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 * Introduction**

Students are heavily immersed in Web 2.0 technologies (i.e. blogs, twitter, podcasts, wikis, social network sites, virtual worlds, video sharing and photo sharing). They are crafting on-line lives that seamlessly meld with their off-line world. Indeed, the internet is playing an increasingly important role in not only students’ social life, but also academic. Educators are now turning to Web 2.0 tools, drawing upon their ability to assist in creating, collaborating on and sharing content. At present, little empirical research has been conducted on the value of Web 2.0 in education. Research has begun to examine social network sites, but few studies have specifically addressed its role in pedagogy. Teacher education literature has also started to address this area

Social network sites (also called social networking sites) are quickly becoming ubiquitous online. The most popular of these websites are Myspace, bebo, and Facebook.While technological differences abound, social network sites are “web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system”

Social network sites can help facilitate the meeting of strangers, however, individuals are also using social network sites to maintain and/or strengthen their current, off line social networks. Facebook, specifically, has been found to be used to reinforce current offline relationships. As previous communication technologies (e.g. email, chat rooms, bulletin boards, etc.) have been integrated into the way we teach and administer our courses, social network sites may also have a place in our classroom. To date, the reactions of using social network sites for educational purposes are mixed. Concerns related to privacy and anxiety in interacting with professors in this environment, a belief that it does not serve an academic purpose and the opinion that faculty should simply avoid “educationally appropriating” these “backstage” social spaces have been expressed.


 * Problems faced in teaching and learning**

When we talk about "teaching and learning", we will think about courses, workshops, online courses, and so on, in other words “formal learning”. However, in recent years it has become common practice to describe learning as being either "formal" or "informal". What is actually the difference between the two?

According to Jay Cross, the leading proponent of the tern “informal learning”, he explains the difference between formal and informal learning as follows: //"Learning is formal when someone other than the learner sets curriculum. Typically, it// //an event, on a schedule and completion is generally recognized with a symbol, such as a grade, gold star, certificate or check mark in a learning management system. Formal learning is pushed on learners.// //By contrast, informal learners usually set their own learning objectives. They learn when they feel a need to know. The proof of their learning is their ability to do something they could not do before. Informal learning often is a pastiche of small chunks of observing how others do things, asking questions, trial and error, sharing stories with others and casual conversation. Learners are pulled to informal learning"//

The problems with the traditional teaching and learning method are identified as below:

a) The traditional teaching and learning style is one sided The traditional teaching and learning style is always one sided, where the lecturers or teachers would give lectures in front of the classroom and the students will just receive what is being taught. There is no interaction between the lecturers and students. This usually leads to the result where the lecturers just talk in front without knowing if the students understand what is being taught. It seems like inputting the knowledge to the students is no longer the priority of the teaching, as long as the lecturers fulfill their responsibility by delivering the lecture.

b) The traditional teaching and learning method is boring Due to the one sided teaching and learning style, it makes the whole teaching process boring. No interaction between lecturers and students makes the students become passive in the class and easily get distracted. As a result, students tend to do their own works during the lecture time rather than paying attention to the lecture. This is a serious phenomenon and it makes the teaching meaningless.

c) The traditional teaching and learning style is less attractive. Most of the time, the teaching approaches presented by the lecturers are dull and less attractive. This will drag the students’ attention away from the lecture. As mentioned above by Jay Cross, the learning objectives and event are determined and set up by the lecturers, which means the students have to follow exactly everything that has been arranged for them.

Based on the problems described above, we can see that the traditional teaching and learning method is not giving the satisfied result. Students are looking for something different which can catch their attention.

