Use of Online
Educational Social
Networking in a School
Environment
Bethany V. Smith
College of Education, NC State University

Does a student-centered
online tool, such as Ning, foster
knowledge construction
through discussion boards
more than a class-focused
online tool, such as a
traditional CMS?

Significance

Limitations

Review of Literature

Social Networking

boyd & Eliison (2007)
define social networking
as:
web based services that allow
individuals to

(1) construct a public or
semi-public profile
within a bounded system

(2) articulate a list of
other users with whom
they share a connection

(3) view and traverse their
list of connections and those
made by others within the
system. The nature and
nomenclature of these
connections may vary from
site to site

42,089,200

18-24
40%

25-34
26%

Student Use

Ellison et al (2007)
surveyed 286 students,
94% were users of
Facebook.

Communication Use
• Class work
• Lectures
• Exams
• Vent concerns
• Gain clarification on assignment
(Selwyn, 2007)

Even though they had
Blackboard

Faculty Use

Mazer et al. (2007) reason that
the more students understand
and connect with their
instructors on a personal level,
through the vehicle of a SNS,
the more intrinsically
motivated they are to
participate in their class.

Hewitt & Forte’s (2006)
research revealed that the
students perceive Facebook to
be primarily “owned” by
students, and that faculty use is
an intrusion.

Several teachers have been
rendered unemployed
based on their personal
MySpace or Facebook
pages (Ewbank et al., 2008;
Saunders, 2008).

Ning: The Walled
Garden Approach

The “walled garden” is a term
coined by former
TeleCommunications, Inc.
founder, John Malone to
describe a closed network that
limits subscribers’ choices to a
restricted range of content
(Van Tassel, 2006)

Ning Facebook
Comment Wall The Wall
Blog Post Status Update
Latest Activity News Feed
Photos Photos
“My Page” Profile Page
Friends* Friends
Blog Post Notes
* Nomenclature may be changed within each
respective Ning network

The College of Ed Ning
was created in the
Summer of 2008

Distance Education &
Discussion Boards

“The students have to be convinced of
the usefulness of online discussion as a
learning tool and be guided to respond
and participate in a manner from which
they derive optimum benefits. If the
students perceive and experience online
discussion as a valued process, they will
then be more likely to participate actively
in it.”
Lim and Cheah (2003, p. 34)

How effective are
discussion boards in
engaging students?

Peer-to-peer interactions
on the other hand have a
tendency to not only be
more engaging, but also
more effective
(Grisham & Wolsey, 2006;
Rourke & Anderson, 2002)

Motivation

Keller (1987)
ARCS (Attention,
Relevance, Confidence,
Satisfaction)

Song & Keller (1999) utilized
the ARCS model for
developing computer assisted
instructional models and Keller
(2008) has recently applied his
ARCS model to the field of e-
learning and online
instructional design.

Creating a Community

Johnson, Levine, and Smith
(2008, p. 15) suggests that after
integrating social networks
into higher education that the
next step is to “build rich,
interactive, robust learning
communities.”

Correia & Davis, 2008).
Wenger (2008, p. 1) defines
communities of practice as
“groups of people who share a
concern or passion for
something they do and learn
how to do it better as they
interact regularly.”

The Domain:
It has an identity defined by a
shared domain of interest.
Membership therefore implies
a commitment to the domain,
and therefore a shared
competence that distinguishes
members from other people

The Community:
In pursuing their interest in
their domain, members engage
in joint activities and
discussions, help each other,
and share information. They
build relationships that enable
them to learn from each other

The Practice: members of a
community of practice are
practitioners. They develop a
shared repertoire of
resources: experiences,
stories, tools, ways of
addressing recurring problems
– in short a shared practice.

Goos & Bennison (2008) were
able to create a community of
practice for their student
teachers that grew out of their
classroom.

Methodology

Research Question
Does a student-centered online
tool, such as Ning, foster
knowledge construction through
discussion boards more than a
class-focused online tool, such as
Moodle?

