TEACHER'S ROLE IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING:

A LITERATURE REVIEW ON THE USE OF SOCIAL

MEDIA IN EDUCATION
TRABALHO DE GRADUAO

UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE PERNAMBUCO
CENTRO DE INFORMTICA
GRADUAO EM CINCIA DA COMPUTAO


ELLS DE VASCONCELOS CARVALHO {EVC2@CIN.UFPE.BR}


















RECIFE
2014



ELLS DE VASCONCELOS CARVALHO {EVC2@CIN.UFPE.BR}










TEACHER'S ROLE IN COLLABORATIVE LEARNING:
a Literature Review on the Use of Social Media in Education






Trabalho apresentado ao curso de Cincia da
Computao da Universidade Federal de
Pernambuco como requisito parcial para obteno
do grau de Bacharel em Cincia da Computao.

Orientador: Alex Sandro Gomes {asg@cin.ufpe.br}






RECIFE
2014
































I would like to express the deepest appreciation to my
teachers and professors, from pre-school to university.
You are the ones who guided me all the way to
graduation and this paper is dedicated to you.

A special thanks to my family, particularly my parents,
my brother and my sister, that have been supporting me
all these years.


RESUMO

O principal objetivo deste trabalho sintetizar as pesquisas atuais sobre o impacto da adoo
de tecnologias nos mtodos de ensino e aprendizagem e na prtica dos professores. Este
trabalho apresenta uma reviso da literatura sobre a efetividade do uso de mdias sociais na
construo de um ambiente de aprendizagem colaborativo, com foco na rede social Facebook
e na enciclopdia livre Wikipedia. A reviso aponta que diante da popularizao de mdias
sociais, especialmente entre os jovens, importante que professores saibam usar efetivamente
este tipo de tecnologia para prover um melhor ambiente de aprendizagem aos seus estudantes
e apresenta teorias e guias para professores que queiram utilizar estes aplicativos na sala de
aula.




ABSTRACT

The main objective of this work is to synthesize the current research about the impact of
technology adoption on teaching and learning methods and on teachers practices. This paper
presents a review of the literature on the effectiveness of the use of social media to build a
collaborative learning environment, focusing on the social network Facebook and the free
encyclopedia Wikipedia. The review shows that facing the popularization of social media,
especially among the youth, it is important that teachers know to use this type of technology
effectively to provide a better learning environment to their students and presents useful
theories and guidelines to teachers that may wish to use these applications in classroom.

Keywords: collaborative learning, engaged learning, constructivist learning, Facebook,
Wikipedia, social media, educational technology



Table of contents

1. Introduction 7
2. Definition of concepts 8
2.1. Collaborative learning 8
2.2. Constructivist learning 8
2.3. Engaged Learning 9
3. Method 10
3.1. Search parameters 10
3.2. Results 12
4. Effectiveness of social media in education 13
4.1. Use of wikis for a collaborative learning 13
4.2. Wikipedia as a teaching tool 16
4.3. Educational potential of Facebook 17
5. The relationship between teachers and technology 20
5.1. Teachers beliefs and practices with technology usage 21
5.2. Teachers role in the use of social media to engage students 24
7. Discussion 28
8. Conclusion 31
References 32
Appendix 1. About Wikipedia 38
Appendix 2. About Facebook 42
Attachments 43
Attachment 1. The STOLEN Principles Tick Sheet 43
Attachment 2. Summary of Traditional Technologies for Engaged Learning 44
Attachment 3. Summary of Web-based Applications to Improve Engagement 45



7

1. Introduction

The new generation of students includes interactive and social learners, multi-taskers
and technology learners and each type of student may have diverse needs in the
collaborative learning process (Zheng, et al., 2014). Revere & Kovach (2011) compared
traditional technologies and web-based applications to engage students and concluded
that integrating web-based technologies can increase the level of student engagement
in courses. The existing breadth and depth of technology designed for online
socialization is immense and its portability gives students the advantage of interacting
with the instructor, their peers, and even the course content from virtually anywhere,
using a variety of electronic devices (Revere & Kovach, 2011).

As a consequence, teachers are adapting their beliefs and practices to new learning
methods, that include technology and can engage students to collaboratively construct
knowledge (Scott, 2013). Furthermore, educators are also competing students' attention
with popular social medias, such as Facebook and Wikipedia, that may reduce
academic performance (Kirschner & Karpinski, 2010). Therefore, teachers are facing
the challenge to effectively integrate social media in classrooms.

