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) define 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) add, 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, Rose and Nyvang (2009), SNSs is available in variety of forms,
however they share certain primary characteristics. Medaglia, Rose, Nyvang and
Saebo (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 behaviour, 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 behaviours of the network members.
2.2 Social Network Services (SNSs)
in Education
Hart
(2008) as cited in Stephens (2012) suggest 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 Twiiter on college student engagement and grades, Junco, Heibergert and
Loken (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, Pregibon, Shrem and Zyco (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.
Technology 2.0
|
Educational
Applications
|
Blogging
|
|
Micro
blogging
|
|
Wikis
|
|
Photo
/ Slide Sharing
|
|
Video
Sharing
|
|
Syndication
of content through RSS
|
|
Social
Bookmarking
|
|
Social
Networking
|
|
Other
tools
|
|
Table 1: Models of integrating Web
2.0 technologies in Higher Education
Research
findings (Muhammad Kamarul, Norlida & Mohamad Jfre, 2012) 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. Roblyer, McDaniel, Webb, Herman and Witty (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, Petrovic, Jeremic, Milenkovic and Cirovic (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,Petrovic,
Jeremic, Milenkovic and Cirovic, 2012).
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) points 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. Teachers are progressively making use of the internet to
access teaching materials and chances for ‘professional development’,
cooperation and encouragement (Lippicott, n.d). A survey which was conducted by
Grunwald Associates LLC (2010), 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,
Yaoyuneyong and Yuen (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, Knaack and Petrarca (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, Hadi and Chenzi (2012), result shows 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, Ondigi and Mavisi (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.
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, Nor Ashikin, Ahmad Ashaari & Pandian (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) points 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.
According
to Shembilu (2013), 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. . Melur 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, Norazah, Hadi, Mohamed &Zeinab)
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, Julian & Hadi, 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) point 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 Services (SNSs)
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,
Hadi & Chenzi (2012) point 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 (n.d), 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, Karthik, Chandran,Arunkumar & Karnavel, 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 Md Yunus, Hadi Salehi, & Tuan, J.L.K (2013). The
researchers discovered that blog allows lecturers to integrate other multimedia
tools and components which encourage students in enhancing their writing
skills.
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