Like our page - using Facebook to support first year students in their transition to higher education. A Practice Report

  • Greg Jenkins Queensland University of Technology
  • Kenneth Lyons Queensland University of Technology
  • Ruth Bridgstock Queensland University of Technology
  • Lauren Carr Queensland University of Technology

Abstract

Facebook is approaching ubiquity in the social habits and practice of many students. However, its use in higher education has been criticised (Maranto & Barton, 2010) because it can remove or blur academic boundaries. Despite these concerns, there is strong potential to use Facebook to support new students to communicate and interact with each other (Cheung, Chiu, & Lee, 2010). This paper shows how Facebook can be used by teaching staff to communicate more effectively with students.  Further, it shows how it can provide a way to represent and include beginning students’ thoughts, opinions and feedback as an element of the learning design and responsive feed-forward into lectures and tutorial activities.  We demonstrate how an embedded social media strategy can be used to complement and enhance the first year curriculum experience by functioning as a transition device for student support and activating Kift’s (2009) organising principles for first year curriculum design.
Published
Jul 25, 2012
How to Cite
JENKINS, Greg et al. Like our page - using Facebook to support first year students in their transition to higher education. A Practice Report. The International Journal of the First Year in Higher Education, [S.l.], v. 3, n. 2, p. 65-72, july 2012. ISSN 1838-2959. Available at: <http://fyhejournal.com/article/view/131>. Date accessed: 16 aug. 2018. doi: https://doi.org/10.5204/intjfyhe.v3i2.131.
Section
Practice Reports

Keywords

social media, transition, first year experience, facebook

Since 2015-11-27

Abstract Views : 666
PDF Views : 164

Until 2015-11-27:

Abstract Views : 2517
PDF Views : 865