The story of Chapter 2...
I call this chapter, "The Chapter of Nightmare" ....
This is the chapter that changed my life. I didn't have time to eat, sleep and watch tv. I spend most of the time in front of the laptop, surfing for journals and articles related to my topic. And now I have panda eyes (eye bags...hehehe)...
This chapter is actually called "Literature Review". This chapter is mainly about putting other peoples ideas which is related to our topic together by synthesizing and summarizing it. From what I understand, for chapter two, I must seek for evidence. I cannot say anything without any proof from other research. It is indeed not an easy task. Life will be easier if I could just write whatever I think about this topic but that is not how 'literature review' works. I must learn how to search for the main ideas, findings from other researches and studies, and scan literature efficiently.
At first I didn't understand how I have to put the ideas together. When I referred to other researches, I see many ways in presenting the literature review. Some explain the citation in their own words, some just love to cite for every sentence and some even summarize for each subtopics. I got confused. Is it like the term paper where you give a point and support it by providing evidence from other peoples' research OR every single word must be from what other people say? So I asked Dr. Aziah. She explained to me that a literature review is not about what we think and want to write but its about what other people have said based on their findings. OPPPsss!!! What have I done for my thesis during my degree? I think I have done it wrongly. But nobody told be it was wrong... Huhu...I should have known... :(
I started searching for journals from the beginning of the semester. But I didn't quite have the time to read all. I saved whatever I found from the internet that I think is related to my topic. I figured out the subtopics for my chapter two which gives me some focus on what to Google for.
So these are the subtopics that I will be looking for to be presented in my chapter 2:
1) Social network services (SNSs)
2) Social network services (SNSs) in Education
3) Social network services (SNSs) in Higher Education
4) Educators' Perception
5) Strengths of Integrating Social network services (SNSs) in the ESL Writing Classroom
5) Weaknesses of Integrating Social network services (SNSs) in the ESL Writing Classroom
6) Social-network related activities
Now I have my focus....
After scanning for the relevant statements and findings, I have to paraphrase. Oh my, I don't like paraphrasing. However, its a must. If not, I will be charged for plagiarizing. Paraphrasing is one of the toughest part in doing a research. I must make sure that the words are not similar but the meaning is still the same. :'( I spent about more than a week to do this... How I wish there is a paraphrasing software or application. I will be the first people to buy it. Hihi.. :D
And another thing about chapter two is that, I have to make sure that I don't repeat the person that I have cited too many times. Like Dr. Aziah said in class, although you love the article so much, but do not cite that person repeatedly in the literature review. Apart from that, Dr. Aziah also advised as not to use "as cited in" too many times too. Maybe just one of two. Hehe... If given the freedom to cite many times and use repeatedly the "as cited in", it will be an easy job to complete the proposal but I don't think it is considered as researching. That's just plain lazy... hihi...
After all the pressure, I finally managed to complete my chapter two.
This is my finalized version of Chapter 2:
CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.0 Introduction
This study sought to investigate to what
extent the APB English lecturers in UiTM campuses perceive the use of social
network services (SNSs) in teaching writing. Additionally, it ascertains the
strengths and weaknesses of integrating SNSs in the ESL writing classroom.
Furthermore, investigation was also carried out to determine the social-network
related activities conducted by the lecturers to enhance the students writing
skills in the ESL classroom. In chapter 2, literature review was done on
related field which focuses on social network services (SNSs), its significance
in education, how educators perceive its uses in the ESL classroom, the
benefits and drawbacks and social-network related activities that have been
used to improve students’ writing skills. The chapter also illustrates valuable
information from the past researchers regarding the current research being
done.
2.1 Social Network Services
(SNSs)
Social Network Services (SNSs) have become
accessible through the internet ‘in the light of usability’ for the teaching
and learning process (Griffith & Liyanage, 2008). According to Jones and
Conceicao, (2008), SNSs operate the partaking technology and software tools to
ease and interaction between members in the network. Ayiah and Kumah (2011)
defined SNSs as a web platform where individuals who comes from diverse
cultural settings can interact and connect with one another. Observatory on ICT
Accessibility discapnet (2010) added, social network is deliberated as a
‘social structure’ where individuals or organizations are connected to one
another which develops interaction created by them, and through internet,
different ways of interactions takes place; for example, via comments posted in
the blogs, email exchange and taking part in forums available. And with the
introduction of Web 2.0, particular systems have been created to stimulate
relationship developed which allows for better interaction on the Web.
