RESEARCH PAPER TEMPLATE

North American University

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

Name: Sadrettin Orman

Date: 9/20/2015

Topic Selected: What are the Educational uses of Facebook or other social media (e.g.

twitter) (K-12 or higher education)

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:

1)Six ways to use social media in education1.
Faculty and students routinely use Facebook, Twitter and other social media in their
personal lives, so how might those same tools be put to academic use? 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
2. Gathering and sharing data collected with mobile devices during field work or
travel abroad.
3. Creating a public profile to showcase personal research interests and to connect
with a broad audience; teacher from different universities use blogs to share their
work.
4. Using Twitter in class to keep students engaged and to get a sense of what
students are thinking about during lectures; Professor use twitter in their classes
5. Forming student study groups with the use of Google+ Hangouts and other social
tools; Students use google+ and YouTube to study math with friend
6. Adding social tools to e-textbooks
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.

2) How to use social media as a learning tool2

Social media is an ingrained part of todays society. Our students are constantly on
Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and likely many sites were not hip enough to know about,
and by reading this blog, youre interacting with social media at this very moment. If you
want to bring the real world into the classroom, consider integrating social media into
your lessons.
When used carefully, social media can be a useful tool rather than a distraction. A
recent Edutopia blog post argues that using social media not only brings current
technology to the classroom, but it also helps bridge the digital divide among lowerincome students. These students may not have the constant access to social media that
their counterparts do. Why should they be left behind as technology continues to march
forward?
Education-based sites such as Edmodo, Edublog, and Kidblog provide alternative social
media sites for posting status updates and announcements, blogging, and microblogging.
But even the commercialized sites can be useful for demonstrating social media to
students.
1) Create a class Facebook group
2) Start a topical Twitter feed
3) Require students to blog
4) Post students videos to YouTube
5) Showcase Student Work on Instagram
For privacy concerns, pay attention to each platforms privacy policy. Review your
schools social media policy and if necessary, have parents sign consent forms for posting
their childs work online. Furthermore, make sure that students are well versed in
etiquette and other proper use of technology.
3)How Teachers Can Use Social Media in the Classroom3
If you are a teacher, you are likely always looking for ways to get your students excited
about learning. One innovative method is throughout the media. There is a good reason
to try says Katy Cook.
Students are using these technologies in their personal lives, so it makes sense to
leverage them for teaching and learning Cook notes. Here, she offers six strategies to
incorporate social media into classrooms.
1) Set a good example: It is not enough now to teach their lessons, it is important to
cover digital citizenship so that students know how to use social media.

2) Create a class Facebook page: Teachers can build pages for their classes that they can
use for communicating class announcements, class activities and assignment
deadlines, etc.
3) Establish online guidelines: It is important that class pages are monitored constantly
by teacher.
4) Devise a twitter channel.
5) Use skype for guest speakers: Skype videoconferencing software allows you to
effectively bring in people from around world to your class.
6) Get ideas from your peers: You may use LinkedIn professional network to connect
with other teachers to exchange lesson plans and other ideas.
4) Using Facebook in the classroom4
As students are becoming more wired by the year, schools are attempting to find new
ways to keep students both engaged in the classroom and informed about events
happening within the school. With the majority of students already using Facebook for
their own interactions among their peers, it was proposed that the social network could be
used to distribute a weekly school newscast and keep students informed about assignment
due dates, test dates, and other important information
To study this possibility, a Facebook page was created for digital media students at a high
school in North Carolina in the spring of 2012. The 29 students who did like the page
took a seven question survey in which they responded overwhelmingly that they felt
informed about and connected to their class. Based on the results of the survey, 26 of the
29 students said they enjoyed seeing their classmates work on the Facebook page.
However, the 21 students who did not like the class Facebook page had similar
responses to those who did like the page.
26 of the 29 students who liked the class Facebook page indicated they would like to
see more teachers create a Facebook page, while 27 of the 29 either agreed or strongly
agreed with the statement, I benefitted from following the class Facebook page. The
survey showed that the majority of the students who followed the class Facebook page
found it to be helpful and would like to see more teachers adopt this classroom tool.
The research here could open the doors for a closer examination into using social
networks in schools for both academic and journalistic purposes. Students could use
Edmodo, the educational version of Facebook, to provide updates on stories the paper or
newscast is working on, while taking suggestions for future reports. Pinterest, Myspace,
and YouTube may also provide tools that could be helpful in increasing readership and
viewers.
5) Twitter Is a Great Tool, but Is It Professional Development?
Theres little disagreement about the value of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media

