Books published by IGI Global, 2012
Editors:
Editorial Advisory Board
(provisional)
Publisher
This book is scheduled to be
published by the IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), a prestigious international
publisher of the “Information Science Reference” (formerly Idea Group
Reference), “Medical Information Science Reference,” “Business Science
Reference,” and “Engineering Science Reference” imprints. For additional
information regarding the publisher, please visit www.igi-global.com. This
publication is anticipated to be released in 2012.
For information:
Dr. Bogdan Patrut
Department of Mathematics,
Informatics, and Education Sciences
“Vasile Alecsandri” University of
Tel.: +40 234 20 60 90 GSM: +40 728 88 22 88, +40 741 63 81 82
E-mail: [email protected]
Provisional Table of
Contents
1.
Pedagogical Challenges of Social Media in Academia
O
- Student-Faculty Communication on Facebook:
Prospective Learning Enhancement and Boundaries
Laurenţiu
Şoitu, “Alexandru Ion Cuza”
Laura
Păuleţ-Crăiniceanu, “Alexandru Ion Cuza”
13023 words
This
chapter addresses the topic of Facebook use in
education, with focus on the learning issues concerning the student-faculty
relations and communication on this Social Network. Its main purpose is to
reveal academics’ general and particular attitudes towards the use of Facebook
with instructional aim. Therefore, it presents a generous theoretical
perspective on the emerging phenomenon of Social Networks integration on
education, in the
P
- Integrating
Miikka Eriksson,
Pauliina Tuomi,
Hanna Vuojärvi,
12604 words
In
this chapter the focus falls on integrating mobile learning, digital
storytelling and social media into vocational learning practices. The
literature review introduces the development of mobile learning and digital
storytelling and presents ways in which these concepts can piggyback the
interactive features of social media. A case study during which participating
students used mobile phones and videos with a mobile social video application
(MoViE) to design and produce representative digital stories based on local
tourism attractions is also presented. Twenty-five students participated in the
internet inquiry about student attitudes towards the use of social media as
part of their vocational expertise and their learning experiences with mobile
devices and MoViE. This chapter will illustrate the benefits as well as the
shortcomings of the used learning concept in order to produce more concrete
knowledge of the use of mobile devices and social video applications in
learning.
B
- How Social Design Influences Student Retention and Self-Motivation in Online
Learning Environments
Derek E. Baird, Disney
Interactive,
Mercedes Fisher,
6590 words
Investigating
the social structure that works in online courses helps us design for and
facilitate student collaboration. The integration of social technologies, and
collaborative activities into the course design has a positive influence on
student retention in online courses. In this chapter, we present an exploratory
study of computer mediated groups which utilized this collaborative based model
to participate in online and/or blended learning courses. Participants were put
into groups and observed as they constructed new knowledge using both online
dialogue (synchronous and asynchronous), and social media technologies (blogs,
Facebook, Twitter, wiki) as tools to support and facilitate their learning in
the program.
J - Future
Learning Spaces: The Potential and Practice of Learning 2.0 in Higher Education
Dr Charlotte Holland,
Dr Miriam Judge,
13012 words
Higher
education’ institutions are promoting the integration of online technologies in
teaching and learning as an attempt to provide flexible modes of delivery, to
diversify the profile of students accessing higher education and to facilitate
the development of life-long learning skills.
The availability of personal digital devices, such as wireless laptops
and mobile phones, and campus-wide Internet connectivity has the potential to
enhance or detract from learning in higher education. This chapter explores the trend towards
online learning in higher education, examining the potential of and current
practices in the integration of Information and Communication Technologies,
focusing on the use of Web 2.0 technologies in teaching and learning, and
presenting some of the challenges that arise in the integration of online
technologies and implementation of Learning 2.0 in higher education.
2.
Social Media as a Mean for Current Education
I
- Enhancing Social Presence and Communities of Practice in Distance Education
Courses through Social Media
Lori B. Holcomb,
Matthew Krüger-Ross,
10894 words
The
purpose of this study was to examine the impact social media has on the development
of communities of practice and social development in distance education
courses. This study evaluated the effectiveness of the integration of social
media tools including Ning in Education (an educational social networking
tool), Twitter, and WordPress into three distance education courses in
instructional technology. The social media tools were examined to identify the
educational and pedagogical benefits each tool affords. Utilizing a
mixed-method methodology, student data was collected through a series of three
online surveys coupled with student interviews.