Apart from connecting people and providing
room for interaction via the internet, SNSs also have other functions. Ritcher
and Koch (2008) proposed a list of six functionalities of SNSs which caters the
modularization and assimilation of different type of social network
applications; ‘identity management’, ‘expert finding’, ‘context awareness’,
‘contact management’, ‘network awareness’ and ‘exchange’. McCarroll and Curran, (2013) stated that
Social Network Services (SNSs) such as Twitter, Facebook and Google+ link
people over shared activities available through the internet. They also point
out that SNSs members can create their own profiles, join the groups they are
interested in, upload photos, music and videos and social network grows as
users are connected with friends and other social groups available. Moreover,
online communities grow from shared internet groups, school networks and
employment networks. Users could also search and add friends, share events and
thoughts by posting comments publicly and sending messages privately (McCarroll
and Curran, 2013).
According to Saebo et al. (2009), SNSs is
available in variety of forms, however they share certain primary characteristics.
Medaglia et al. (2009) identified six characteristics of social networking
services (SNSs):
1)
Digital Persona/Virtual Identity: Social networking software facilitates the
development of an on-line persona. A persona is, in this case, an image or
representation of the user. The persona is controlled and developed by the user
themselves (though the structure for that representation is given by the
features of the software). The persona is always a protected image of the user
and it may have more or less correspondence with the user’s real identity (as
they themselves understand it or as understood by other people). Digital
identity presupposes a digital public or audience – a profile is first
meaningful when experienced by another user.
2)
Network Building: The software offers tools and opportunities
for building the social network (s) of the user. It facilitates searching for
other users, recruiting tools for members of the user’s off-line network,
meeting or being introduced to other users, and grouping of users around themes
and interest. Users build interlocking networks of friends, colleagues, and
work acquaintances, contacts with shared interests, family and so on. On-line
networks can be independent, but they often overlap and interact considerably
with users’ off-line networks. The service is dependent upon achieving a
critical mass – sufficient users to make it feasible to build up a meaningful
network.
3)
Network Maintenance: The software provides features for
persistence, such as that the user’s network can reach over time, and survive
changes to their or other users’ persona. The software maintains the coupling
between networked users irrespective of other changes in their real or on-line
circumstances.
4)
Network Interaction: The software provides ways for users to
interact, through direct communication, shared activities, games, or exchange
of virtual objects. The virtual environment minimizes some difficulties
connected with physical interaction, such as geographical or time separation,
or mobility.
5)
User Generation of Virtual Content: Not only are users responsible for
controlling their own digital personas, but they have the opportunity to
provide virtual content and digital objects. These can include text, pictures
or video, music clips, three-dimensional virtual objects, or programs or
applications. This content is important for the virtual identity of the user,
but is also exchanged as a primary component of network interaction.
6)
Network Self-Governance: The network displays observable social
norms, social conventions, informal codes of behavior, and sometimes formal
rules and regulations. Governance structures are partly enforced by the service
providers, partly written into the way the software functions (what is enabled
or disabled), but primarily reproduced by the on-line communications, actions
and behaviors of the network members.
2.2 Social Network Services
(SNSs) in Education
Hart (2008) as cited in Stephens (2012)
suggested that students nowadays want to utilize Web 2.0 and operate the new
social and collaborative strategies in all aspects of life including education.
According to Liu (2010), there are two main purposes of integrating social
media tools in education; the first objective is to incorporate social media
tools in the current educational system to support the curriculum delivery in
terms of teaching and learning resource and secondly to employ social media as
an equivalent learning platform to compliment the present curriculum delivery
and to extend the real world experience with real life practice through the
learning environment.
