The Social Network Classroom

Peter Bunus
Department of Computer and Information Science
Linkping University, Sweden
petbu@ida.liu.se

Abstract. Online social networking is an important part in the everyday life of

college students. Despite the increasing popularity of online social networking
among students and faculty members, its educational benefits are largely
untested. This paper presents our experience in using social networking
applications and video content distribution websites as a complement of
traditional classroom education. In particular, the solution has been based on
effective adaptation, extension and integration of Facebook, Twitter, Blogger
YouTube and iTunes services for delivering educational material to students on
mobile platforms like iPods and 3rd generation mobile phones. The goals of the
proposed educational platform, described in this paper, are to make the learning
experience more engaging, to encourage collaborative work and knowledge
sharing among students, and to provide an interactive platform for the educators
to reach students and deliver lecture material in a totally new way.
Keywords: Social networking, blogging, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube.

Introduction

Teens and college students, ages 12 to 28 years, have quickly embraced online
technologies that enable social, communicative and creative uses. They are more
likely than other age categories to send and receive email messages, play online
games, create blogs, download music, search for school information online or simply
spending time online. They are used that information is delivered in this way.
Traditional classroom education simply does not fulfill anymore the expectation of
students. Use of media and modern means of interaction has literally rewired the way
that our students think and process information.
According to a December 2008 survey performed by Lenhart 2009 [5] for the PEW
Internet and American Life Project the share of the adult users who have a profile on
an online social network has grown from 8% in 2005 to 35% in December 2008. It is
worth noticing that the social network users are equally likely to be men and women,
and also more likely to be young: 75% of adults between 18 and 24 have an online
profile as do 57% of adults between 25 and 35, according to the same study.
Moreover 68% of full time students and 71% of part-time students have a social
network profile.
It is even more interesting to take a look in the kind of activities those young
people are engaging themselves when they are online. Table 1 depicts the

generational differences in online activities according to another study performed by

Jones and Fox 2009 [4] for PEW Internet and American Life Project. It can be noticed
that a large proportion of the people with ages between 18-28 years (the typical age of
college students) are using the internet for watching videos online (72%), send instant
messages (59%), reading blogs (43%) or use social networking sites (67%). The
survey from Table 1 shows that teens and younger people ages 18-32 are significantly
more likely than older users to send and receive instant messages, playing online
games, create blogs or download videos.
Table 1. Generational differences in online activities according to Jones and Fox 2009 [4]
Online
GenY GenX
Teens
(1832) (3344)
(1217)

Goonline
Playgamesonline
Watchvideosonline
Getinfoaboutajob
Sendinstantmessages
Usesocialnetworkingsites
Downloadmusic
CreateSNSprofile
Readblogs
Createablog
Visitavirtualworld

Younger
Older
Silent
G.I
All
Boomers Boomers Generation Generation Online
(4554) (5563) (6472)
(73+)
Adults

93%

87%

82%

79%

70%

56%

31%

74%

78
57
30
68
65
59
55
49
28
10

50
72
64
59
67
58
60
43
20
2

38
57
55
38
36
46
29
34
10
3

26
49
43
28
20
22
16
27
6
1

28
30
36
23
9
21
9
25
7
1

25
24
11
25
11
16
5
23
6
1

18
14
10
18
4
5
4
15
6
0

35
52
47
38
35
37
29
32
11
2

The goal of the pedagogical study presented in this paper was to leverage and use for
educational purposes the new online technologies that the students are already using
in their every day work or in their free time. It this way, we have tried to make the
learning experience of the students more effective and engaging. We propose the use
and integration of social networking sites, podcasting technologies and applications
developed for mobile devices into a collaborative online educational platform called
eSocialClasroom. Our expectation was that the eSocialClasroom should encourage
collaborative work and knowledge sharing among students and function as a platform
for the educators to reach the students and deliver lecture material in a totally new
way.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents the technical
architecture of the eSocialClasroom platform. In Section 3 we present some of the
preliminary results of our teaching experiment and the social and educational benefits
of the project that we have observed during the duration of this experiment. Finally,
Section 4 presents our conclusions and future work.

Technical Architecture of the eSocialClasroom

Traditionally class material is delivered to the student in a printed form during the
lecture or electronically via the course webpage. However the delivered electronic
content via the webpage, in most of the cases, is in the form of a pdf file of the lecture
slides and can be only visualized on a computer. From the teacher point of view this is
a very convenient way of delivering the classroom material: it can be done very

quickly and requires little technical knowledge about web technologies. From the
students point of view this will require some discipline like checking regularly the
course web page for updates and for new material. It is a safe communication channel
between the teacher and the students. However there are several disadvantages with
this approach: Firstly, the material available on the course webpage is available only
for computers and cannot be visualized on mobile devices. Moreover the material is
seldom interactive or exploits the available multimedia technologies. Secondly, the
students enrolled in a course hardly know their classmates or have course related
interaction. Their interaction is limited to the breaks between the lecture hours or
during the laboratory sessions.
To overcome some of these problems, we propose an educational platform called
eSocialClasrrom (see Fig. 1 below) that combines Web 2.0 technology, social
networking and mobile application for delivering educational material to the student
in a new and innovative way.

