Social Software : Teaching Tool or Not?

Social software, in means of software that enables people to connect with one another, exchange opinions and information online, has now become a recognizable phenomenon at the early stages of Internet evolution. Significant increase in use of various applications which these social services provide has been noted in the last few years. The goal of the survey was to find out how many teachers and students at universities in Croatia use social software and for what purpose. The research was also aimed at how often they use it and to check what are the advantages and flaws of social software in means of an auxiliary tool in education. Research was conducted during the spring of 2009 in form of an online survey for teachers and students at universities and academies in Croatia. The survey investigates respondent’s familiarity with five types of applications: 1) social networks (Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn); 2) media sharing site (YouTube, Flickr and SlideShare); 3) social bookmarking or tagging sites (Delicious and StumbleUpon); 4) wikis (Wikipedia); 5) blogs and microblogs (Twitter). 368 people participated, 100 teachers and 268 students