Integrating SNSs in education is very
important to enhance students’ engagement in learning. Taylor and Parsons
(2011) stated that to improve students’ engagement in learning, some of the
common ideas are by ‘rooted collaboration’, integration of technology, ‘inquired-based
learning’, assessment and developing learning interdisciplinary and relevant to
real life. In a study on the effect of Twitter on college student engagement
and grades, Junco et al. (2010), discovered that students and faculty are both
greatly engaged with the usage of Twitter in learning activities such as,
campus event reminder, class reminder, book discussion, follow up seminar
discussions, ‘posting information on academic and personal support’, to
organize projects, group discussions and assignments which outdone traditional
classroom activities.
Furthermore, Goldfarb et al. (2011)
highlighted students’ engagement as one of the benefits of educational
networking which have the possibility to enhance students’ learning. This is
due to the fact that students nowadays are already familiar with the social
network and they love to use it which leads to students becoming automatically
interested to the materials presented through the social network sites. And
through social network sites such as Facebook, educators can learn more about
their students they teach by simply viewing the students Facebook
profiles.
2.3 Social Network Services (SNSs) in Higher
Education
In today’s world, students are profoundly
immersed in Web 2.0 technologies (such as ‘blogs, Twitter, podcasts, Wikis,
social networking sites, virtual worlds, video sharing and photo sharing’) and
the Internet, which plays a significant role to the students social life and in
their academic life as well (Munoz & Towner, 2009).
Grosseck (2009) constructed a table on the model of integrating Web 2.0
technologies in higher education which extracts some potentials and examples of
using Web 2.0 technologies as provision for organizing and gathering
educational materials, assessing and examining the progress made by students in
placing together informative and formative presentations, time management,
scheduling the timetable and the calendar of activities, developing projects in
cooperation, digital storytelling, students e-portfolios etc.
Table
1: Models of integrating Web 2.0 technologies in Higher Education
Technology 2.0
|
Educational Applications
|
Blogging
|
·
Use blogs for real-world experiences
·
Pull class blogs together into one area for
easy tracking
·
Quickly give feedback to students, and
students to each other
·
Students use peer networks to develop their
own knowledge
·
Update a new information such as homework
and assignments
·
Using comments in blogs can encourage
students to help each other in their writing, and get responses to a question
without getting the same answer twenty times etc.
|
Micro blogging
|
·
Classroom community, exploring,
collaborative writing, reader response, collaboration across schools,
countries, project management, assessing opinion, platform for metacognition,
conference or a part of presentation or workshop, for reference or research,
facilitating virtual classroom discussion, creating a learning experience, a
Personal Learning Network
·
Use for dissemination of teachers’
publication and materials, locating original sources of ideas, quotes, allows
for very focused and concrete feedback to students to refine their thinking
and improve their skills, fostering professional connections, informal
research, for storytelling, follow a professional, get feedback or ideas,
event updates, live coverage of events, build trust, build a community etc.
|
Wikis
|
·
Use for students projects; use for
collaborating on ideas and organizing documents and resources from
individuals and groups of students
·
Use as a presentation tool (as
e-portfolio); as a group research projects for a specific idea; manage school
and classroom documents; use as a collaborative handout for students;
writing: student created books and journaling
·
Create and maintain a classroom FAQ; as a
classroom discussion and debate area; a place to aggregate web resources;
supporting committees, working parties and university projects etc.
|
Photo / Slide Sharing
|
·
Share, comment, and add notes to photos or
images used in the classroom
·
Inspire writing creativity; create a
presentation using the photos
·
Use tags to find photos of areas and events
around the world for the use in the classroom
·
Post student presentations to an authentic
audience and get feedback from around the world; share professional
development materials and have it available anywhere, anytime, to anyone;
post presentations of special events
|
Video Sharing
|
·
Video professional development on own
terms; create an own subject specific videos with students; use video sharing
sites to find videos on current issues etc.
|
Syndication of content through RSS
|
·
Professional development, time saving; updated
information in teaching area
·
Information coming from constraining
sources; sharing work with other educators
·
RSS feeds can potentially replace
traditional email lists, reducing email overload
·
RSS feeds can be used to keep course
specific webpages current and relevant etc.
