Investigation of the Use and Benefits of Online Social etworking (OS) in Higher Education

Online social networking (OSN) is a range of activities enabled by social technologies and operationalised by a group of people. More recently, social technologies such as blogs, wikis, photo and video sharing, podcasts, social bookmarking, social networking sites, instant messaging and online discussion boards have been widely used to facilitate OSN. OSN is popular mostly for non-educational purposes among young generation of students categorised as the Digital Natives. It can be appropriated and repurposed to support teaching and learning delivery. Despite the availability of implementation cases, studies on the effectiveness of the deployment are still lacking. Therefore, based on a critical literature review, this study analyses which OSN activities are relevant in the education context and what social technologies can support these activities. Specifically, four OSN activities that have been identified and relevant in the education context are content generating, sharing, interacting and collaboratively socialising. Furthermore this paper highlights the benefits that can be obtained from the appropriate deployment of social technologies in the education context. The study finding provides a general guide for academics who want to use OSN in improving their teaching and learning