Social media gives lots of opportunities for an organization to enhance the process. In this part, we can see how different social medias work for the organization to make the process better and smoother. a) Blogging b) Podcasting c) RSS Feeds and Readers d) Presentation Sharing e) Video Sharing f) Screencast Sharing g) Collaborative Calendaring h) Collaborative Mind Mapping i) Collaborative Documents, Presentations and Spreadsheets j) Social Network/Community
 * Opportunity and Enhancement that Social Media Brings**
 * Senior managers can write blogs about their perspective on the organization: strategy, etc, which employees can comment on.
 * Project teams can write blog postings about current initiatives that others in the organization should know about - and comment on
 * Educators can write course blogs to host an entire course
 * Educators can write course blogs to provide a chronological focus for assignments, a site for student interaction and discussion, where students can contribute thoughts and experiences, and provide additional information following classes that students find difficult
 * Educators can write course blogs that can be used to create a community of learners following learning events
 * Educators can write a daily blog to share a daily training tip, piece of vocabulary, etc
 * Students can write a student blog to reflect on their learning in the course (e.g. Learning Logs), and to comment on the other student blogs.
 * Students can use course (or personal) blogs to post e-Portfolios
 * Managers can create briefings and strategy podcast for whole organization use, and project teams can create project update podcast
 * Educators can create course podcast
 * Students can create their own course/classroom podcast
 * Managers and project teams can share information/activity feeds with the rest of the organisation for employees to read in their feed readers
 * Educators can share course RSS feed so that students are kept up to date on activity in the course
 * Educators can share course-related RSS feeds so that students can access other related course information
 * Students read course and course-related RSS feeds in their RSS readers
 * Presentations by senior managers, project teams etc can be shared with the whole organisation for comment and feedback
 * Educators can share their own as well as other user-generated presentations and embed them in blogs, websites, etc
 * Students can create and share their own presentations for courses, which others can comment on
 * Video recordings of senior managers' briefings and projects can be shared with the whole organization
 * Educators can quickly create short instructional videos and share with their students
 * Educators can embed other useful, relevant and/or inspirational user-generated videos into course blogs, wikis, etc
 * Students can create their own videos and share them with the rest of the course as well as comment on (eg peer assess) those created by others
 * Educators can create and share screencasst aka tutorials or software demos, to explain how a piece of software works or to carry out specific tasks - with or without narration
 * Educators can embed their own or other user-generated screencasts in presentations, blogs, websites etc
 * Organizational dates can be scheduled and shared
 * Educators can create course timetables sharing relevant dates - assignment submission and other events
 * Educators can organize teaching schedules through their teaching timetables
 * Educators can share their timetables that show open office hours or for students to book appointments
 * Educators can use mind maps for creating a visual organizer for teaching content for conceptual understanding with their classes or workshops
 * Educators can share documents (articles, presentations, spreadsheets) they have created with their students for comment
 * Students can write, edit, brainstorm and compare points of view on a shared document
 * Students can contribute data (via an online form) which is collected in a spreadsheet
 * Students can contribute to a collaborative assignments, where each of their contribution is noted
 * An organization can set up a community or network of its employees in order for contacts to be established with colleagues, and easy communication and collaboration between colleagues (ask questions, have discussions, etc).
 * A school/college/university can set up a social networking site for students to network, communicate and collaborate with one another across the institution. This could also be available to them as an alumni after they graduate.
 * Educators can set up a "class social network" or "learning community" for students to meet and communicate with one another - before, during and after the course.

**The Historical Background of Social Media in Higher Education**
__Usenets__ Usenet systems were first conceived of in 1979 by Tom Truscott and Jim Eliis. Usenets let users post articles or posts (referred to as “news”) to newsgroups. Usenets have no centralized server or dedicated administrator, setting them apart from most BBSs and forums. Usenets are mostly responsible for the development of newsreader clients, which are the precursor to RSS feed readers so commonly used to follow blogs and news sites today. Group sites such as Google Groups and Yahoo! Groups use many of the conventions established by the original usenet systems.