|
Social Bookmarking
|
·
Create a set of resources that can be
assessed on any computer connected to the internet; conduct research and
share that research with peers
·
Track author and book updates; groups of
students doing a classroom project sharing their bookmarks; rate and review
bookmarks to help students decide on usefulness of resources; setup a group
tag in order to share educational resources
·
Share one del.icio.us account between a
number of different subject specific educators in order to share resources
with each other etc.
|
Social Networking
|
·
Event support and continuation, team and
community support, aggregation of social media applications, personal
learning environments etc. (Cobbs, 2008)
|
Other tools
|
·
Instant messaging increase the sense of
community and accessibility which is required for collaborative learning;
VoIP can promote international collaborations and understanding; calendars
make calendar events, homework, anything you want available on mobile devices
connected to the Internet
·
Survey and polls, online diagrams and
web-based word processor, on-line spreadsheet, social search, mind mapping;
virtual worlds – virtual conferences and seminars, team meetings and
collaboration spaces, simulations etc.
|
Adopted:
(Grosseck, 2009)
Research findings (Muhammad Kamarul et al., 2010)
revealed that Facebook is recently the most popular social network site among
university students. A survey was conducted on 300 undergraduate students at
University Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang and the findings shows that the
students believed that Facebook could be integrated as an online environment to
assist the learning of English language. Esteves (2012), defined Facebook as one of the
most engaging Web 2.0 tools at the moment which the purpose is to make the
world more open and connected with friends and family. Murphy & Lebans (2008) pointed out that integrating Web 2.0 tools into courses increase
students’ engagement with the subject content, better responsibility of their
own learning, in depth investigation of issues and improved students
assignments.
Roblyer et al. (2010) stated that social
network sites such as Facebook is one of the latest communication technologies
that have been extensively accepted by students and have the potential to
become one of the most valuable resources to support educational associations
and communications with the faculty. Facebook is also considered as one of the
social network sites that link students and leads to developing the perfect
learning community which functions to help students construct their courses in
the community created by the students themselves, moreover Facebook have the
potential to become a structured and flexible learning network that provides
great resources for both teachers and students (Couillard, n.d).
In a research conducted by Cambi and Campos
(2013) on the effectiveness of Facebook in the EFL classroom, the findings
indicated that students can develop ‘grammar structures’ mainly because they
become motivated to learn in an interactive and interesting way that is through
Facebook. The researchers also suggest that it is important for teachers to
apply strategies that can capture students’ interest to learn English language
so that the students become more engaged with the subject.
According to Petrovic et al. (2012), Facebook
is a potential educational tool. In their study on “Possible Educational Use of
Facebook in Higher Environmental Education”, the researchers conducted a survey
to investigate whether educational use of Facebook effects in improving
students’ environmental ‘information database’ and ‘achievement levels’ of the
course at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences University of Belgrade. 68
students participated in the survey and the findings revealed that 97.7% of
students consider that the use of Facebook group increase the students
environmental knowledge, 90.9% students feel encouraged to change their
environmental behavior forms and take part in future environmental events and
94.7% of the students were motivated to join in the progression of learning and
effectively attain knowledge at the Environmental Quality System course. The
data also suggest that students would use Facebook as a medium for
communication and expand engagement in the process of learning (Petrovic et
al., 2012).
Kumar (2009) revealed that undergraduate
students appreciate the new technology integrated in the teaching and learning
experience which add value to the current practice, improve the learning
process, and fulfill the needs of the students. The researcher also highlighted
that students take for granted the use of Web 2.0 in their daily lives, and
they would prefer it to be integrated into higher education only if technology
enhances their learning experience.
With the popularity of social network sites
such as Facebook and Myspace, institutions are getting used to this new social
structure to uphold services and encourage discussion among pertinent interest
group (Griffith & Liyanage, 2008). However, UKOLN (2009) pointed out that
the popularity and easy use of social networking services have stimulated
institutions to make use of its potential in many ways but effective use of
social networking services lead to a number of drawbacks for institutions in
terms of long-term sustainability of the services provided, users’ doubts of the
social network tools in terms of work or educational context and the technical
and legal issues, for example ‘copyright’, ‘privacy’, convenience and etc.