sites among educators who use these tools to share links, give advice, ask questions, and
engage in discussions. But should we consider them professional development (PD)?
And, if so, does it improve student learning?
I do not see social media as the PD, but as a portal to the PD. It comes from educators
engaging other educators in discussions and exchanging ideas that lead to the best
sources in order to access the specific PD. Now the question arises, is this PD resulting in
an improvement in the student learning? I have often said, To be better teachers, we
must first be better learners. It would seem to me educators who are seeking
professional development to meet their specific needs as educators would certainly be a
first step to better learning. The astonishment on the part of so many may not be in what
they are learning, but rather how they are learning. They are being rejuvenated in many
ways. This is having a very positive effect on individual educators.
The post drew 13 comments, mostly from educators singing the praises of social media:
It is clear that social media can open the door to a much richer version of professional
development. Teachers using it effectively can then show students how they engage in
this process and guide them to do the same thingDouglas Green
Tom [Whitby] argues that social media are key tools in engaging teachers in the teaching
and learning process, and he is spot on. But I would argue that the content of the PD is
almost immaterial.
The time I spend on Twitter or other social media is much more valuable and targeted
because it gives me something I can really use. PD? Yes, but hard to document or track.
Alan Buhler
Maybe instead of debating whether social media makes for effective PD, we should be
questioning whether traditional PD makes for effective PD.

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:
While working on this research assignment, I had a chance to check different articles,
websites and magazines. When I checked them all, there are many ways to integrate
technology and social media to into education. I agree that it is inevitable social media
usage increase tremendously among students. They use the social media to communicate
with their friends, post comment and follow up what their friends are doing more than us.
We can use their curiosity about social media and integrate social media in our classes.
The data collected from 4th reference indicates that students would like to use more
teacher using social media for their classes. It should not be ignored. We may not use all
type of social media, but we can start from somewhere to use it. While reading the
articles, I have seen that Facebook can be used to post assignment or update about events
going on in your classes.
The last article that I have checked was: Twitter Is a Great Tool, but Is It Professional
Development?
It was very interesting for me. I dont use Twitter very common. I am not sure if Twitter
can be used as a professional development tool. My question about twitter is: how can
you keep track of staff who do PD on twitter? It would be an interesting research topic
work on to compare the results of traditional PD and the same PD on twitter. A survey or
assessment can be given both groups of people who participate in traditional PD and
twitter version of the same PD. This could give more accurate results if we can use
twitter for PD purposes or not.
I check some teacher blogs to check different ideas that I can use in my classes. I have
found many great ideas from other teacher. I dont have a personal blog, but I have seen
some teacher use their blogs very active. They post the assignments for their classes,
upload good activities that they used. I use our school database to upload any assignment
and notes for my students or put upcoming events. I also had a website for my
mathcounts club to post assignment and any updates for my students. I dont run the club
anymore.
I have used different technological tools and social media in classes. I am currently using
online textbook for my classes instead of regular textbook. I am able to assign them
homework, quizzes and share my comment about their progress. I am still using Edmodo
for some of my classes, but I do not use it as much as I used to use.

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://cit.duke.edu/blog/2012/04/six-ways-to-use-social-media-in-education/
2. http://www.edudemic.com/how-to-use-social-media-as-a-learning-tool-in-the-classroom/
3. Cook, Kathy, Social Media Tips for Teachers: Helping K12 Educators
Comfortably Embrace Diverse Learning Tools, District Administration,4/1/2014
4. HULL, KEVIN, Quill & Scroll; Spring2013, Vol. 87 Issue 2, p4-4, 1p
5. Learning & Leading with Technology; November 2011, Vol. 39 Issue 3, p25-25, 1p