The pre-/post- data collected as part of this study provides empirically
based findings indicating that social media technologies can help support online
communities of practice as well as the development of social presence. Data analyzed from student interviews
provides data triangulation in addition to a richer and deeper understanding of
the pedagogical affordances social media tools provide.
K
- Framing Non-Formal Education through CSR 2.0
Bogdan Pătruț,
“Vasile Alecsandri” University of
Monica Pătruț,
“Vasile Alecsandri” University of
Camelia Cmeciu, Danubius
11998 words
Schools
and universities are not the only providers of knowledge any longer. Other
types of organizations have become aware that a solid public-serving reason
should lie beyond the firm-serving motive. “Doing well by doing good” has been
the syntagm that prevails nowadays in the organizational discourse focused on
corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns. This chapter has a twofold
aim: to highlight two paradigmatic shifts (CSR 1.0 → CSR 2.0 & formal
education → non-formal education); to provide an analysis of the Web 2.0
practices and items ad of the verbal and visual framing devices used in a CSR
2.0 campaign on non-formal financial education. Social media have provided the
applications to put into practice the concept of edutainment specific to
non-formal education since educators get a multifold identity, being, at the
same time, generators and receivers of knowledge.
A
- Social Media Audit and Analytics: Exercises for Marketing and Public
Relations Courses
Ana Adi,
10072 words
Beyond
influencing the ways we communicate and we do business, social media is
currently challenging traditional higher education in many respects: from the
way in which courses are delivered and students interact with each other and
with their lecturers to the content that the courses cover. In particular, the
emergence of the social media specialist working in marketing-communications,
creative industries or journalism, and their use of ever-changing content
management and analytics tools require adaptation of courses to the constant changes
in industry. Starting from two case studies of teaching social media auditing
and analytics as part of courses taught in
3.
National Examples of Good Practices of Social Media in Academia
N
- Functions of Social Media in Higher Education: A Case Study
Violeta Maria Șerbu,
The Bucharest Academy of Economic
Studies,
11982 words
This
chapter aims to explore some critical functions that social media is playing
for the internal processes included in an alternative higher education model – The Alternative University, developed in
Romania, since 2007. This case study highlights challenges and opportunities
associated with using this new communication as well as information
technologies in order to generate effective learning environments. The
collaborative and student-centered traits of higher education models using
social media for learning activities are mainly treated in our study. Functions
such as connecting people, sharing knowledge, collaboratively generating
knowledge, community building, management platform, accumulation and
construction of knowledge, knowledge assessment, raising learning motivation,
personal branding or networking are identified as important assets of social
media for their use in a higher education setting.
C
- An Users’ Perspective on Academic Blogging:
Case-study on a Romanian Group of Students
Mihai Deac, PhD, Babeș-Bolyai University
Ioan Hosu, PhD, Babeș-Bolyai University
8631 words
There
has been much research dedicated to the use of blogs in higher education, but a
great deal of its enthusiasm is based on data that have the potential to be
distorted by social desirability. The current chapter attempts a more balanced
look at the use of educational blogs, taking into account the shortcomings, as
well as the benefits of their proliferation amongst students. We write from the
perspective of the blog users. Although their feedback is mostly positive, user
behavior is also affected by fear of peer appraisal, lack of engagement, lack
of trust or unwillingness to share knowledge or to debate. In order to support
our argumentation, we use traffic data from the educational blog
“blogdeseminar”, survey data from a convenience sample of Romanian students,
and qualitative data from 11 interviews.
D
- Uses and Implementation of Social Media at University:The
Case of Schools of Communication in
María-Jesús Díaz-González,
Natalia Quintas Froufe,
Almudena González del Valle Brena,
Francesc Pumarola, Expert in Internet issues,
8792 words
There
have been many contributions to scientific literature which have helped develop
a theoretical framework in the field of education and Information Technologies.