Null Hypothesis
The quality of discussion board
postings in the Ning group, as
measured by the IAM phase system, is
typical of other online classes.

Study Design
Data Collection Data Analysis
Attitudinal Survey Mann-Whitney U test
2-tailed t-test comparison
Motivational Survey
between both groups
Coding of Ning group
Discussion Board Postings
postings using IAM schema
Interview questions Emergence of themes

Sample
Ning CMS
Number of Students 20* 18

Attitudinal Survey
Ning CMS Total
Number of Students 20* 18 38
Number of
18 14 32
Respondents
Response Rate 90% 77% 84%

Mann-Whitney U
yielded no significant
differences between
groups
Z = -3.66, p = .733

4 Constructs
# of Items Reliability
Communication 5 0.55
Internet Usage 7 0.8
Basic Technical
5 0.75
Skills
Advanced Technical
9 0.7
Skills
Overall Reliability of 0.90

Motivation Survey
Ning CMS Total
Number of Students 20* 18 38
Number of
12 9 21
Respondents
Response Rate 60% 50% 55%

Independent Samples
t-test yielded no
statistical significance
between groups.
t(19) = .241, p=.812

400 Discussion Board
Postings

Interaction Analysis
Model
Gunawardena, C. N., Lowe, C., & Anderson, T. (1997)

Phase I
Sharing and comparing of information

Phase II
Discovery and exploration of dissonance or
inconsistency among participants

Phase III
Negotiation of meaning or knowledge co-construction:

Phase IV
Testing and modification

Phase V
Phrasing of agreement and applications of newly
constructed meaning

Week 8

Number of
Phase Percentage
Postings
Phase I 4 28%
Phase II 7 50%
Phase III 2 14%
Phase IV 2 7%
Phase V 1 0.06%

Started by a Student

Controversial Topic

Interviews
Prior
Participant Group Gender Position
SNS
Doctoral
Participant 04 Ning F Y
Student
Participant 22 CMS F Tech Teacher Y
Doctoral
Participant 23 Neither F Y
Student
Participant 24 CMS M Tech Teacher Y
Participant 03 Ning F CTE Teacher N
Participant 14 Ning F CTE Teacher N
Doctoral
Participant 25 CMS F Y
Student

Theme Emergence
Response Number
Ning’s ease of use 2
Similarity of Ning to other discussion boards 2
Need to collaborate with other students 3
Value knowing more about other students in class 4
Recognize a need for professional social networking 5
Importance of teacher facilitation/interaction on discussion 4
Enjoy discussions online 3
Privacy concerns with SNS 3
Interest in creating their own Ning 3

“I like the ability to be apart of a group
where you have to be invited to be. So
you have members that are actually part
of your group, so not everybody can join
like on Facebook. So the privacy it brings.
And of course I like all the social
networking aspects that allow me to
share pictures and music, videos, personal
information, post to your wall, all those
typical social networking things.”
Participant 22

Research Findings

Based on the previous research of
peer-to-peer interactions on
discussion boards (Grisham &
Wolsey, 2006; Rourke & Anderson,
2002) it was expected that by
utilizing a tool that encouraged
student control and interaction
there would be a significant increase
in the depth and breadth of student
discussions.

Discussion Board
• Discussion questions may not have been
formulated for the debate IAM looks for
• May have internalized knowledge
construction (Kanuka & Anderson, 2005)
• Heavy peer-to-peer interaction
• Pre-conceptions of board usage

Ning Use
• Students enjoyed using the tool
• Several plan on using it in their classrooms
• Tool aquisition
• Paradigm shift

Limitations
• Number of participants
• Convenience Sample
• Only generalizable to other graduate
classes in Instructional Technology

Future Research
• Larger Scale
• Non-technical class
• Undergraduates
• Focus on profile creation tools
• Longitudinal study
• Facebook

Implications for
Practice
• Overview of tool
• Setting expectations