The purpose of this study is to propose the idea of using Facebook, as an educational platform in Bangladesh. Facebook has the potential and can be considered as one of the emerging trends in marketing in the education industry. Specifically, this research provides an insight about the advantages of this new pattern of learning through Facebook. Facebook can be used to engage students actively in various courses in a unique manner.
To conclude, there has been a lack of research on Facebook’s use as an educational platform. Finally, the study ends with some benefits of Facebook education which can be a valuable tool that helps to strengthen interpersonal relationships, build learning communities, and engage students. This study aims to review several educational studies on Facebook to advocate further research on its function within education.
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to propose the idea of using Facebook, as an educational platform in Bangladesh. Facebook has the potential and can be considered as one of the emerging trends in marketing in the education industry. Specifically, this research provides an insight about the advantages of this new pattern of learning through Facebook. Facebook can be used to engage students actively in various courses in a unique manner. To conclude, there has been a lack of research on Facebook’s use as an educational platform. Finally, the study ends with some benefits of Facebook education which can be a valuable tool that helps to strengthen interpersonal relationships, build learning communities, and engage students. This study aims to review several educational studies on Facebook to advocate further research on its function within education.
Key words: Facebook, Educational platform, Emerging trend, Interpersonal relationship, Potential, Insight
1.0 Introduction
Facebook - a social media platform is emerging as a educational platform in Bangladesh. Facebook has quickly become the social network site of choice by college students and an integral part of the “behind the scenes” college experience (Selwyn, 2007). Facebook has downloadable applications, that is able to accelerate educational functions of Facebook. Instructor or student can upload photo and videos with 1024 MB limit. Facebook is a network that connects students with other students, indirectly creating a learning community – a vital component of student education (Baker, 1999). Hamann and Wilson (2002) found that student participating in web-enhanced class performed better than those students who were engaged in traditional lecture oriented class.
From a business perspective, Facebook can be used in a number of ways to improve operations and enhance the business profile through: improved communication; greater exposure through amplifying word-of-mouth effects; getting closer to and building relationships with existing customers; attracting new customers; promoting a company’s products/services; improving brand awareness; increasing volume of traffic to web site; increasing levels of sales; improved collaboration and establishing online communities (Divol et al., 2012; Stockdale et al., 2012; Fischer and Reuber, 2011; Montalvo, 2011; Nair, 2011; Zhang et al., 2011; Hoffman and Fodor, 2010; Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010; Cook, 2008; Mangold and Faulds, 2009).
2.0 What is an "Emerging Trend"
Emerging trend refers to a general direction in which something is developing or changing for near future. Emerging trend means an area that is growing in interest and utility overtime, which has the potential and possibility to be popular at a certain period of time. An emerging trend simply means what seems to be coming around in near future. For example: XML was considered to be an emerging trend from 1994-1997. However, it was presented as a topic area in computer science in 1998.
2.1 Facebook demographics and its reason be an emerging trend
Research results shows that Facebook users are preponderantly students. College students were found to be significant users of the web sites like Facebook, MySpace, and search engines in a initial research on the use and attitudes toward the Internet, (Rhoades et al. 2008). Likewise, Hoover (2008) mentions that freshmen at a higher education institute frequently use Facebook, while in a quantitative analysis by Kolek and Saunders (2008), a huge number of students at public universities have Facebook accounts. In addition to that, Heiberger and Harper (2008) state that, Facebook holds an 85 % market share of four-year colleges and universities in the US. Roblyer et al. (2010) found in a survey that college students were more likely to use Facebook than faculty members who prefered traditional Internet technologies, such as email. Nevertheless , Recent studies show, young college graduates use both Facebook and Twitter (Palmer 2010. Finally, Siegle (2011) states, one out of every 12 people have a Facebook account. However, there have been few studies that focus on the correlation between gender and age with Facebook participation. There are two limited studies that focus on gender and Facebook participation: the first study, by Mazman and Usluel (2011), indicates that along with maintaining existing relationships, making new relationships, and supporting academic networking, gender was an important factor shaping Facebook involvement. Mazman and Usluel’s study shows that men exhibit higher tendency to make contact through Facebook, while women make contact through other social means. In another research by Teclehaimanot and Hickman (2011), student teacher interaction was found more appropriate to male in comparison to female.
3.0 Facebook as a tool for teaching and learning:
New technology is altering the forms of engagement between students, teacher and the wider world, powered by the web. Digital and online learning are interactive, student centered and collaborative. It is often outside of school hours, in non-formal settings and increasingly peer to peer via their own friends and networks. Teaching and learning can be more social.