Fig. 1. The architecture of the proposed eSocialClasroom platform.

The eSocialClasroom Platform was built on Web 2.0 and mobile technologies and
experimentally deployed for a one semester Computer Science class (Design Patterns)
at Linkping University, Sweden. The experiment has been performed during a three
months period. In addition to the normal course web page the following components
have been used:

iTunes and YouTube for podcasting course related multimedia content to the
students. Audio files and classroom related video content like recoded lecture
sessions combined with slideshow presentations have been automatically
podcasted to students. The classroom material podcasted by the teacher is
automatically downloaded to the students mobile device (IPhones, Ipods or
mobile phones), so the students receive an up to date material. During this project
we have also developed interactive mobile teaching applications for IPhone and
ITouch devices.

Use of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter for distribution of
course announcements, course related link, interactive slide shows and quizzes.
In this way students can have access to additional course material is a new and
innovative way while they can also know each other better and interact during the
course. A special Facebook group was created for the students enrolled in the
Design Patterns course. 71% of all the students enrolled in the Design Pattern
Class have also joined the Facebook group. The Facebook group enrolment was
optional.
Blogger for a forum on which students can express themselves on issues related
to the course that they are following, can propose new ideas or present their
original view and which requires a deeper presentation of subject under
discussion. In this way the dialog among students and between students and
teachers have been extended well beyond the classroom environment.

Project Benefits

The students participation and usage of the eSocialClasroom components was

optional and was considered as an extracurricular course activity. During the one
semester deployment of the eSocialClasroom platform the following benefits have
been observed:
3.1

Social Benefits

The study performed by Ellison et al. 2007 [1] indicates a clear association between
the use of a social network site like Facebook and three types of social capital:
bonding social capital, bridging social capital and maintained social capital, as
defined by Putnam 2007 [7]. Social capital, in this context refers to the resources
accumulated through the relationships among people. Bonding is the strongest form
of social capital and it is usually manifested among individuals that are belonging to a
homogenous category like family, very close friends or even criminal gangs. Bridging
is usually manifested among individuals with the same goals or similar interests like a
sport team, classmates or neighbors. The third form of social capital called maintained
refers to relationships that are kept despite the fact that a significant change has
happened in the social networks of the individuals. As an example, a social
relationship with former high school classmate that is located now in a different
geographic location and has different interest compared to ours can be considered to
be a maintained relations.
A high social capital is generally considered to be closely related to positive
outcomes for the society in general and a better psychological wellbeing of the
individuals that is part of the high social capital group. For individuals and for the
students in particular the accumulated social capital allows them to benefit from the
social network wisdom in form of useful information, personal relationships that
will directly affect their academic life with future extension to their professional life.
Social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace are actually designed to
exploit bridging and maintained social capital (people who kind of know but you
wouldnt chat with). According to the Stanford sociologist Mark Granovetter 1973 [2]
weak ties are more likely than strong ties to provide new information and

opportunities like a new job or new career path. The resources of the bonding social
capital are probably very similar while the weak ties will provide a much larger
diversity.
All the three types of social capitals were visible in the developed relationships
inside the Facebook group that we have created for the course. The accumulation of
bonding and bridging social capital was very evident among the members. The
students very quickly developed a course identity extending to personal social
relationships despite the fact of the cultural diversity of the class members. The
bridging capital was not only limited to the students enrolled in the course. Several
other external members with interest in computer science have also joined the group
together with other academic people interested in educational aspects of the social
networks. An unexpected aspect was that we have also observed several instances of
maintained relationships in which former students from previous years have joined
the course social network site and interacted with students or the teacher.
3.2

Educational Benefits for the Students

The following scenario illustrates a typical usage of the proposed eSocialClasroom

platform. The scenario is based on the interviews performed on three students at the
end of the course. The names used in the following use case scenario are fictitious and
any resemblance to real persons is purely coincidental.
Anna Svenson, a student of University of Linkping, Sweden, is enrolled in the
Computer Science program in her last study year. Soon is time for Anna to choose a
final master project. Anna lives 50 km (31 miles) from the university in a city called
Norrkoping and every day she takes the campus buss to Linkping to attend her
lectures. In our scenario we can see her waiting for the bus at the central station. She
has arrived a little bit earlier to the station and while waiting for the buss she flips
open her mobile phone and start writing an SMS message to her friend. After
finishing sending the message she decides to check what her friends are doing on
Facebook. She connects to Facebook using the mobile phone and she can immediately
see that Angelica her classmate has posted some pictures from the last week party. A
smile on her face immediately appears while looking at the pictures. There is also a
friendship request from a former classmate David. David was an exchange student
from Australia, that Anna met two years ago, but after 6 month spent at Linkping
University, David went back home. She did not hear from David since then. Anna
accepts his invitation and immediately access Davids profile. Now she can see that
David become a graduate student at Carnegie Melon University in USA. This is
great thinks Anna, because she would like to enroll for a graduate program at a
university in USA after her graduation. Now I can ask David how this can be done,
he surely went through this already and he might be able to help me. She quickly
writes a message to David then she is navigating back to the Facebook home page to
see what else happened with her friends. Then she notices that there are some new
postings from the Facebook group of the Design Patterns course (see Fig 2) in which
she is enrolled this term. The teacher just posted a small video from YouTube in
which Alan Kay a famous computer scientist explains the functionality of an early
computer graphics system developed at MIT in the late 60s. Anna remembers that her