Since the academia has already been giving some importance to this subject, the
presented paper aims to review the current literature about teachers' role in use of
social media in education. This review will be divided in three main sections. The first
part will show the literature and experiences about the use of wikis (especially
Wikipedia) as a collaborative learning tool and will provide a review on use of Facebook
in education to construct knowledge and help students in communicating and working
collaboratively with their peers. The second part will talk about current research on use
of ICT, especially social media, in classrooms and how educators are responding to this
new teaching approach. Finally, a discussion about the investigated literature is
provided, to contribute to academia with brief and important opinions and questions
about what has been studied for the last five years in the subject.

8

2. Definition of concepts

This section will explain some concepts that will be used in this review. They are
learning methods that have been discussed for many years and are getting new
attention with the popularization of technology (Woo & Reeves, 2007).

2.1. Collaborative learning

Many definitions of collaborative learning can be found in academia. Laal & Laals
(2012) study provides a definition that facilitates the understanding of this concept:

CL [Collaborative Learning] is an educational approach to teaching and learning
that involves groups of learners working together to solve a problem, complete a
task, or create a product. In the CL environment, the learners are challenged
both socially and emotionally as they listen to different perspectives, and are
required to articulate and defend their ideas. In so doing, the learners begin to
create their own unique conceptual frameworks and not rely solely on an expert's
or a text's framework. (Laal & Laal, 2012).

By summarizing that idea and bringing the concept to a school environment, it can be
said that the collaborative learning approach supports the idea that students must work
in groups, because they can learn more by sharing information with others.

2.2. Constructivist learning

According to constructivists, learning requires the personal interpretation of
phenomenon such as the construction of a mental model representing complex
phenomenon. (Woo & Reeves, 2007) In other words, constructivism is a philosophy of
learning based on the premise that knowledge is constructed by the individual through
his or her interactions with the environment. (Rovai, 2004)

9

Rovai (2004) compared some elements of traditional and constructivist learning
environments and provided Figure 1 as a result.

2.3. Engaged Learning

Congruent to the concepts of collaborative learning and constructivist learning, there is
active engagement in the learning process when the learners are constructing
knowledge from experience through their interactions [or collaboration] with peers and
teachers to make [or construct] meaning or to interpret information and patterns
observed (Hung, et al., 2006)

Figura 1 (Rovai, 2004) Figure 1 (Rovai, 2004)
10

3. Method

3.1. Search parameters

The main objective of this paper is to review the current literature, between 2009 and
2014 about teachers role in collaborative learning using social media. The subject is
related to two big areas of study: technology and education. To delimitate the
boundaries of this research, keywords should be chosen to guide the researcher to the
objective of this work. Finally, the chosen search terms were an intersection of the two
defined lists in Table 1.

Keywords of Education area Keywords of Technology area
Teaching/learning strategies Social Media/Network
Teacher practice Facebook
Cooperative/collaborative learning Wiki
Student engagement Wikipedia
Constructivism Computer-mediated Communication
Table 1 - Search parameters

To make the best decision of which journals should be the main sources, two journal
rankings were analyzed. The first was the SCImago Journal & Country Rank in the
Subject Category Education for the year 2013 (Figure 3). Since the ranking was for the
whole area of Education, it was important to find a rank about journals that publish work
in the area of educational technology. Therefore, the search was also based on Google
Scholar rank for publications in this area of study (Figure 2). From these two rankings
and the accessibility of the journals in the available databases, four publications were
chosen (highlighted in Figure 2).
11


Figure 3 - Ranking of Education Journals
Figure 2 - Ranking of Education and Technology Journals
12

During the research, two other journals were added to the list of sources, because they
indicated that there were important and useful publications on the field to be reviewed.
Finally, the list of journals to be searched was:
Computers & Education
Computers in Human Behavior
Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning
British Journal of Educational Technology
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences
Internet and Higher Education

3.2. Results

A total of 56 articles in the reference listing were either identified during the literature
search or added by the author and data from some articles are described in more than
one section of this review, when appropriate. The balance of the 70 articles cited
included background information.

