1.
Social Networking Sites in
Learning Environments:
What Students Want?
Gary Schnellert
Plamen Miltenoff
University of North Dakota, Grand Forks,
Saint Cloud State University, Minnesota
12th Annual MADLaT Conference,
May 2013
This presentation available @: http://web.stcloudstate.edu/pmiltenoff/conf2013/madlat/Schnellert_Miltenoff_educational_use_of_social_media.pptx

2.
The team, the players…
Dr. Gary Schnellert, UND, North Dakota
Dr. Plamen Miltenoff, SCSU, Minnesota
Dr. John Hoover, SCSU, Minnesota
Dr. Galin Tzokov, Plovdiv University, Bulgaria
Four faculty members conducted empirical research on the use of
Social Networking Sites in education. The results reveal a clear
cultural difference in faculty and students perception regarding the
use of Social Networking Sites in the teaching and learning process,
specifically as a potential replacement for Course Management
Systems, such as Blackboard, Desire2Learn, Moodle, etc. A
discussion on the potential of Facebook and similar Social
Networking Sites will be based on the results from the research.

3.
Social media in the bibliography…
As of April 2009, 46% of online American adults, age 18 and older, used SNS
such as Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn, up from 8% in February 2005
(Pew Internet Survey, http://www.pewinternet.org/Infographics/Growth-in-Adult-SNS-Use-20052009.aspx).
• The popularity of Facebook among young people led to attempts to adapt it for educational
purposes, a direction that Johnson (2010) termed “educational networking.”
• A team of European researchers (Vasalou, et al., 2010) focused on SNS’s design issues and
the effects of SNS on users across multicultural environments, administering a questionnaire
to 432 Facebook users from five different countries. They discovered no differences between
U.S. users and those from the four other nations.
• A team of British researchers (Jones, et al., 2009) administered questionnaires to 76 students
and interviewed 14 to find out whether Web 2.0 tools, such as Facebook and MySpace,
affected student learning. Among other results, they discovered “a massive use of
educational technology” and “distinct divide between the learning space and personal
space” (p. 781).
• Roblyer et al. wrote that, “students tended to check both email and Facebook with equal
frequency…, while faculty members proved significantly more likely to check email…” (p.
138).

4.
Our research
Participants:
Bulgaria: 58 instructors and 183 students
United States: 125 instructors and 218 students
Instrumentation:
Questionnaires in English and Bulgarian on SurveryMonkey.
Data analysis:
SPSS version 18.0, ANOVA, cross-national comparissons

5.
66.8 66.5
37.5
40.6
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Bulgaria U. S.A.
Frequent use by category and country
Students
Instructors

6.
4.04 4.08
3.32
2.91
0
1
2
3
4
5
BG Instructors BG Students U.S. InstructorsU.S. Students
SNS leads to increased collaboration

7.
3.88 3.88
3.32
2.93
0
1
2
3
4
5
BG Instructors BG Students U.S.
Instructors
U.S. Students
SNS lead to democratization of learning

8.
3.85
3.21
3.32
2.48
1
2
3
4
5
BG Instructors BG Students U.S. Instructors U.S. Students
SNS lends itself to student motivation

9.
3.42
4.39
3.62
3.23
1
2
3
4
5
BG Instructors BG Students U.S. Instructors U.S. Students
I am comfortable with SNS
applications (any use)

10.
3.66
3.37
3.22
2.48
1
2
3
4
5
BG Instructors BG Students U.S. Instructors U.S. Students
SNS lends itself to student
engagement

11.
Findings
Previously, we found quite a significant digital divide between Eastern Europe, including Bulgaria
and the U.S that we attributed to infrastructure and hardware differences (Miltenoff et al., 2009).
The digital divide in the current study occurs between generations (Miltenoff et al., 2011).
Students’ and instructors’ personal use of social networking appears very similar
The reason why field experience use is relatively common may be that Facebook is available on
mobile devices while typical course support software tends not to be (though this is certainly
changing, it was probably the case when this study was completed).

12.
Discussion
SNS such as Facebook as an alternative to CMS
U.S. students consider SNS their “virtual mall,” whereas BG
students are willing to compromise with educational goals
Does U.S. education pay too much to commercial products,
including CMS? Is “open source” less expensive alternative?
Is the digital divide between nations closing? Can distance education
thrive across borders?
Please have a link to our paper:
http://web.stcloudstate.edu/pmiltenoff/conf2013/madlat/facebook.docx

13.
Further Areas of Exploration
What role should social media play in
education?
What role should faculty assume in
fostering the use of social media in
education?

14.
This presentation available @: http://web.stcloudstate.edu/pmiltenoff/conf2013/madlat/Schnellert_Miltenoff_educational_use_of_social_media.pptx
gary.schnellert@email.und.edu
pmiltenoff@stcloudstate.edu
@SCSUtechinstruc
#madlat