Facebook is a free online platform being used by teachers and students to create and share knowledge and learning inside and outside of the classroom and at home. Plus the new phenomenon of open online courses such as the EdX, Khan Academy, Udacity and Futurelearn and Mozilla’s Open Badges have started to change the way higher education and indeed learning is accessed and used. In this rapidly changing environment, Facebook has the potential to act as a tool for teaching and learning in Bangladesh.
Facebook can be a vital tool for teaching and learning in the 21st century and for making education more social in Bangladesh. It can be a game changer for educators’ in schools, colleges, universities and other learning settings to open up and inspire learning.
4.0 Scope of Facebook as a medium of education in Bangladesh:
A huge number Facebook users give it immense power as a tool for research and e-learning. Facebook has the potential to support the way young people, teachers and other educators collaborate, access new learning. Facebook tools such as Timeline, Groups and Graph Search have the potential to change and alter the pattern of education system. Teachers can use it as a great tool for professional development. They can also use it to share their expertise beyond the classroom. Moreover, Facebook has the capacity to support subject teaching, informal learning and it can enable easy communication between students, teacher and parents. In addition to that, it can support the development of digital citizenship skills.
5.0 Facebook in teaching and learning:
5.1 Creating a Timeline or Facebook Group to support the teaching of any curriculum subject
In Bangladesh various social media sites are accessed daily among which Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Linkedin are most popular. Other sites are also used for learning such as Khan academy, 10 minutes school, Coursera.com etc. As developing websites are quite expensive, creating a timeline or group in Facebook can facilitate people to upload video lectures that can be an efficient way to support the teaching of any curriculum subject.
5.2 Creating a space and platform for homework and revision resources
Facebook Groups can be created very quickly. Students can be invited by email. Files can be uploaded by the Group administrator, who can also begin debates using an polling feature. Students can be directed to the Group where they can easily access subject materials for a specific subject, share links to resources and discuss assignments. Groups are quickly accessible to students from their mobile devices from any location. Groups can have privacy as well so that they only visible to the members. When a teacher adds a new file, question or post they are able to see how many Group members have seen and read the item which increases transparency.
5.3 Running debates on recent issues
In today's world everyone needs to stay updated about the global current affairs. Facebook timeline or group can run debates on recent and emerging issues that are being discussed worldwide.
5.4 Enable language students to speak to exchange partners overseas
This will enable students to get to know each other and provides an opportunity to practice the language too – For example, one could agree a policy where foreign students only post in their language and students only post in English, so they learn from each other. Students might add each other as friends and again agree to alternate their communication between languages.
5.5 Set events for exams and essay deadlines:
To ensure students don’t forget or miss any exam, one can set up an event on Facebook, invite all the relevant students to that event – they’ll receive a notification of the invitation and then when they accept, or join the event, they’ll receive alerts when other members post information or update the event details.
5.6 Using a Facebook Page to inspire in life skills subjects
Facebook can be used to give students information about the course such as assignments, handouts etc. The page also can be used to involve students and engage them to read the subject by sharing relevant reading materials or photos.
5.7 Use Facebook Pages to enable Group project work
Students can present group work in an interesting way by setting up Facebook pages. One can post news, photos, videos, comments, competitions, and information relevant to page. At the heart of every Facebook Page is a Timeline, showing all that page’s activity over recent days, months and years. Students can set up a Page relevant to their project – for example, "History of Marketing" – and then post relevant images and articles to the Timeline, pinned to dates when those major events occurred. As they add more information, so they’ll build a comprehensive Timeline of the era they are studying.
6.0 BENEFITS TO MARKETERS
6.1 Relationship Building
Institutions can interact with students to learn more about their needs and to build databases.
6.2 Reduce Costs and Increase Efficiency
It avoids the expense of maintaining, costs of rent and utilities. Digital content and ads are free as well as efficient.
6.3 Greater Flexibility - Make changes on the fly
Unlike traditional marketing such as placing advertisements in newspapers, television, or a paper catalogs, Facebook timeline can be adjusted by adapting student preferences to match changing market conditions by changing subjects and do it without any problems.
6.4 Access to Global Markets
The Internet allows interested students to click from one country to another in seconds.
6.5 Track Real - Time Results
It allows tracking real-time results using online analytics to determine how the page or group is performing. There are ways to track traditional marketing efforts, but most the time it cannot be done in real-time.
7.0 Conclusion
It is conjectured that the communication abilities and features of Facebook can benefit both the instructor and the student. It has a chance to induce a new pattern of learning by providing an alternative to the traditional lecture format in Bangladesh. By creating an online classroom community, teacher-student and student-student interaction can be improved significantly.