In study on whether Facebook would be an
effective and easy teaching tool in the ESL class in South Korean universities,
through an action research conducted by Simpson (2012), findings revealed that
Facebook is just similar to other teaching tools. The researcher also
highlighted that the teachers must acquaint themselves with the social network
tool to make sure that they make use of the technology confidently, students’
attitude towards the tool, and finally, the advantage of conducting and action
research and a teacher’s journal whereby it could increase self-accountability.
2.4 Educators’ Perception
Nowadays, educators are starting to integrate
technology and SNSs in the teaching and learning process. Raulston (2009)
pointed out that teachers believed if educators start to incorporate technology
in the teaching and learning process, and model skills for students, technology
will certainly help to prepare the students for the 21st century. Teachers
are progressively making use of the internet to access teaching materials and
chances for ‘professional development’, cooperation and encouragement (Lippicott,
2011).
A survey which was conducted by (Grunwald
Associates LLC (2010) as cited in Lippicott, 2011), revealed insights that the
internet is becoming the resource for media-based instruction, with the
advancement of streaming and downloading, teachers perceive that the range of
technology devices available and web-based systems benefit them to improve in
their work and encourage students’ engagement in learning moreover, teachers
see excessive potential in technological devices and they are starting to
involve themselves in online communities to share resources with other
teachers.
Yuen et al. (2011) indicated that social
networking sites and social videos are the latest most employed Web 2.0 tools
by educators where the findings reported positive feedbacks of educators using
social video, social networking and revealed positive perceptions on the
pedagogical advantages and significance of Web 2.0 tools in the teaching and
learning process. They also show interest in attaining further understanding
and skill to efficiently integrate Web 2.0 in their teaching. According to Kay
et al. (2009), findings reported that majority of the teachers evaluated
web-based learning tools as ‘easy to use’ and appealing for students; moreover,
it increases student learning, with the help of effective visual aids, or
existing accommodating review of ideas.
In a study conducted by Melor et al. (2012),
result showed that teachers believe that integrating social network services
(SNSs) in the ESL writing classroom brings lots of advantages; the low
proficiency students could interact with other students with less stress and
could trigger students’ critical thinking skills. Nevertheless, the teachers
also identified some weaknesses to integrate SNSs in the ESL writing classroom
such as, distractions from the internet and create informal writing habits
where the students tend to use short forms in their writing.
However, in certain countries, integrating
SNSs in teaching and learning tend to be challenging, hence demotivate the
teachers to make use of the technology to enhance education. Aggen (2012)
highlighted some of the negative aspects of integrating technology based on
educators point of view: (1) teachers have to walk around the students do make
sure the students are engaged in the activity and not playing games; (2) a
major difficulty when the technology doesn’t work; (3) the art of drawing using
had will disappear; (4) students no longer communicate with the teachers but
tend to focus more on the machine; (5) Attention span decrease; (6) Distraction
and evaporating students’ grammar; (7) students no longer make use of their
imagination; (8) potency of cheating is high; (9) increase cyber-bullying; (10)
the access to technology among schools in poor and rich communities with not
balance; (11) students become impatient; (12) students no longer can speak,
write and read effectively; (14) Students spend less time for themselves.
In an exploratory study conducted by Mimia et
al. (2013) in Kishwali, Kenya, findings established that most Kishwali teachers
apprehend the benefits of incorporating ICT in teaching and learning, but they
are not prepared to implement it due to various challenges. The results from
the survey conducted revealed that teachers repel to make use of the technology
and carry on using the traditional method in teaching is due to lack of time,
confidence, competence, and lack of ICT related software, and limited
knowledge/skills on how to incorporate ICT in the teaching and learning
process.
According to Almekhlafi and Almeqdadi (2010),
teachers at U.A.E have high self-perception of their capabilities and
proficiencies to integrate technology successfully in their teaching,
nevertheless, in order to upsurge effective technology incorporation in the
teaching and learning process, they recommend the following: (1) consistent
professional workshops, (2) improving curriculum with technology enriched
materials such as CDs and videos, (3) aggregate collaboration among schools
across the country, and (4) providing sufficient autonomy for teachers in
selection and exposure of curriculum resources.