professor mentioned something about that

computer system during the last lecture. She
watches the four minutes short movie and indeed
now she clearly sees the connection between the
computer science notions that her teacher
presented and the computer graphics system
developed at MIT.
She decides to check further the messages on
Facebook but the bus has arrived. Now it is time
for a quite boring 50 min trip to Linkping. She
close the mobile phone, shows the ticket to the
bus driver than she takes a sit in the bus. What
a boring trip says Anna trying to figure out
what to do during this trip that she need to make

it every day. She searches her pockets and finds

the ITouch in the internal pocket of the jacket.
Fig. 2. The Design Pattern Course
Facebook page accessed from a
This trip it will not be so boring after all if I
mobile phone
listen to some music thinks Anna and
carefully removes the protective cover of the
ITouch. While searching for her favorite song she notices that the animated
slideshows of the latest Design Patterns Lecture together with the sound recording of
the lecture have been automatically downloaded to her iPod via the a podcasting
service. Oh, Great Anna says Now actually I can check what the professor said
during the lecture about the MIT computer graphics system. She opens the video file
and the she find the sequence where the professors explain the MIT systems. She
listens to the explanations while watching the animated slide show (see Fig 3). Now
everything is much clear thinks Anna and she continue to watch the lecture movie
for five more minutes. Then she remembers that she had some difficulties with the
latest laboratory work for that course. She was simply not able to compile the latest
program on her machine. She decides to check the course discussion forum on the
course Facebook. Maybe some of her colleagues have already solved that problem.
Anna opens again her mobile phone then and check the forum. Unfortunately nobody
posted a solution to her problem. She decides to post a question to her problem on the
Facebook group discussion forum.
She starts writing the question and
after finishing she push the
publish button. Maybe somebody
will help me hopes Anna. She
notices a flashing banner in the
right corner Amy Eriksson took
an object-oriented programming
skills quiz. Her score is 85. Could
you beat her score? Im sure that
I can beat her score thinks

Anna very confidently. The quiz

was made by the teacher of the
Fig. 3. Recording of a Design Course lecture
design pattern course and consists
running on an Apple ITouch.

of 15 programming questions similar to those that will be given during the exam.
Anna starts working on the quiz. It is actually harder than she thought at the
beginning. She finishes the quiz after 15 min with the final score of 82. Well, she did
not beat Amy but she can see that 42 other colleagues have taken the quiz and she has
a score that it is in the top 10 of her class. It is not bad - she thinks. While she is
contemplating the quiz statistics there are two incoming messages that inform her that
two answers were posted to the discussion thread that she opened 15 min ago. Two
classmates, Mark and Spencer have both posted a solution to Annas problem. Ohh it
was so easy to solve it. How could I miss that compilation directive?
The buss finally arrived at the campus and Anna takes the shortest way to the C
Building where her lecture that she intends to attend will start in 10 min. Plenty of
time left to tweet a message to her friends: I feel :-) today despite the rainy
weather in Linkping.

Conclusions

The proposed eSocialClasroom platform was adapted very quickly by the students
despite the fact that students expect social networks to be social and not necessarily
educational. At the end of this experiment we could clearly see the potential of social
networks as an educational tool for extending the traditional classroom education.
However the educational benefits of social networks are largely untested. Much of the
existing academic research on social networks and in particular on Facebook has
focused on the social benefits aspects (Ellison et al. 2007 [1], Valenzuela et al. 2009
[8], Zywica and James 2008 [9]) including studies on differences among users and
non-users of social networks (Hargittai 2008 [3]) or privacy, identity and security
aspects (Lewis et al. 2008 [6]). We are not aware of any detailed studies that address
effects of the social networking sites in the relationship between professors and
students or between students in classroom settings despite the fact that many faculty
members have already a social network based classroom presence.
We intend to repeat the experiment and the deployment of the eSocialClasroom
platform again during the fall term 2010. The student satisfaction and learning
improvement will be systematically measured by conducting interviews with the
students and systematic evaluation of the impact that the proposed framework has on
the learning process. The didactical success of the system can be defined by the
student satisfaction and the degree of how much the eSocialClasroom boosts
collaboration of students that would otherwise work on their own. Before extending
the project at other courses we need however to answer several questions:

Is there sufficient proof of educational value to consider the proposed platform as

an alternative/complement and as a non conventional way to classical
information distribution (printed lecture notes and course web page)?
What would be the effect of such an information distribution and how much will
involve the students?
Will it improve learning or it will distract the students from their usual course
work?
How teacher would embrace this new technology and way of teaching and how
will impact our traditional way of preparing teaching materials?

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