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FACEBOOK AS A TOOL FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING

Conference Paper · April 2014

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Isham Shah Hassan

Port Dickson Polytechnic
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 FACEBOOK AS A TOOL FOR TEACHING AND
LEARNING
Isham Shah Hassan
Politeknik Port Dickson
[email protected]

ABSTRACT

Facebook, a social media web application, is a part of million student lives. Students use Facebook for
communicating with friends and playing games. Since they use Facebook frequently and comfortably,
we may exploit this entertainment-oriented site as an edutainment tool. Although there are many tools
available for eLearning, Facebook seems to be one of the most effective tools because students
generally respond to discussions quickly and are comfortable enough in their "space" to share their
information and opinions. By using Facebook in learning, the role of students can therefore shift from
only receiving knowledge to both searching and sharing their knowledge. Moreover, interactions with
teachers can become more instant since teachers and students can respond quickly via Facebook. It is
worthy to realize, however, that teachers cannot use Facebook as a single teaching and learning tool.
Facebook still lacks features such as file submission and file sharing to support the complete learning
process. This paper presents the approach and the experience in using Facebook for architectural
students in Port Dickson Polytechnic for both informal and formal learning. In the formal courses,
Facebook is used for discussion, sharing video and document links. We found that students actively
and quickly participated in both asking and answering a lecturer’s questions. In addition, students also
shared their new knowledge even after the classes have ended and grades were assigned. As a result,
Facebook has an excellent potential to serve as a lifelong learning channel for lecturers and students
in polytechnic.

Introduction

On daily basis millions of people access Facebook to connect with their family and friends,
searching information and playing games. Many students spend more time on socializing
with their friends through Facebook. Students have less time on self-studying on books or
academic web sites. To get the benefits from Facebook instead of being against the usage of
Facebook, teachers can creatively employ them as tools for supporting students’ continuous
learning activities. In this article, the authors present the usage of Facebook in formal
education, such as using Facebook in formal courses in polytechnic, and in informal
education, such as using Facebook for learning AutoCAD, advising students, requesting
students to send their assignment, reminding students about their tests and quizzes and giving
knowledge about heritage building. Through this article also we will also present advantages
and disadvantages of using Facebook for learning and teaching. Nowadays Facebook has
been increasingly popular worldwide. Mark Mahaney reported that Facebook had passed
Google in terms of time spent online (Sterling 2010). Mahaney noted that in August 2010,
Facebook, for the first time took the top spot with 41.1 billion minutes followed by Google
with 39.8 billion minutes (Sterling 2010). Facebook is the number one social network site
which has 704,130,980 user accounts on June 24, 2011 (Socialbakers.com 2011). 50% of
Facebook active users log on to Facebook in any given day (Facebook.com 2011a). 80
million new users registered in the first 3 months of the 2011. Nearly 30% of the new account
registrations have been made by users in the age group of 18–24 years, representing people
who are in colleges and universities worldwide. This age group constantly remains the
strongest one on Facebook and at this moment represents over 210 million Facebook users
overall (Socialbakers.com, 2011).
In Malaysia there are about 13.3 million or 45. 5 per cent of the total population in the
country are Facebook users and this puts Malaysia on the 8th spot in Asia and 21st place in
the world (Borneo Post 2013). From the total figure, those aged between 18 and 24 were the
highest users, contributing 34.5 per cent followed by those aged 25-34 years (29.5 per cent)
and 13-17 years (16.3 per cent) (Borneo Post 2013). From the data presented above we can
conclude that Facebook can be a potential tool for learning and teaching that can be used to
reach this group of young people, many of which are in Malaysia polytechnics, colleges and
universities. This statistic tells us that today’s teenagers are being exposed to Facebook. The
usage of such social media has indirectly affected their (teenagers) way of communicating
and lifestyle. For this matter it is also essential to understand the advantages and
disadvantages as well as how to appropriately use Facebook for learning and teaching. For
the remaining of the paper, we organize the paper as following for the first part discusses
Facebook in teaching and learning. Then, the next part presents the usage of Facebook in
both formal and informal education. Then, in part three, we present both advantages and
disadvantages of using Facebook for teaching and learning. Finally, this article will conclude
in the final section.

Facebook in Teaching and Learning

In this part of the article we consider related work in using Facebook in teaching and
learning. One of the most interesting article that discusses how a teacher can use Facebook is
“Facebook for Educator”, which suggests 7 ways to educators which school’s policy about
Facebook, developing guidelines for Facebook in teaching and learning, safety and provacy
settings on Facebook, promoting good citizenship in the digital world, using Facebook’s page
and group features to communicate with students, embrace the learning styles of 21st century
students and use Facebook as a professional development resource (Phillips et al. 2011). This
research differs from the article titled Facebook for Educators (Phillips et al., 2011) in that we
focus on how to use Facebook groups to communicate with others for learning and teaching.
In addition, this article also provides the advantages and disadvantages of using Facebook for
learning and teaching.

The Purpose of the Research

This article offers a new approach in architectural education, through a medium other than
the traditional methods used in polytechnic. Nowadays Facebook is the latest tool in teaching
and learning. This article shows upon how Facebook can be used in helping architectural
students to learn, communicate and obtaining information. This research wants to see upon
how Facebook is helping students to communicate with lecturers and classmates while
learning digital modeling class. This research also wants to see upon how Facebook can be
source of informations for architectural heritage class. The purposes of this research are as
follow to identify the interest of the student in finding information need using Facebook, to
study the effect of integrating Facebook in the learning process, to get the student perceptions
in searching information using Facebook and to study the effect of integrating Facebook in
architecturals’ students learning process.
Facebook in Education

In this article, we describe how we use Facebook in both formal and informal education. For
formal education it being referred to official modules that students can register in Port
Dickson Polytechnic. Whereas for informal education here refers to learning outside class
and even learning outside Port Dickson Polytechnic campus. In this paper, we give examples
of learning inside and outside classroom through using Facebook to communicate in a class,
sending assignment, to share information in a class, and using Facebook to ask and questions
about how create digital model utilizing AutoCAD. For digital modeling class students
received instruction for tutorials and quizzes using CiDOS (Curriculum Information
Document Online System). To create more interest to the students, communication during
the ongoing class using Facebook. They also are to communicate with classmates and
lecturer using Facebook. CiDOS is a system being designed in polytechnic for storing notes,
quizzes and tutorials for all the modules being offered in polytechnic.