2.5 Strengths of Integrating
SNSs in the ESL Writing Classroom
Although SNSs could be one of the interactive
tools to help promote students’ writing skills and encourage the learning of English,
but there are strengths and weaknesses in integrating its usage in the ESL
writing classroom. Facebook’s networking and social communication give
advantage to both instructors and students by beating a better number of
learning styles, offering options for teaching materials, constructing online
classroom community and increasing interaction between teacher-student and
student-student (Munoz & Towner, 2009).
Social network services (SNSs) could bring
many advantages when integrated in the ESL writing classroom. Suwannatthachote
and Tantrarungroj (2012) indicated that social network services (SNSs) to a
certain degree promotes group engagement through Facebook activities such as
viewing others’ status updates, private messages, commenting and liking. Facebook
allow students to be involved with other students over the activities available
online. Liang (2010) stated that using synchronous online peer response in EFL
writing allows students to collaboratively brainstorm, share and evaluate text.
According to Johana et al. (2012), students
agreed that engaging in feedback exercises benefits them to fine tune their
pre-writing skills as well as developing their self-editing skills. Findings
revealed that peer feedback is useful and has an effect on reviewed paper, most
students were contented with the peer review activity on Facebook because it
offers more interaction and build up relationship thus generate meaningful
learning environment (Wichadee, 2013) . Apart from that, Dipplod (2009) pointed
out that student generally enjoyed working with blogs and peer feedback because
it provides them with different viewpoints of their performance and give chance
to compare their task with other students.
Shembilu (2013) stated that social network
sites allows information and education sharing hence it is a two way learning
process where the students can share and collaborate on others’ opinions on the
subject matter. Melor and Hadi (2012) revealed in their findings ‘Facebook
Groups’ is an effective tool in enhancing the students’ writing skills in the ESL classroom in terms of brainstorming activities
before they involve themselves in the real writing. The researchers also
discovered that the respondents believed that they learn new vocabulary from
reading comments posted by their peers in the group and the spell-check
features available in the social network site helps them to diminish spelling
errors and furthermore, the opinions shared by their peers help them to acquire
ideas for better writing and they also discover that it is easier to complete
their writing task after participating in the Facebook group discussion.
In a study conducted by Mohaganeswary &
Parilah (2013), the findings discovered that teachers’ attitude towards the use
of technology in class is positive whereby the results revealed that 70% of the
respondents agree that computer is a valuable tool for them to teach and they
completely agree that it will help change the way students learn in class.
Murphy & Lebans (2008) stated that research indicated that integrating Web
2.0 tools into courses increased students’ engagement with the subject content,
greater responsibility of their own learning, deeper investigation of issues
and improved students assignments.
In another study conducted by Kikuchi &
Otsuka (2008), the findings discovered that the students comment positively
about the aspects of computer which lead to autonomous learning in terms of
helping the students to search for information from the internet and noticing
their own mistakes in English. Pollara and Zhu (2011) conducted a study on the
use of Facebook in a mentoring program and concluded that Facebook positively
affecting the relationship between the mentors and mentees and the students
believe that they acquire more by making use of Facebook and would like to
utilize Facebook for other educational purposes.
2.6 Weaknesses of Integrating
SNSs in the ESL Writing Classroom
However, with the advancement of technology,
it could lead to some disadvantages that could be the causes of why lecturers
do not want to make use technology in their classrooms. Research findings
(Melor et al., 2013) revealed that integrating ICT in the ESL classroom could
cause disadvantages such as, challenging class control, distractions and
students show tendency to write using short forms in their writing activities.
Researchers also discovered that the teachers are weak in planning activities
using technology and in handling problems related to the use of ICT in the ESL
writing classroom.
Melor & Hadi (2012) stated that one of
the discouraging factors why teachers do not want to integrate ICT in the
classroom is due to shortage of class time and the time needed to learn using
ICT. According to Chartrand (2012), although social network websites help to
improve students’ English ability, but there is certain of amount of time
needed for teachers and students to learn using Web 2.0 technology. Another
weakness of integrating SNSs in the ESL writing classroom is time constraint whereby
the teachers need to spend quite some time to check the students’ blogs and
students have less time to arrange their blogs (Melor et al., 2013).