Records identified: 88 Records excluded: 44
Additional records identified: 12 Full-text articles assessed: 56



Figure 4 - Proportion of articles by journal
13

4. Effectiveness of social media in education

4.1. Use of wikis for a collaborative learning

Lately, it has been common to find in academia articles and studies that discuss the
efficiency of Wikis in the teaching and learning processes (Heng & Marimuthu, 2012)
(Gokcearslan & Ozcan, 2011) (Parker & Chao, 2007). The characteristics of Wiki
technology particularly suit constructivist and collaborative models of learning (see
Figure 5) (Cole, 2009) (Larusson & Alterman, 2009). It allows learners to work
cooperatively/collaboratively and it also allows them to create knowledge, reflect on it
and talk about it (Heng & Marimuthu, 2012).

Wikis serves teachers and students with collaborative tools of creation of knowledge,
allowing students to be more cooperative than competitive and to learn from cumulative
information (Parker & Chao, 2007). Also, it allows learners to be encouraged to reflect
on their knowledge and make it explicit (Parker & Chao, 2007). By automatically
tracking the process of creating content, Wikis also enables educators to assess other
skills, such as leadership, conflict resolution and group management (Palomo-Duarte, et
al., 2014).
Figure 5 (Larusson & Alterman, 2009)
14


The benefits of Wikis to construct knowledge collaboratively were confirmed by some
studies Some of them are: Wiki-based approach engage students in collaborative
construction of knowledge (Montero-Fleta & Prez-Sabater, 2011), students increase
their knowledge as a result of a knowledge building task (Kump, et al., 2013) and wikis
improve students writing performance (Li, et al., 2014).

However, some pedagogical issues needs to be taken into account when using wikis in
classrooms in order to equip learners with the competences they need to participate in
global knowledge construction (Pifarr & Staarman, 2011). For instance, when a large
number of students is working in a Wiki activity, it is essential to provide features for
organizing all the content created (Forte & Bruckman, 2006). Furthermore, to achieve
the best use of wikis among pupils, it is necessary to have a methodology that leads to
effective learning, real life communication and projection into professional world
(Montero-Fleta & Prez-Sabater, 2011).

Foords studies leaded to a document with some suggested principles to be followed by
educators. The STOLEN principle (detailed in Figure 6), as it is called, breaks down
some of the features of using wikis educationally aiming to increase the successfulness
of the wiki implementation (Foord). A tick sheet provided by the author can be found in
the Attachments section of this paper.
Figure 6 (Gokcearslan & Ozcan, 2011)
15

Therefore, teachers role in a wiki-learning environment is as important as the
pedagogical approach. Educators are moving beyond their comfort zones by using wikis
to enhance the teaching and learning process (Augar, et al., 2004). Hadjerrouit (2014)
defined some roles that may apply to teachers in a wiki collaborative tool:
create an atmosphere of trust and confidence that stimulates students to change
peers contributions and modify content created by others for the benefit of the
group;
provide specific guidance to assist students in the writing and peer-editing
process;
make students aware of the difference between cooperation and collaboration,
and what genuine collaborative writing means;
provide strategies that apply to large and small groups, and explain the various
roles for the participants;
synthesize multiple points of views when discussing a wiki task.

The author also stated that teachers are facilitators, which means that they are not
supposed to restrict the learning materials or the writing methods (Hadjerrouit, 2014).


16

4.2. Wikipedia as a teaching tool

Although the use of wikis is spreading among teachers, they look differently to the
particular implementation of wiki technology called Wikipedia, especially because
students might use it as the main source of information for their research projects (Forte
& Bruckman, 2006). Still, Pew Internet Project (2012) concluded that teachers felt that
eliminating the use of all online resources or even particular online resources in
assignments is unrealistic and can be counterproductive (Pew Internet Project, 2012).
The survey also found out that in student focus groups, teens acknowledged that even
when they are not allowed to use Wikipedia in their research, it is still often their first
stop in completing an assignment (Pew Internet Project, 2012).