**BBSs (Bulletin Board Systems)** The first BBSs came online in the late 70s. Originally these were primarily hosted on personal computers and users had to dial in through the host computer’s modem. Only one person at a time could gain access to the BBS. While there were legitimate BBSs, most were at least somewhat involved in illicit, illegal, or other shady practices. Adult material, virus code, information and instructions for hacking and phreaking (phone hacking), and materials like The Anarchist’s Cookbook were commonly hosted on BBSs. However, BBSs were the first type of sites that allowed users to log on and interact with one another, albeit in a much slower fashion than we currently do.



__Online Services__ After BBSs came “online services” like CompuServe and Prodigy. These were the first real “corporate” attempts at accessing the Internet.

CompuServe was the first company to incorporate a chat program into their service. Prodigy was responsible for making online service more affordable (CompuServe had been prohibitively expensive for many, with charges of $6/hour plug long-distance fees that often made the service run $30/hour or more).

Genie was an early online service created by a General Electric subsidiary (GEIS) in 1985. It ran through 1999 and was one of the earliest services available. It was a text-based service, and considered the first viable commercial competition to CompuServe. The service was created to make use of idle time-sharing mainframes after normal U.S. business hours. GEnie offered games, shopping, mail, and forums (called RoundTables). There was even a print magazine associated with the service at one time.

AOL started as an online service too and made great strides at making the Internet more universally accessible in the U.S.

__ IRC, ICP and Instant Messaging __ IRC (Internet Relay Chat) was developed in 1988 and used for file sharing, link sharing and otherwise keeping in touch. It was really the father of instant messaging as we know it today. IRC was mostly UNIX-based though, limiting access to most people.

ICQ was developed in the mid-90s and was the first instant messaging program for PCs. It was at least partly responsible for the adoption of avatars, abbreviations (LOL, BRB) and emoticons. Other IM clients soon followed.



__ Forums __ Online forums also played a large part in the evolution of the social web. These were really descendents of the BBSs popular in the 70s and 80s, but usually came with a more user-friendly interface, making them easier for non-technical visitors to use. Various forum platforms, including [|vBulletin] and [|phpBB], were developed, many of which are still used for forums. Forums remain a popular part of online culture, and many have made strides to add more social networking-type features (like profiles).

While many people consider dating sites or sites like Classmates.com to be the first social networks, they don’t really fit the definition. Dating sites rarely allowed you to keep a friends list, neither did Classmates in its early years (and profiles were severely limited). The following sites were the first true social networks.

__ LiveJournal __ LiveJournal started in 1999 and took a different approach to social networking. While Six Degrees allowed users to create a basically-static profile, LiveJournal was a social network built around constantly-updated blogs. '

LiveJournal encouraged its users to follow one another and to create groups and otherwise interact. It was really the precursor to the live updates we see in social networks currently.



__ Friendster __ Friendster was really the first modern, general social network. Founded in 2002, Friendster is still a very active social network, with over 90 million registered users and 60+ million unique visitors each month. Most of Friendster’s traffic comes from Asia (90% of it).

Friendster operated by allowing people to discover their friends and then friends-of-friends, and so on to expand their networks. Its goal was to be a safer place to meet new people than in real-life, as well as being faster. Friendster was, in part, a new kind of dating site.

Instead of matching complete strangers based on shared interests, it operated on the assumption that people with shared friends and acquaintances would have a better chance than those who had no shared connection.

Friendster was most popular with three different groups: gay men, attendess of Burning Man and bloggers.

__ MySpace __ MySpace was founded in 2003 and by 2006 had grown to be the most popular social network in the world. MySpace differentiated itself from competitors by allowing users to completely customize the look of their profiles. Users could also post music from artists on MySpace and embed videos from other sites on their profiles.

Originally MySpace allowed communication through private messages, public comments posted to a user’s profile, and bulletins sent out to all of your friends. Blogs are also a big part of MySpace profiles, with each member automatically getting a blog.

In 2006 MySpace introduced MySpace IM, an instant messaging client that lets users chat with their friends. Other recent additions to MySpace’s functionality include the addition of real-time status updates and a news feed showing friend activity.

