. Prof. Mark Sample at George
Mason University offers a number of ways to use a Twitter backchannel to analyze a
film with students.

5. Forming student study groups with the use of Google+ Hangouts and other social
tools
Example: Taylor Bell, a student at Boise State University, describes using YouTube and
Google+ to study math with his fellow students.

6. Adding social tools to e-textbooks

Examples: The Kno textbook app has a share feature where students ask questions or
plan study sessions with other students using the same textbook, while the Inkling
textbook app lets students follow other students using the same book or create running
discussions. Dukes School of Nursing is exploring the Kno textbook platform in Spring
2012.
If we give another example which is from www.edudemic.com. This website is giving the

information about creating classes on Facebook and giving assignments over it where
parents can follow it any time too.
Create a Class Facebook Group
Facebook is known as a place to post status updates, announcements, photos, and video
all things that we likely use in our classes anyway. Create a Facebook group for each
class, on which you can post assignments, make announcements, and remind students
about important deadlines. Parents can also access the site to monitor what is going on in
your class.
Another example is from www.schoolieasy.com which gives pros and cones about using
social media in classroom. I will only give the pros here.
Pros of using social media in the classroom:
1. SOCIAL MEDIA SITES CAN INCREASE STUDENT COLLABORATION
Social media sites provide an avenue for students to easily contact one another regarding
school projects, group assignments or for help on homework assignments.
2. USING SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE CLASSROOM CAN ENCOURAGE MORE
PARTICIPATION
Students who do not participate regularly in class may feel they can express their
thoughts through social media. Although this should not completely replace in class
participation it can help build the students confidence and encourage them to find their
voice and be able to participate in class.
3. SOCIAL MEDIA SITES CAN BE USEFUL FOR HOMEWORK HELP
When students have questions about a class assignment they can easily post a message
asking if anyone can help. They can also write a specific question to the teacher on a
wall that other students can see. This allows the whole class to have access to the
feedback from the teacher.
4. SHARE RESOURCES QUICKLY WHEN USING SOCIAL MEDIA IN THE
CLASSROOM
If the teacher needs to direct students to a particular online resource they can easily share
the site through social media sites like twitter. If the teacher wants the class to visit a
particular site all they have to do is tweet the website and the entire class can view it with
one click.
5. SOCIAL MEDIA HELPS KEEP PARENTS, TEACHERS AND STUDENTS ALL
ON THE SAME PAGE
It is very useful for teachers to be able to post on social media sites about class activities,
homework assignments and even school events. This helps the teachers, parents and
students all stay on the same page about what is going on at school. Sites like facebook
also allow teachers to easily communicate through private messages to parents and
students without having to leave phone messages and wait for a call back.
Last example is from one of the article which published at New York Times. So he is

explaining after using social media in the classroom how he started enjoying his classes.
"Now that Im spending more time in classrooms than the newsroom, I often face
students displaying a peculiar kind of bifocal gaze divided between the front of the room
and the laptop screen. So I know about the frustrations of teachers in trying to engage
students in the real world even as theyre buffeted with digital information."

2. REFLECTION:

What is your personal opinion on this issue? Do you agree with the
research? If you agree or disagree, please explain why?
Provide examples/experiences regarding this issue from school
perspective or If you are not working in a school, from your profession. Be
specific with your examples. You can mention software/hardware names,
specific methods that you plan to use, etc.
How would you implement this research in your career? (At least 1
paragraph)

Reflection:

As an educator I totally believe in using social media in education. First of all, when we
start banning our students to use social media, it becomes more attractive to them. And
they mostly use social media in a bad way. Instead of doing this, we can encourage them
to use social media in the classroom integrating it to their assignments, projects, and class
works. In this case, students and teachers both are going to have a better atmosphere to be
more successful.
Secondly, technology is growing so fast nowadays. It is like a part of life for most of us.
I can't even imagine a place where no social media is being used. We have to educate our
students with social media so they can do better stuff for their society and know how
protect themselves from wrong things.
In conclusion, after I read all these articles and blogs, I have learned that how important
the social media is in education again. Especially for high school students to
communicate with universities for applications and researching about their programs.
I believe it will be wonderful opening a class to high school students to teach using the
benefits of social media.
3. REFERENCES:

Cite at least 5 References in APA.

You may use http://www.citationmachine.net/apa/cite-a-journal for citing
your sources in APA style.

References:
1-) https://www.schooliseasy.com/2014/02/social-media-in-the-classroom/
2-) Edudemic staff, retrieved from; http://www.edudemic.com/how-to-use-socialmedia-as-a-learning-tool-in-the-classroom/
3-) Lynne O'Brien, PHD, in blog, teaching strategies., retrieved from;
https://cit.duke.edu/blog/2012/04/six-ways-to-use-social-media-in-education/
4-) Friedman J., retrieved from; http://www.usnews.com/education/online
education/articles/2014/11/05/sozial-media-momentum-in-online-education
5-) C.Revkin A.C, article 2011, On birds, Twitter and Teaching, retrieved from;
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/05/on-birds-tiwitter-and-teaching/