Apart from the discussion about using Wikipedia as a source of information (see the
section Credibility of Wikipedia in Appendix 1 of this paper), teachers also have the
possibility of using Wikipedia as a mirror of their work, i.e., as a tool that allow[s] and
encourage[s] users to see, simultaneously, a reflection of their use in context (Reilly,
2011). To a better explanation in the context of education, Reilly based her research on
the statement that to effectively avoid approaching Wikipedia as the transparent
window to information [...], students should be taught to approach this technology as a
mirror. From this approach, Konieczny (2012) collected the advantages for students
and educators of using Wikipedia in education.
Advantages for educators
The instructor is assisted by other editors from the Wikipedia community in the task of
guiding/assessing students and in other secondary tasks such as identification of plagiarism.
The history of contributors function of each Wikipedia article provides the teacher with an excellent tool
for monitoring the individual activity in group assignments
Table 2 (Konieczny, 2012)
Advantages for students
Students can feel that their work is being useful to the world instead of being wasted and lost among
many other school projects
Students can strengthen their ability to search for reliable sources and evaluate them critically
Table 3 (Konieczny, 2012)
17

4.3. Educational potential of Facebook

Although Facebook users report a lower mean GPA (Grade Point Average) and spend
fewer hours per week studying than non-Facebook users (Kirschner & Karpinski, 2010),
a research found that 70% of the students believe that the social network is a cheap
tool for promoting knowledge (Grosseck, et al., 2011). Those are some contradictory
findings in the literature and there are others: Hew (2011) noticed that students use
Facebook as a tool to get away from study, concluding that Facebook has very little
educational use; on the other hand, the majority of students in Snchez, et al. (2014)s
research stated that they would not mind using Facebook as a learning tool;
furthermore, Grosseck, et al. (2011) observed that 57.3% of students prefer to receive
assignments via messages or posted on the class group. As a conclusion, student use
of Facebook can be positively or negatively related to their engagement, based on
which activity they perform (Junco, 2012) on the social network and on the culture and
previous education they have received (Baran, 2010).

Considering the suggested educational use of Facebook by some authors, Mazman &
Usluel (2010) investigated three dimensions of Facebook adoption: communication,
resource/material sharing and collaboration. Studies with students of a South African
university (Bosch, 2009), with high school students in Canada (Fewkes & McCabe,
2012), with Taiwanese undergraduate students (Jong, et al., 2014) and at a teacher
education institute in Singapore (Wang, et al., 2012) found that students are effectively
using the social media as a Learning Management System (LMS), a tool to
communicate with their peers and instructors or a place to share resources with their
classmates.

On the other hand, studies at language courses (Blattner & Fiori, 2009), (Shih, 2011), at
a private university in Malaysia (Ponnudurai & Jacob, 2014) and others also observed
the productive use of Facebook to build a collaborative learning environment. As a
collaborative learning tool, Facebook allows students to develop communication,
cognitive and social competencies; to participate actively; to increase individual
18

responsibility and autonomy and to consolidate self-confidence, among others
(Grosseck, et al., 2011). Since the focus of this review is in collaborative learning, the
literature about the collaborative dimension of Facebook will have further detail.

The implementation of blended learning, mixing classroom instruction and an Facebook
assessment, on an English as a Second Language(ESL) course by Shih (2011) proved
that Facebook can work as a collaborative learning environment. As a result of the
project, some advantages were listed: students had the opportunity to assess others
writings, thus exchanging knowledge and improving their writing abilities; motivation
was enhanced among students, especially because of the like feature; the instructors
could effectively assist the construction of knowledge, by letting the students learn with
themselves (Shih, 2011).

Furthermore, in a private university in Malaysia, Ponnudurai & Jacob (2014) found that
the informal, convenient and safe environment of Facebook to receive instructors
feedback led to increased levels of motivation. Also, the findings suggested that
students would prefer social-networking tools to enhance their learning experiences
because of the collaborative or interactive nature and informal status that Facebook has
in their life (Ponnudurai & Jacob, 2014).

Additionally, the likelihood of connecting with strangers and of learn about others
increase the propensity to collaborate in Facebook (Lampe, et al., 2011). In language
courses, the collaborative environment with native speakers proved Facebook as being
a bridge to learn linguistic varieties that textbooks cannot match (Blattner & Fiori, 2009).
Thus, online peer assessment provided the students with additional
chances to construct and refine their knowledge and skills through social
interactions in a virtual environment. These findings are also consistent
with the principle of social constructivism that meaningful interactions in a
learning environment enhances sharing perspectives and experiences in
communities of practice. (Shih, 2011)
19

With this new and innovative role, teachers can improve their pedagogical abilities by
constructing knowledge using the social network cooperatively with their students
(Blattner & Fiori, 2009). Facebook allows educators to accept the student as an
interaction partner, to analyze and compare ways of learning and the knowledge
achieved by students and to perform mentoring for students, among others (Shih,
2011).