The contributions have come from the educational sciences and from the communication
processes and collaboration perspectives. The purpose of this chapter is to
make a contribution within the specific scope of university teaching and social
media. In order to achieve this objective, a case study methodology was chosen
to analyze the use and implementations of social media networks in Spanish
Schools of Communication. The parameters used were chosen out of the same
social media nature (potential use). The success of social media presence at
Schools of Communications must follow an initial plan and a further control and
supervision of the plan. The relationship of social media with the university
community depends greatly upon the specific community manager's profile and
commitment.
M
- Web Use in Public Relations Education: A Portuguese Example
Sónia Pedro Sebastião, ISCSP
-
8942 words
The
chapter relates several of the difficulties associated with public relations as an academic
subject. Bearing these obstacles in mind, a public relations academic program
has been defined, along with, a teaching strategy using web-based social media (blog and
facebook profile) to communicate with students. The main purposes of the
research are: to understand how university students see public relations as a
subject and to ascertain their attitude toward the importance of using
web-based communication tools in the
assessment of public relations disciplines. The results have shown that
students understand that the use of web-social media is important to
their academic life and to their relationship with the teacher. Nevertheless,
it is also recognized that the use of technological tools must be followed by
motivation, interest in the subject of public relations and in general
academic work.
S - Social Media Usage among University Students
in
Norsiah Abdul Hamid, Universiti Utara
5299 words
This
chapter discussed a research conducted in a university setting which involved
405 undergraduate students. The aim of this research is to determine the relationships
between social media and personality traits particularly in identifying the
profile of social media adoption among students in
Q
- Social Media and other Web 2.0 Technologies as Communication Channels in a
Cross-Cultural, Web-Based Professional Communication Project
Pavel Zemliansky,
Olena Goroshko, The
8230 words
In
recent years, cross-national web-based teaching projects have become very popular
in many fields. During such projects, participants from different countries
work together on collaborative tasks. Communications among project participants
take place over the Internet, including via social media. In this chapter, we
report the results of social media use in one such project, which brought
together students from the
E-Learning
Records: Are There Any to Manage? If so, How?
Luciana Duranti and
Elizabeth Shaffer,
10310 words
Through the lens of an
archival theoretical framework, this chapter examines the digital outputs of
the use of social media applications by students, faculty and educational
institutions, and discusses the need to control and manage their creation, use,
maintenance and preservation. The authors draw on a case study that explores
the identification, arrangement, description and preservation of students’
records produced in an eLearning environment in Singapore and is used as a starting
point to highlight and discuss the implications that the use of social media in
education can have for the management and preservation of educational
institutions’ records as evidence of their activity and of students’ learning,
to fulfill legal and accountability requirements. The authors also discuss how the use of
social media by educators in the classroom environment facilitates the creation
of records that raise issues of intellectual property and copyright, ownership
and privacy; issues that can further impact their maintenance and preservation.
4.
The Impact of Social Media Technologies on the Academic Environment
F
- The Influence of Twitter on the Academic Environment
Martin Ebner, Social
Learning, Computer and Information Services,
5930 words
In
the last few years microblogging has become a
phenomenon of our daily live. Communicating, sharing media files, as well as
acting on digital social communities platforms using mobile devices assist our
everyday activities in a complete new way. Therefore it is very reasonable that
academic environments are influenced arbitrarily too. In this publication
different settings for the use of microblogging are pointed out
– for teaching and learning as well as for further scientific purposes such as
professional conferences. It can be summarized that there are different
possibilities to use microblogging in an academic
context; each of them are new advantages for the academic life. The publication
gives a short overview and a first insight into the various ways to use
microblogging.
G - The Impact of
Social Media on
Scholarly Practices in Higher Education: Online Engagement and ICTs
Appropriation in Senior, Young and Doctoral
Researchers
Antonella Esposito,
12831 words
This chapter reports selected findings from a small-scale,
exploratory study aiming to provide a 'snapshot' of actual modes of uptake of
new digital tools for research purposes. The study consists in an interview
project, carried out in a large Italian university and constituted by
semi-structured interviews to 14
senior, young and doctoral researchers, working in Humanities, Social Sciences,
Medicine and Physics subject areas. Whereas the most popular attitude
is a pragmatic and efficiency-driven approach in selecting and using old and
new tools, a few isolated profiles of ‘digital scholars’ emerge, championing
the construction of their digital identity along with networked modes of
knowledge production and distribution, despite the lack of legitimation of
their own research context.
