Harnessing the affordances of social media in a digital citizenship course

M.Ed. (ICT in Education)The use of social media has increased exponentially over the past few years for personal use. It is gradually making some headway in supporting learning in an informal and self-organised manner, however, much still needs to be done to bring it into the formal and structured educational space. For social media to be harnessed effectively for teaching and learning their needs to be an understanding of the affordances they bring to the classroom. This case study explores the students’ experiences if using social media in the Digital Citizenship course at Rosebank College in Braamfontein. Students in their first year of study are required to engage with various social media tools to become digitally fluent and able to harness the full potential of social media. Research instruments included document analysis comprising course material, e-portfolios, participation in the course’s Facebook group and a focus group interview. Findings indicate that study highlight the potential of WEB 2.0 tools in supporting student collaboration that is self-directed and engaging. Evidence of their activities and show that students and their lecturer adopted social media with confidence, using it to learn beyond the borders of the physical classroom. Sharing of pictures, techniques and ideas were recorded on a daily basis, thus resulting in an on-going and sustainable learning ecology. This learning ecology allowed for flexibility permitting students to collaborate and engage on their group Facebook page. However, students and lecturer alike experienced frustrations with the blocking of social media sites in the computer laboratories and the library – even though requests to unblock various sites were made at the onset of the course. There are a number of lessons to be learnt from this inquiry. A Learning strategy, cost, technology and infrastructure are important considerations when choosing to implement social media tools within the physical classroom