__ Facebook __ While Facebook started out as a Harvard-only social network back in 2004, it quickly expanded to other schools, then to high schools, businesses and eventually everyone (by 2006). In 2008 Facebook became the most popular social networking site, surpassing MySpace, and continues to grow. Facebook doesn’t allow the same kind of customization that MySpace does. Facebook does, however, allow users to post photos, videos and otherwise customize their profile content, if not the design. Facebook has added a number of features over the past few years, including instant messaging/chat and apps (and their developer platform).

Users have a few different methods of communicating with one another. Private messaging is available as well as writing on another user’s wall. Wall posts are visible to that user’s friends, but usually not to the general public. Users can easily change their privacy settings to allow different users to see different parts of their profile, based on any existing relationships (the basic privacy settings are “only friends”, “friends of friends”, and “everyone”).

Users can post notes that are visible to all of their friends. Users can also comment on or, more recently, “like” the posts of their friends, and conversations often occur within the comment sections among multiple people.

__ Flickr __ Flickr has become a social network in its own right in recent years. They claim to host more than 3.6 billion images as of June 2009. Flickr also has groups, photo pools, and allows users to create profiles, add friends, and organize images and video into photo sets/albums.

One of Flickr’s major advantages is that they allow users to license their photos through Creative Commons, as well as retaining all copyrights. Flickr has also recently launched a collection called “The Commons”, which features archived photos and images from a variety of museums and other institutions under a “no known restrictions” license (basically meaning the photos are believed to be in the public domain).

__ YouTube __ YouTube was the first major video hosting and sharing site, launched in 2005. Users can upload videos up to 10 minutes long and share them through YouTube or by embedding them on other websites (social networks, blogs, forums, etc).

YouTube now allows users to upload HD videos and recently launched a service to provide TV shows and movies under license from their copyright holders. YouTube’s major social features include ratings, comments, and the option to subscribe to the channels of a user’s favorite video creators.

__ LinkedIn __ LinkedIn was founded in 2003 and was one of the first mainstream social networks devoted to business. Originally, LinkedIn allowed users to post a profile (basically a resume) and to interact through private messaging. They also work on the assumption that you should personally know the people you connect with on the site. Gradually, other features have been added, including groups, question and answer forums, and advanced profile features, including real-time updates. __ Photobucket __ Photobucket was the first major photo sharing site, launched in 2003. Photobucket allows users to share photos publically or in password-protected albums. They allow users 500MB of storage (lowered from 1GB in August of 2009). Pro accounts get 10GB of storage (lowered from 100GB to 25GB in July of ‘08 and then to 10GB in August of ‘09). Photobucket also hosts video content. In 2007, Photobucket was purchased by Fox Interactive Media (a News Corporation subsidiary). It was rumored to have sold for as much as $250 million, though terms of the sale were never disclosed. Nowadays, people define social network as a way to put people in connection. Solis (2008) refer social media as two way discussion which bring people together into discover and share information. LeFever (2008) stated that social media bring new opportunities to communicate with people who care. In education field, it means a new opportunities and tool to enhance the connection to wards target audience.
 * Current scenario of those social media in higher education**

Rachel Reuben (2008) stated that the colleges and universities are now beginning to enhance the usage of social media in their academic field, realizing its potential power and implications. The popular forms of social media included Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, blogs and del.icio.us.

Fred Cavazza (a French new media consultant) breaks down various social media into 10 categories in his publication “Social Media Landscape” namely publication tools, sharing tools, discussion tools, social networks, micropublication tools, social aggregation tools, livecast, virtual worlds, social gaming and massively multiplayer online gaming (MMO) (Cavazza 2008). Brian Solis, co-founder of the Social Media Club and leader in Social media thought introduced “The 2 Conversation Prism”. Brian describes it as “the art of listening, learning and sharing” (Solis 2008). The graphical prism (below) illustrates the wide social media tools available today.



Social networking in social media is the aspect where individuals share ideas, interests in communities. Currently, Facebook and MySpace dominant the social networking communities. According to the Pew Center’s study of online social networks among American teens, 55% of all teenagers who are online use social networks like MySpace or Facebook.