H - Academic Perspectives on Microblogging
Gabriela Grosseck, West
Carmen Holotescu,
Bogdan Patrut, “Vasile Alecsandri” University of
14500 words
The Web, as a socio-technical environment, comprises
various means of interactions, as well as the social practices related to their
use. In the online landscape structured on four axes of
interactions: communication, collaboration, creation and curation, the microblogging
is seen as a new social media revolution.
It is
quite demanding to write about microblogging in general, and writing a
comprehensive study on its dissemination and pedagogical potential can present
even more problems. Even if this social media instrument has come into use only
relatively recently (the first platforms appeared six years ago, in 2006), more
and more educators, practitioners and researchers worldwide are actively
involved in finding, testing and sharing educational uses for microblogging. This
chapter introduces the phenomenon of microblogging and presents the most
relevant options for educators. The chapter has a descriptive
character, and it is structured into two large parts that provide a
general-to-specific approach of both theoretical and practical aspects related
to the microblogging phenomenon and the impact of microblogs in the educational
space.
T - Digital Literacy for Effective
Communication in the New Academic Environment: The Educational Blogs
Ruxandra Vasilescu,
Manuela Epure,
Nadia Florea,
10957 words
‘The
fixity’ of knowledge, the accumulation of fix elements of knowledge no longer
meets the requirements of nowadays society. The capacity of change, adaptation
and constant updating of these elements according to individual needs, but also
to the needs of the various contexts the knowledge must be used is a
prerequisite of social integration for the graduate. Education stepped into the
era of deep reforms based on new concepts: student-centered learning, informal
education, personal learning environment, stating that „to teach means to model
and to demonstrate; to learn means to practice and to consider”. The
information technology provides to the new student with the learning
environemnt he/she needs in the new context, connects him/her rapidly to the
up-to-date information and to the rest of the world. Finding new ways of
recreating student community on the background of the change of the student
structure, the profile of the new student, their interests and individual
learning habits on the one hand and the main challenges of the workforce
training/retraining for the current and future information society is the main
concern of this chapter. Due to the spectacular extension of the Internet use,
the blog is a solution for the development of the student community, for social
interaction and serves as an alternative or extension of classroom discourse.
L
- Implementation of Augmented Reality in “3.0 Learning” Methodology:
Case
Studies with Students of Architecture Degree
Ernest
Redondo, Isidro Navarro, Departamento de Expresión
Gráfica Arquitectónica – Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona.
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, BarcelonaTech, Spain
Albert
Sánchez, Departamento de Expresión Gráfica
Arquitectónica II – Escuela Politécnica Superior de Ingeniería de Edificación
de Barcelona. Universidad Politécnica de
Cataluña, Spain
David
Fonseca, Departamento de Arquitectura –
Arquitectura La Salle. Universitat
10402 words
This
chapter discusses the impact of using social media resources and new emerging
technologies in teaching and learning processes. We are focused in Spanish architecture-education framework, by
analyzing three case studies, carried out by students finishing architecture
and building degrees. Students interaction with this resources is assessed, as
well as their derived academic results, and the degree of satisfaction from
students and teachers using these resources and technologies. To conduct the
study, we worked with web based freeware applications, such as Dropbox,
blogging systems, Moodle, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Google Maps. Mobile devices,
such as Smartphones and tablets PCs, were used to test QR-Codes (Quick Response
Codes) and Augmented Reality technology based
applications as Junaio and Ar-Media Plugin.
R - Digital Social Media Detox (DSMD)
Dr. Theresa Renee White, DuBois Hamer Institute,
9086 words
This
study explores personal and public implications of intense social media
dependency. Twenty-five college students
took part in a ten-hour detoxification intervention to experience a day of
face-to-face interaction without access to social media. Qualitative, triangulation research
strategies were used in this empirical study to correlate participants’
self-reported experiences with direct observation by trained moderators. The primary concerns of the study were to
discover if digital social-media use inhibits college students’ social and
intellectual development, potentially limiting their participation in a public,
postmodern culture. Their social-media dependency is shown to be inhibiting,
but with revocable negative effects, suggesting a continuum of pathological use
that educators can help mitigate in the new academic environment of the millennial
generation.