According to Melor & Hadi (2012), they
stated that the main challenge of integrating technology in the classroom,
specifically the use of social network site, such as Facebook is that teachers
must be aware of the distractions by other features in the Facebook such as
Facebook games, chats and other types of application available through
Facebook. Students might not concentrate on learning when they use the computer
online because they tend to get distracted by looking at the status updates at
the Facebook homepage (Melor, Hadi & Chenzi, 2012).
In terms of peer feedback, Dipplod (2009)
pointed out that students do not like giving feedback or comments on their
friends writing because they feel that they lack of expertise, guidance on how
to provide feedback and fear of striking
those who receive the feedback which eventually lead to comments offering only
little ‘constructive advice’ for their friends.
2.7 Social-Network
Related Activities
Social network services (SNSs) provides a
platform for educators to create activities that could enhance students
interest and engagement in learning. Many interesting and interactive
activities could be conducted through the social network sites to sustain the
students’ attention to learn especially in the ESL classroom. Couillard (n.d)
recommended a way for educators to make use of Facebook that is by setting up
Facebook group to represent a course which allows the educators to communicate
with the students. Educators could also post content, photos, videos and
messages that relates to the course, and notify the students about their
assignments and remind their students on quizzes and other important events.
Melor et al. (2012) pointed out that through
virtual classroom via Facebook, brainstorming activities is the most effective
way to enhance students writing skills in the ESL writing classroom. Through
Facebook groups, students could be able to share their thoughts through
brainstorming ideas, share photos for visual stimulus and activating schemata,
and can obtain more information on the topics being discussed through the
sharing of links and documents shared in the Facebook group.
According to Childnet International (2008),
developing E-portfolios is one of the activities that educator could use in the
teaching and learning process.
E-Portfolio can assist long-life, meaningful learning, developed more
self-monitoring and self-regulation and self-assessment by constructing more
reflective works (Kumar et al., 2013). Kumar et.al (2013) also concluded that
through e-portfolio, educators could keep in touch with the students and able
to obtain immediate feedback from the educators to guide, stimulate and
facilitate their learning.
Apart from that using blogs is another way to
enhance students writing skills in the ESL classroom (Melor et al., (2013). The
researchers discovered that blog allows lecturers to integrate other multimedia
tools and components which encourage students in enhancing their writing
skills.
2.8 Conclusion
Reviewing the existing literature indicated that more studies and
research should be conducted to close the gap found in the previous study especially
on the educators’ perceptions concerning the matter of integrating social
network services (SNSs) in education specifically in the ESL classroom. This
chapter outlines a few issues which are relevant to this study. First and
foremost, this chapter defines the meaning of Social Network Services (SNSs) which
highlights on the characteristics and functions of social network services
(SNSs) in general. Having shown the importance of integrating social network
services (SNSs) in education, the chapter also cited evidence that by
integrating SNSs in education, it could enhance students’ engagement in
learning. Besides that, this chapter also reviews on some research which
focuses on the importance of SNSs in higher education. It has been pointed out
that Facebook has become one of the most popular social network sites among
university students and has become an effective teaching tool but nevertheless
leads to a number of drawbacks.
Educators’ perception on the integration of technology is also being
discussed in this chapter. Previous research indicates that educators perceive the
use of technology in education positively and brings many advantages to enhance
education. However, not all educators agree that by integrating technology in
education would bring benefit to them and the students. This study hopes to
investigate the educators’ perception on the integration of SNSs specifically
in the ESL writing classroom.
This
chapter also highlights other citations and findings on the strength and
weaknesses of integrating SNSs in the ESL writing classroom. Available
literature review points out that by integrating SNSs in the writing classroom,
it could enhance students writing skills through feedback exercises, sharing
ideas through Facebook group and encourage autonomous learning. Previous
research findings also reveal that there are drawbacks that could be the
reasons why educators do not want to integrate SNSs in the ESL classroom such
as time constraint, distractions in the social network sites and lack of
expertise in giving feedback. The literature review also suggest a few
social-network related activities that educators could use in the ESL writing
classroom to enhance students’ writing skills.