It is therefore essential that instructors have a plan for the use of Facebook on their
learning projects and inform students of the objectives of the project, the intended
learning outcomes, how to identify them and what they need to do when learning occurs
(Kabilan, et al., 2010).
20

5. The relationship between teachers and technology

The diversity of learners in conjunction with the idea of using technology to build a
collaborative learning environment brought the concept of a pedagogical approach
known as Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). By integrating e-
learning systems into classroom activities teacher create an interactive and
collaborative learning environment which will support pupils in the process of
assimilating and understanding the information transmitted. (Eftimie, 2013)

This new approach, especially after the popularization of Web 2.0, has lead to
innumerous works in academia, including a dedicated journal, with the same name. In a
volume of this journal, Dohn (2009) argued that there are some very real challenges to
face in the merging of Web 2.0 and educational practices. For instance, the author
stressed that the use of Wikipedia, Facebook and other Web 2.0 tools should be
balanced between being collaborative and maintaining individual authorship (Dohn,
2009). On the other hand, Rahimi, et al. (2014) supports that technology has enabled
students to control their learning process and, from that, built a learning model with
practical directions to develop a personal learning environment (PLE).

Although Revere & Kovach (2011)s contribution to the area with a summary of
advantages, disadvantages and implementation of some technologies for education
(Attachments 2 and 3), it is important to analyze practical cases of technology to build
knowledge. Chan (2011) implemented a CSCL environment in schools in Hong Kong.
The study concluded that CSCL is more than designing the best tools or providing
technology for teachers and students. External forces, such as cultural influences,
political forces and social mechanisms need to be coordinated to the best
implementation of a collaborative learning environment (Chan, 2011). Furthermore, after
implementing knowledge building using online technologies in two different courses,
Joubert & Wishart (2012) concluded that it is important to make the goals clear and to
ensure that the participants are engaged in the objective of the project.

21

5.1. Teachers beliefs and practices with technology usage

When studying teachers participation in new Web-based learning environments, the
first thing to look at is their beliefs and how familiar they are with technology. Pew
Internet Project (2013) collected interesting data from US middle and high school
teachers about the current use of digital tools in schools (Figures 7 and 8). Half of the
interviewed teachers approve the use of technology to improve students writing.
However, the second graph shows that students use of digital tools in school are still
limited to search tools (95% of teachers have suggested its use) and assessments
submission tools (79% of teachers have suggested its use), while some online actions
such as post work on wikis and participate in discussions are being forgotten by most
teachers (Pew Internet Project, 2013). That was the same founds of Smeets (2005)
study: only a minority of teachers used ICT applications that support cooperative
learning and the emphasis in ICT was on remediating tasks for low-achieving pupils
instead of stimulating high-achieving pupils (Smeets, 2005).
Figure 7 (Pew Internet Project, 2012)
22


Usually, teachers tend to use technologies that contribute to their own professional
development instead of their students needs (Ottenbreit-Leftwich, et al., 2010) and this
may occur not only because their knowledge about technologies are limited, but mainly
because their beliefs of ICT effectiveness are still very conservative (Prestridge, 2012).
Knowledge is external to the self, in the sense that it requires evaluation or
judgement to reach a consensus. Whereas, beliefs are formed by non-
consensus, they stem from affective feelings and emotive evaluations as well as
personal experiences, which are not open to outside appraisal or critique.
(Prestridge, 2012)

Teacher beliefs seem to be at least as important as technology-related teacher
characteristics such as computer experience, general computer attitudes and gender
(Hermans, et al., 2008). Additionally, besides the behavioral beliefs - the ones about the
Figure 8 (Pew Internet Project, 2012)
23

efficacy of technology in classrooms, control beliefs, such as infrastructure, time and
supporting personnel, and normative beliefs, like the approval of the parents, also
influence the adoption of ICTs by teachers (Chien, et al., 2014).

Gradually, teachers beliefs related to the use of ICTs are changing (Aldunate &
Nussbaum, 2013) (Chien, et al., 2014). Ottenbreit-Leftwich, et al. (2010) found that
teachers are willing to use technology in classroom because it has enhanced student
motivation and engagement. According to Ertmer, et al. (2012), not only were their
[teachers] attitudes and beliefs not a barrier, they served as a facilitative factor.
Additionally, teachers are able to put in practice technology integrations that are closely
aligned with their beliefs (Ertmer, et al., 2012).