Researchers should continue their research into Facebook teaching tools to determine if the benefit of creating online classroom is on par with the traditional classroom experience.
References:
Selwyn, M. (2009). Faceworking: Exploring students’ education-related use of Facebook. Learning, Media and Technology, 34(2), 157–174.
Baker, P. (1999). Creating learning communities: The unfinished agenda. In B. A. Pescosolido & R. Aminzade (Eds.), The social works of higher education (pp. 95-109). Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
Germán Aníbal Narváez Vásquez, Edgar Montalvo Escamilla. 2014. Best Practice in the Use of Social Networks Marketing Strategy as in SMEs. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 148, 533-542.
Mangold, W.G. and Faulds, D.J. (2009), “Social media: the new hybrid element of the promotion mix”, Business Horizons, Vol. 52 No. 4, pp. 357-365.
Kaplan, A.M. and Haenlein, M. (2010), “Users of the world, unite! the challenges and opportunities of social media”, Business Horizons, Vol. 53 No. 1, pp. 59-68.
Stockdale, R., Ahmed, A. and Scheepers, H. (2012), “Identifying business value from the use of social media: an SME perspective”, Proceedings of IS Innovation in Pacific Asia, PACIS, 11-15 July.
Fischer, E. and Reuber, A.R. (2011), “Social interaction via new social media: (how) can interactions on Twitter affect effectual thinking and behaviour?”, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 26 No. 1, pp. 1-18.
Nair, M. (2011), “Understanding and measuring the value of social media”, Journal of Corporate Accounting & Finance, Vol. 22, No. 3, pp. 45-51.
Rhoades, E. B., Irani, T., Telg, R., & Myers, B. E. (2008). Internet as information source: Attitudes and usage of students enrolled in a college of agriculture course. Journal of Agricultural Education, 49(2), 108–117.
Hoover, E. (2008). Colleges face tough sell to freshmen, survey find. Chronicle of Higher Education, 54(21), 1.
Kolek, E. A., & Saunders, D. (2008). Online disclosure: An empirical examination of undergraduate Facebook profiles. NASPA Journal, 45(1), 1–25.
Heiberger, G., & Harper, R. (2008). Have you facebooked Astin lately? Using technology to increase student involvement. New Directions for Student Services, 124, 19–35.
Palmer, T. (2010). Smooth mailing. Currents, 36(2), 42–46.
Siegle, D. (2010). Cyberbullying and sexting: Technology abuses of 21st century. Gifted Child Today, 33(2), 14–16.
Frequently asked questions
What is the purpose of this study on Facebook as an educational platform?
The study aims to propose the idea of using Facebook as an educational platform in Bangladesh, highlighting its potential as an emerging trend in the education industry. It explores the advantages of learning through Facebook and advocates for further research on its function within education.
What are the key benefits of using Facebook as an educational tool?
Facebook can be a valuable tool for strengthening interpersonal relationships, building learning communities, engaging students actively in various courses, and promoting collaboration between students, teachers, and parents.
Why is Facebook considered an "emerging trend" in education?
Facebook's large user base, particularly among students, its ability to connect students and create learning communities, and its capacity to improve communication and engagement make it an emerging trend in education.
How can teachers use Facebook to support teaching and learning?
Teachers can create Timelines or Facebook Groups to share knowledge, upload video lectures, provide homework and revision resources, run debates on recent issues, enable language students to speak to exchange partners, set events for exams and essay deadlines, inspire in life skills subjects, and enable group project work.
What are the benefits of using Facebook for educational marketing?
Institutions can build relationships with students, reduce costs and increase efficiency, gain greater flexibility in making changes, access global markets, and track real-time results.
What is the scope of Facebook as a medium of education in Bangladesh?
Facebook has immense power as a tool for research and e-learning. Facebook tools such as Timeline, Groups and Graph Search have the potential to change and alter the pattern of the education system. Teachers can use it as a great tool for professional development. It can also support subject teaching, informal learning, and communication between students, teacher, and parents.
What is the study's conclusion regarding Facebook as an educational platform?
The study suggests that Facebook's communication abilities and features can benefit both the instructor and the student, potentially inducing a new pattern of learning by providing an alternative to the traditional lecture format in Bangladesh. It recommends further research to determine if the benefit of creating online classrooms is on par with the traditional classroom experience.
What are some examples of other websites that have been used for learning?
Khan Academy, 10 minutes school, and Coursera.com
- Quote paper
- Dewan Mehrab Ashrafi (Author), Sayeed Alam (Author), 2015, Facebook as an emerging marketing trend in educational platforms, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.hausarbeiten.de/document/313613