In the education side, Universities have been using social media for following activities: communicating with current students, reach out to alumni, recruitment etc. Maintenance responsibilities of the social media fall either on the marketing/ communications/ public relations office or alumni or web development office.

There are however a few concerns from professionals in higher education when considering using social media. a) Loss of control “The Internet is not some sandbox that can be walled off anymore – it is fully integrated into all elements of business and society” (Li and Bernoff 2008). A Facebook page, a MySpace page of university means that there are chances of collecting negative remarks or feedback. Statistic shows that online social network users are three times more likely to trust their peers’ opinions over advertising when making decisions (JuniperResearch 2007). However, the truth is that any negative feedback from the forum might just be another new opportunity to change perceptions or to begin a new conversation. While anyone can be in the conversation, we are participating in the conversation though we can’t control the flow.

b) Time commitment Workload of adding concrete and regularly updated content into social media means a lot of time commitment in the higher education communities.

c) Information overload There are so many forms of media causing information overload when ones trying to keep up with “traditional media” such as e-mail, instant messaging etc. Notification from blog followed, facebook and others flood the mail box, causing uneasiness to some group of people.

d) Anyone can create an “official” account for university There is no background check for individuals who create an account with a university name.


 * Major players/ universities that use social media**

The Ohio State University (OSU) uses Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, delicious as part of their social media strategy to develop interaction with their target audiences. According to Kristen Convery, Web Editor in OSU’s University Relations office, they created their Facebook Page in November 2007 when Facebook launched this feature. Their Page, with 6,904 (as of 8/2/08), includes events, RSS feeds, videos, and MP3’s. They have chosen to “turn off” the wall feature, which most other college’s/university’s are taking advantage of. This brought the university with an enrollment number over 50,000. Before launching their YouTube channel, Convery talked to a staff member from The University of California, Berkeley, and Google (owners of YouTube), for assistance and best practices. They assisted with the setup of the channel and design of the page. OSU has chosen not to use Twitter right now because they “haven’t found the right application for it yet,” and Facebook has more of their target audience and demographics than MySpace does. OSU is also using delicious and has a LinkedIn alumni group. The University of California, Berkeley has one of the most well known channels and volume of subscribers on YouTube in higher education (The University of California 2006). They have had nearly 2 million views of their channel, and have created sub-channels for more specific content, including courses, events, campus life and athletics. The Southern Illinois University College of Business, see sites such as Facebook as crucial tools for their communication and marketing strategies (Campbell 2008). Through their Facebook group, they provide members with school news, the ability to communicate with other students, faculty and alumni. The University of New Mexico (UNM) has setup a “Flickr pool” where they encourage community members to create a Flickr account if they do not already have one, join the UNM Flickr group, and to share their photos of their campus. They request the photos be of their campus, events or student life. They currently have 335 images in their pool. Ball State University has had student bloggers on their site for many years – 12 for the 2007-08 academic year. Butler University’s bloggers, now called “Butler Rockstars,” are entering their second year on http://go.butler.edu. Brad J. Ward, electronic communications coordinator for Butler, says their blogs and forums make up 30-40% of their traffic in one month. They had 10 bloggers in 2007-08 and plan to have 8 or 9 for 2008-09. Auburn University has the most active presence with 11,067 friends (8/10/08). Their page is glittered with videos, photos, and nearly 2,500 comments. The most professional looking MySpace pages include Oklahoma City University, Wofford College, and Richland College.
 * a) **** OSU **
 * b) **** Berkeley **
 * c) **** University College of Business **
 * d) **** UNM **
 * e) **** Ball State University **
 * f) **** Butler University **
 * g) **** Auburn University **
 * h) **** Oklahoma City University, Wofford College, Richland College **