In a longitudinal case study, Scott (2013) highlighted that the development of changes
in beliefs and practices is an iterative process and that gender, age and prior
experience may affect teachers uptake of e-learning. Furthermore, Kreijns, et al. (2013)
found that colleagues use and previous use of ICTs have direct effects on teachers
intention to use it in classrooms: the more they used ICTs in the past, the more they feel
pressured to do so in the future. Mama & Hennessy (2013) developed a typology that
effectively summarize the relation between teachers beliefs and practices on use of ICT
in education (Figure 9)

24


Figure 9 Mama & Hennessy (2013)

5.2. Teachers role in the use of social media to engage students

This study aims to review the literature about teachers and technology, but it also wants
to delimit its scope to social media, such as Facebook and Wikipedia (there is one
section for each of them in this paper). Different social software tools have unique
features that can be used in teaching and learning and the details of wikis and social
networking sites are provided in Figure 10 (Minocha, et al., 2011).

Figure 10 (Minocha, et al., 2011)
25

Research proved that right use of social media in education contributes to better
learning outcomes to students and better satisfaction (Cao, et al., 2013). Wang & Kang
(2006) proposed a model of Cybergogy for Engaged Learning (Figure 11),
considering three domains that might be considered by instructors to design appropriate
strategies to engage students.
At the core of cybergogy is engaged learning, in which students establish their
own goals, explore appropriate resources, work with others in groups, and
construct knowledge in meaningful ways. [...] The instructors can use this model
to profile each learner and then design tactics to engage individuals accordingly,
a process we call "customized engagement". As a consequence, learners will not
only have the opportunity to accomplish their learning goals, but also will be
actively involved in the learning process. (Wang & Kang, 2006)


Figure 11 (Wang & Kang, 2006)


26

However, teachers still claim that the educational value of social media is impacted by
their lack of knowledge of the best social media resources (Rambe & Nel, 2014). The
decisions of which social media should be used and what is the best way to use it are
influenced by external pressure, perceived usefulness and task-technology compatibility
(Cao, et al., 2013).

Dabbagh & Kitsantas (2012) proposed a framework for using social media in PLEs. It is
based on the levels of interactivity that social media tools enable, where Level 1 is for
personal information management, Level 2 is related to social interaction and
collaboration and Level 3 is about information aggregation and management. Figure 12
shows how this framework could be implemented in some social media (Wiki and social
networking sites).


From the figure above, it can be noticed that teachers (referred as instructors) have an
important role on any level of the framework. Regardless of the kind of impact on the
learning process caused by the introduction of technology to develop a collaborative
environment, it needs to be observed that teachers role on this new teaching and
learning environment is also changing (Mahimi, et al., 2012). The results of a discussion
board initiative highlighted the importance of the teacher, both in moderating the online
discussion and in providing instruction and guidance (Joubert & Wishart, 2012).

Figure 12 Dabbagh & Kitsantas (2012)
27

Furthermore, Rovai (2004) stated that the role of an instructor in a constructivist
learning environment may vary: teacher can be the source of knowledge for the
students, an expert in the studied area; or he/she can assume the role of a tutor,
engaging students in problem-based learning based in collaborative activities. In both
cases, it illustrates the complex role that teachers are required to fulfill: they need to
give feedback about learning content, academic task and social participation; they also
need to vary the focus and type of feedback according to the students needs at
different points of the teaching process (Coll, et al., 2014). All the roles described in the
mentioned literature can be summarized in Fig XX, provided by (Minocha, et al., 2011).
The author highlighted the importance of teachers role in a social software initiative
against the current literature mainly focused on the characteristics of the tools.
Figure 13 (Minocha, et al., 2011)
28

7. Discussion

The purpose of the paper is to present a review of previously published empirical
studies about the educational value of social media, focusing in Facebook and
Wikipedia, and the teachers role facing the new collaborative learning environments. In
the five years of literature searched, very successful cases of social media
implementation in classrooms gives an overall prove that use of this technology in
education has been effective.