Figure 1 Sample upon how instruction on tutorial for digital modeling class being given to students via
Facebook
Figure 2 Sample upon how instruction for creating jpeg being given to students via Facebook

Figure 3 Sample upon how students submitting tutorial via Facebook for 3D modeling class
Figure 4 Sample upon how notes and information being given to students for measured drawing class

Figure 5 Sample upon how reminder being given to students for digital modeling class
 Figure 6 Sample upon how encouragement being given to students for digital modeling class

Research design

This research consists of communicating activity and obtaining information activity.

Communication activity for digital modeling class while obtaining information activity for
measured drawing class. Through this study, researchers want to see the students’ perception
on using Facebook in teaching and learning. Research has been made on students of diploma
architecture Jun session 2013 from two (2) classes in Port Dickson Polytechnic. Research
duration is for six (6) weeks involving sixty students (60) as research samples. In this
research, twenty eight students (28) from digital modeling class received instructions from
instructor using Facebook as media and thirty two students (32) are obtaining informations
for measured drawing class from the informations being posted to the Facebook.
Questionnaire used as an instrument to get the students’ perception after the learning process
is over.

Findings

The findings consists 60 responses. The percentage of types of respondents is about 58% is
male while 42% is female. The finding shows that 65% have used Facebook for teaching and
learning for only 0-6 months, 21% haved used for 6-12 months, 12% have used 1-2 years,
and only 2% have used it for more than 2 years. This finding implies that the majority of
people have just started to use Facebook for teaching and learning. The finding also shows
that 78% have used facebook for posting status, 83% have used Facebook for replying
comments, 63% have used Facebook for sharing web link, 70% have used Facebook for
sharing picture, 63% have used Facebook for sharing documents, 43% have used Facebook
for sharing videos, 15% have used Facebook for creating events, and 8% have used Facebook
for other purposes. This finding implies that most of respondents have used Facebook for
sharing resources which include documents and pictures.
Advantages and Disadvantages of using Facebook for Teaching and Learning

In this part we would like to investigate about advantages and disadvantages of using
Facebook for teaching and learning. The first question is in the term of advantages of using
Facebook for teaching and learning which include 1) Interaction, 2) Comfortability, 3) Easy
to use, 4) Sharing status and 5) Participation. The degree of an opinionis divided into 5
scales: strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree and strongly disagree. A pilot test was carried
with 30 students from Port Dickson Polytechnic. The reliabilities coefficient of the
instrument to see perception is 0.863. Data from this pilot test not being used for the final
analysis. From the finding we can conclude that the distinguished advantages of using
Facebook for teaching and learning include convenience, easy to use, and instance interaction
as shown. Each aspect of the findings has the mean more than 4.0. The aspect which has the
highest mean is comfortability in using Facebook for getting informations. This finding
shows that the students in digital modeling class and measured drawing class agree that
Facebook is a good supplementary tool in teaching and learning. Lecturer in Port Dickson
Polytechnic should take the opportunity in using Facebook for teaching and learning.

Table 1 Respondents perception on the advantages of Facebook in teaching and learning

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std Deviation

INTERACTION 60 2 5 4.27 .798

COMFORTABILITY 60 2 5 4.46 .664

EASY TO USE 60 2 5 4.10 .724

SHARING 60 2 5 4.31 .696

PARTICIPATION 60 2 5 4.04 .689

Valid (N) Listwise 60

In this part we are concentrating on the term of disadvantages of using Facebook as a tool for
teaching and learning. The term are time consumption, difficulty in finding, difficulty in
keeping infos, too open to public and disturbing personal space. The degree of opinion is
divided into 5 scales which are strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree and strongly disagree.
From Table 2, we can conclude that the many respondents do not agree about many
disadvantages of using Facebook for teaching and learning as the mean for each disadvanage
is about 3.0 (neutral). The only disadvantage where the respondents are agreeing upon is the
aspect where the Facebook is too open to the public.
 Table 2 Respondents perception on the disadvantages of Facebook in teaching and learning

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std Deviation

TIME
CONSUMPTION 60 2 5 2.77 1.098

DIFFICULTY IN
FINDING 60 1 5 2.86 1.134

DIFFILCULTY IN
KEEPING 60 1 5 2.98 1.128

TOO OPEN 60 2 5 3.31 1.266

DISTURBING
PERSONAL 60 2 5 2.94 1.069
SPACE

Valid (N) Listwise 60

Conclusion

In this article, we have shown an approach and shared the experiences of using Facebook as a
tool for teaching and learning. This study shows that many students quickly respond to
teachers’ posts, sending tutorial on time and they also shared useful information. The result of
the survey that most respondents agree that the advantages of Facebook are easy interaction,
comfort in getting informations, easy to use and easy to share informations while most people
view the only disadvantages is too open to public. In the future, we consider studying the
effect of utilizing Facebook in teaching and learning using quasi experimental approach. We
also would like to study what features may increase user engagement with CiDOS by
integrating with Facebook in Port Dickson Polytechnic
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