Below is the social media statistics for 2009 for some of the most popular social network sites.
 * Market size, demands of the higher education**
 * MySpace continues to be the most popular social media site in the US, capturing 31.95% of all social media visitors. However, Facebook has lead the social media site globally, recording 65.7 million unique visitors in 2009, as compared to 54.1 million at MySpace.
 * Twitter has been growing by 76.8% from February to March and a yearly growth rate of 1,382%, from February 2008 to February 2009.
 * Facebook grew 314% in Europe in terms of yearly traffic from February 2008 to February 2009.
 * According to the February 2009 statistics released by Clean Cut Media, YouTube is the top video site on the web, with 300 million visitors each month.
 * According to Compete, Digg saw a 91% increase in traffic, while Stumbleupon and FriendFeed recorded a huge increase of over 180% and 3100%, respectively, as compared to 2008.
 * On the other hand, HotorNot.com, Technorati and Bloglines recorded a decline of 67%. 35% and 21%, respectively in unique visitors, as compared to 2008.


 * **Worldwide Growth among Selected Social Networking Sites**
 * June 2008 vs. June 2007**
 * Total Worldwide Audience, Age 15+**
 * Home and Work Locations**
 * Source: comScore World Metrix** ||
 * |||||| **Total Unique Visitors (000)** ||
 * ^  || **Jun-2007** || **Jun-2008** || **% Change** ||
 * **Total Internet : Total Audience** || **778,310** || **860,514** || **11%** ||
 * **Social Networking** || **464,437** || **580,510** || **25%** ||
 * FACEBOOK.COM || 52,167 || 132,105 || 153% ||
 * MYSPACE.COM || 114,147 || 117,582 || 3% ||
 * HI5.COM || 28,174 || 56,367 || 100% ||
 * FRIENDSTER.COM || 24,675 || 37,080 || 50% ||
 * Orkut || 24,120 || 34,028 || 41% ||
 * BEBO.COM || 18,200 || 24,017 || 32% ||
 * Skyrock Network || 17,638 || 21,041 || 19% ||

Facebook has done an exceptional job of promoting its brand internationally during the past year by increasing the site’s relevance to local markets through local language interface translation. Facebook site is now competing strongly or even capturing the lead in several markets where it had a relatively minor presence just a year ago. Below is the statistic for visitors of Facebook site in the year 2007/2008:


 * **Worldwide Growth for Facebook.com**
 * June 2008 vs. June 2007**
 * Total Worldwide Audience, Age 15+**
 * Home and Work Locations**
 * Source: comScore World Metrix** ||
 * |||||| **Total Unique Visitors (000)** ||
 * ^  || **Jun-2007** || **Jun-2008** || **% Change** ||
 * **FACEBOOK.COM** || **52,167** || **132,105** || **153%** ||
 * North America || 35,698 || 49,248 || 38% ||
 * Europe || 8,751 || 35,263 || 303% ||
 * Asia Pacific || 3,712 || 20,712 || 458% ||
 * Middle East - Africa || 2,974 || 14,951 || 403% ||
 * Latin America || 1,033 || 11,931 || 1055% ||

It is our conjecture that the benefits of social networking and social communication capabilities can benefit both the instructor and the student by tapping into a greater number of learning styles, providing an alternative to the traditional lecture format, creating an online classroom community, and increasing teacher-student and student-student interaction. Efforts should be made by instructors to expand their pedagogical portfolio, promote active learning through a learning community, and to test the effectiveness of on-line learning communities through social networks such as Facebook. Scholars should continue their investigations into these alternative teaching tools to determine if the benefit of creating cyber learning communities to complement the traditional classroom experience is worth the cost of retooling and restructuring. Furthermore, teacher preparation can be enhanced by creating opportunities for teachers in training to see, experience, and effectively model lessons learned on social networking in their future classrooms.
 * Conclusions**

Campbell, D. (2008). Reaching Students Where They Live. BizEd. **7:** 60-61.
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Li, C. and J. Bernoff (2008). Groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies. Boston, Harvard Business School Publishing.

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