The review was divided in two main sections. The first one talks about wikis and the
social networking Facebook and their use to build a collaborative environment.
Unfortunately, regarding to the specific social media applications Wikipedia and
Facebook, the results were not so helpful. One focus was to understand how Wikipedia
has been used in education, but few studies about the encyclopedia were found in this
research, and none of them was from the reliable sources. On the other hand, the
literature about wikis in general proved very complete, including guides and proposed
roles for teachers aiming to work with wikis in their courses. On the other hand, the
discussion about the use of Facebook by students has very controversial findings. Since
the social networking site is very popular among the youth, educators cannot decide
whether Facebook should be used to improve the learning process. This may be the
reason why many searched articles have similar and not constructive conclusions about
the educational use of Facebook for the academy. Nonetheless, with respect to
implementing a collaborative learning environment, the social media has proved very
effective, with successful case studies in different countries.

The last section of this paper exposed the literature regarding how technology,
especially social media, has been used to build a collaborative and constructivist
learning environment. Many studies were found useful and provided different and
important result about the subject. The findings about the evolution of teachers role with
social media usage were valuable, showing that teachers are now working as a
facilitator of the learning process instead of giving orders to the learners. Teachers are,
29

gradually, creating a community in classrooms without forgetting to stand as an expert
of the studied subject to give guidance on the learning process.

A summary of the literature review can be found in Tables 4, 5 and 6:

Topic: Use of wikis in education
Subtopic Main finding
Wikis to build a
collaborative learning
environment
Wikis have a lot of properties that are effective in building a collaborative
learning environment with their students and some implementation issues
must be analyzed
Teachers role in a Wiki
environment
Teachers role change substantially when using Wikis in classroom and the
STOLEN principle may help instructors with the implementation of a Wiki
environment
Wikipedia as a teaching
tool
Wikipedia has advantages for educators and students, but teachers are still
conservative in relation to the use of it in classrooms
Table 4 Review of use of wikis in education


Topic: Educational potential of Facebook
Subtopic Main finding
Pros and cons of
students use of
Facebook
The discussion of Facebook usage among students does not have a final
conclusion, with pros and cons as a result of the studies
Educational use of
Facebook
There is a model that helps authors to analyze the educational use of
Facebook, considering three dimensions. Many case studies proved the
efficacy of Facebook implementation
Collaborative
environment using
Facebook
There are many advantages of using Facebook to build a collaborative
learning environment. The case studies found in this research were
successful
Teachers role using
Facebook in education
Since Facebook is a very informal tool, teachers are required to have a plan
when using Facebook in classroom
Table 5 Review of educational potential of Facebook
30


Topic: The relationship between teachers and technology
Subtopic Main finding
Integration of technology
in classrooms
Integrating Web technologies in courses can lead to an improved student
engagement
Collaborative learning
with ICTs
ICTs provide the interaction and collaboration needed to engage students
and build a collaborative learning environment. Many factors contribute to a
correct implementation of ICT for collaboration
The impact of teachers
beliefs in technology
usage
Teachers beliefs are as important as teachers knowledge about the
technology to be used. The beliefs are gradually evolving to a more open-
minded thought about use of technology in classrooms
Social media in education Social media has been proved appropriate to build an engaged learning
environment. There are useful models and frameworks that can help
instructors to implement it
Teachers role in the use
of social media
Teachers are evolving from an individual role of being an expert about a
subject to a range of roles related to facilitating the learning process
Table 6 Review of the relationship between teachers and technology

31

8. Conclusion

This study sought to bring to the academic debate an overview of literature over the use
of social media, such as Facebook and Wikipedia, to build a collaborative, constructivist
and engaged learning environment. Although most teachers are not actively using
technology to engage their students yet, gradually they are discovering the advantages
of teaching the students to learn and construct knowledge collaboratively. Facebook
and Wikipedia are just two of many popular Web tools that can be potentially applied for
teaching and learning.

Therefore, it is important that educators expand the concept of teaching to have less
lectures and more research and discussion. The understanding of models and
frameworks summarized above can help teachers establishing the best way to use Web
tools to create a community of practice among students in a course, thus accelerating
their learning process.

Hence, with the key points provided in this literature survey, it is expected that future
research lead to case studies of practical applications of the use of Wikipedia and
Facebook in classrooms. Consequently, it is desired that such applications return good
impacts on the learning process.


32

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38

Appendices

Appendix 1. About Wikipedia

Wikipedia is known to be the largest free encyclopedia available in the web. It belongs
to a group of web-applications called Wiki, often described as one of the most popular
Web 2.0 technologies (e.g. Leslie and Landon, 2008). It is defined as "a collection of
web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content,
using a simplified markup language" (Ramanau & Geng, 2009).

According to Gokcearslan & Ozcan (2011), there are some properties that an
application must have to be considered as a wiki: not a single author is permitted [...], it
has a simplified format language [...], its focal point is its content [...], it provides version
follow-up [...] and it is followed up by the community" (Gokcearslan & Ozcan, 2011). As
stated in the Wikipedia article about the encyclopedia itself, Wikipedia fulfills those rules
by being a collaboratively edited, multilingual, free-access, free content Internet
encyclopedia that is supported and hosted by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.
Volunteers worldwide collaboratively write Wikipedia's 30 million articles in 287
languages, including over 4.5 million in the English Wikipedia" (Wikipedia, 2014)..
Figure 1 shows statistics about English Wikipedia provided in real-time on the
encyclopedia website.










Figure 14 (Wikipedia, 2014)
39

Credibility of Wikipedia

Given that all of the content in Wikipedia is provided by anonymous individuals
with unknown degrees of topic expertise, there has been a great deal of concern
regarding the credibility of this information, particularly compared with more
established venues like Encyclopdia Britannica. (Flanagin & Metzger, 2011)

The quote above summarizes a very shared opinion in the academic community. It also
mentions Encyclopedia Britannica as a reference to evaluate Wikipedias information
credibility. As opposed to Wikipedia, since the 18th century Encyclopedia Britannica has
been a trusted source of information since it utilizes significant resources for hiring staff
to solicit and edit articles, and to manage the content (Kubiszewski, et al., 2011). Many
scholars have focused their research on finding factors that influence students and
teachers to rely on and make use of one encyclopedia or the other.

A study directed by Kubiszewski, et al. (2011) aimed to find if the perception of
credibility of an online encyclopedia article would be affected by peripheral cues inside
the article. Through an online survey, members of academia, from freshman to
professors, were asked to answer some questions about their perceptions of an specific
encyclopedia article. After a compilation of data collected, results of the study
demonstrate that one of the most significant influences on perceptions of an online
articles credibility is the subjects belief about the identity (i.e., name) of the
encyclopedia presenting the information. In other words, participants evaluated
Wikipedias article as less credible than the same information appearing in
Encyclopedia Britannica.

Such conclusion may be the reason why many teachers do not allow students to use
Wikipedia as a reference in their schoolwork (Pew Internet Project, 2012). A survey
among US teachers (Pew Internet Project, 2012) found that just 5% of teachers
participating in the survey say that all or almost all of the information they find using
search engines is accurate or trustworthy (Figure 2) and that 75% of teachers believe
40

their students are very likely to use Wikipedia or other online encyclopedias in a typical
research assignment (Figure 3). Considering these facts, it can be said that the
perceived credibility of online sources of information such as Wikipedia directly
influences students knowledge creation and must require further attention from
teachers.




However, Wikipedias credibility may have been underestimated by teachers and
surveys participants. A study carried out by Nature magazine (Giles, 2005) revealed
41

numerous errors in both encyclopaedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in
accuracy was not particularly great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained
around four inaccuracies; Britannica, about three. (Giles, 2005). The investigation also
found that more than 70% of Nature authors have heard of Wikipedia and less than
10% help to update it, which suggests that authors of scientific articles are still getting to
know more about the free encyclopedia. The steady trickle of scientists who have
contributed to articles describe the experience as rewarding (Giles, 2005) and, as the
involvement of researchers get bigger, the quality of articles will also increase. In
consonance with the finds shown by Nature, it is expected that, gradually, Wikipedias
credibility in academia will grow and students will be able to get reliable information from
online free encyclopedias and generate accurate knowledge about it.























42

Appendix 2. About Facebook

Facebook is a computer-mediated Social Networking System that was created by Mark
Zuckerberg to help residential college and university students identify students in other
residence halls in 2004. By that time, it is described as an online directory that connects
people through social networks at colleges and universities (Kirschner & Karpinski,
2010). The social network has reached 1 billion users worldwide in 2012 (Ponnudurai &
Jacob, 2014). More statistics are provided in Figure 15 (Facebook, 2014).


Figure 15 Facebook Statistics


43

Attachments
Attachment 1. The STOLEN Principles Tick Sheet
44

Attachment 2. Summary of Traditional Technologies for Engaged Learning
45

Attachment 3. Summary of Web-based Applications to Improve Engagement