The Effects of Social Network in Learning on High School Students in China

The Effects of Social Network in Learning on High School Students in China

曲振

澳大利亚莫纳什大学

Abstract

Over the last few decades, the advancement in technology has fulfilled its role in helping human beings become a substantial interactive media, not only in interacting with the social world but also in teaching and learning. Primarily, social networking sites are viewed as public web-based services that allow users to develop personal data and identify other users with contacts, read and react to the posts they make on the sites, and send and receive messages either publicly or privately (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). More explicitly, social networking sites have significantly developed globally with youngsters being facilitated the most from this integration of education and technology (Jiang et al., 2016). With the use of technology in education, communication has now become much easier, thereby making the learning more flexible. Moreover, with the indispensable integration of education and technology, the research activities which could not be done in classrooms could now easily be done on social networking websites. The emergence of social media has greatly influenced the way students learn and the way teachers teach (Boateng & Amankwaa, 2016). Particularly, in China, an estimation of 485 million people is now using perse social network sites for social and professional prospects (Jiang et al., 2006). For Chinese students pursuing studies internationally, the social relationships of such students have been perceived to be positively influenced by social networking sites (Cao & Zhang, 2011). The relevant scholarly research works have indeed elucidated that social networking platforms can enhance interaction with society, encourage communication and cooperation among people, enhance people’s sense of solidarity and honor, and promote the potential for effective knowledge sharing (Cetinkaya, 2019). In this essay, an attempt has been made to argue on the statement that social network in learning has positive effects on high school students in China, which are social network makes learning more flexible, helps students in research process and promotes communication and collaboration.

2.1Social network makes learning more flexible

The changing nature of the education system including the involvement of social network learning has changed the nature of students entering higher education. The interaction of higher education and the social network learning is discerned to have the attributes of highly connecting with the students, rendering creative qualities application and a flexible nature (Boateng & Amankwaa, 2016). Chiefly, according to a study by Jonker, März, and Voogt (2020), it was asserted that flexibility in any curriculum aims to increase the involvement of the students, thereby allowing varieties in graduation portfolios of the students. More comprehensively, the influx of the students in higher education has been characterized by the increase in the persity of the students, thereby indicating a responsive and flexible curriculum to tailor education to the needs, strengths, and interests of the students. Moreover, the flexible curriculum is perceived to provide the students with more opportunities to adjust their learning process and learning environment (Jonker, März & Voogt, 2020). There has been an increase in the students' attendance and enrolment with the coming of such an interactive learning environment. Studies conducted in recent years have elucidated that the use of social media in higher education is a valuable tool for collaborative learning and teaching. Predominantly, WeChat and QQ are perceived to be the two most popular platforms of social media in China. Chiefly, studies have contemplated that the use of social networks platforms by the academic institutes tend to improve the educational services by enabling interactive reading and dissemination of knowledge (Qiao & Shih, 2018). Thus, this change involving the integration of education and social networking sites have made the learning more flexible.

2.1.1 Supporting argument with relevant evidence

As per a study by Cetinkaya (2019), WhatsApp is globally known to be one of the most preferred social networking sites used for effective school management. Precisely, WhatsApp enables collaborative synchronous and asynchronous communication, and thus one of the safest and fastest positive features to be used by the principals, teachers, and management. In China, LinkedIn, WeChat, and the online classroom such as Schoology are few of the well-known social networking sites which are now being used as alternative spaces by the universities wherein students are adapting to college life through such online interactions with the faculty and the peers. Moreover, students in China like to keep their profiles and groups on social network such as Facebook and WeChat for sharing resources, enabling effective interaction, and expressing the learner's voice. Scholarly research studies have elucidated that such social media networking sites pose a liberal environment for discussions among the students, thereby enabling them to freely share their opinions and ideas on issues that otherwise are challenging in a normal traditional class. Young students find such sites as the best alternative spaces which excite them and at the same time also contribute towards their persistence and urge to learn out of the normal traditional class. Therefore, this integration of learning and social media platforms is one of the most important relationships in the present times which even the universities use for collaborating and discussing in an effective way. According to a study by Wang (2010), the existing learning community exists in a broader environment, so it contains many networks. The research has shown that knowledge in online learning communities is not a static object, it is coming from our society and is further implicated in social networks. For better learning, communicate and collaborate through social networking sites, actively build knowledge, and become more effective and relaxed through social networking sites (Wang, 2010). Thus, overall social networking sites ensure to deliver a more flexible form of learning, thereby providing students with better learning opportunities.

2.2 Social network helps students in research process

The use of social networks is based on the principles of collective exploration, acquisition and innovation, thereby supporting the consumption of knowledge through social media. According to a study by Boateng and Amankwaa (2016), this new approach of integrating education and learning through social networking sites depends on "timely" ability to access and use distributed information. Thus, instead of depending upon an inpidual accumulated with prior knowledge, social networking sites enable learning is based on the instant and anytime learning. In a study elucidated by Cao and Zhang (2012), the researchers have highlighted that social networking sites have over time received growing attention, especially among the Chinese students studying higher studies or pursuing international studies. More specifically, for Chinese students, such social networking sites play a vital role in assisting students to expand and manage their studies online. In a research conducted by Qiao and Shih (2018), it was manifested that there was resulted positive effects on social media use in teaching such as create learning opportunities, strengthen collaboration, increase teaching enthusiasm and reduce teaching costs.More explicitly, studies conducted by Eid and Al-Jabri (2016) have been found that social media tends to provide convenient peer-to-peer exchange of research knowledge and collaboration. Moreover, studies have highlighted that the use of social media from those college students who have lower levels of life satisfaction plays a crucial role as their participation in online networks increases their personal wellbeing (Ellison et al., 2007).

2.2.1 Supporting argument with relevant evidence

Furthermore, higher education institutions use social media to improve education services. For instance, universities provide online interactive reading and knowledge-based communication services, integrate social networking sites into academic publications, publish the use of publications through social networking sites in academic journals, altimetric research and interactive platforms for academic journals (Qiao & Shih, 2018). According to a study by Shih, Han, and Carroll (2014), it is highlighted that the research scholar tends to utilize social media for prediction, studying behavioral analytics, and evaluation purposes. In the same vein, research studying the influence factors of WeChat assist teaching technically in China revealed significant by Meidan (2014) asserted that perceived usefulness and the perceived ease of use enable to have a positive impact on the intention to use. Moreover, a study by Wang (2010) contemplates the significance of knowledge building through the online learning community vital for the students. With the increase in the number of digital consumers globally it has been discerned that there exist some of the motivations because of which young students tend to use social media. It was asserted that students use social media for sharing information, discussing study materials or topics, and build a stronger network among their scholarly researchers in higher education (Akakandelwa &Walubita, 2018). The use of social media is perceived to be one of the most convenient ways of peer-to-peer exchange of information and collaborations. More precisely, such social networking sites provide a direct platform for students to publicly evaluate themselves and even make real-time comments on campus environment, policies, professors, management, classmates, etc. (Boateng & Amankwaa, 2016). In addition to this, researchers have also revealed that students tend to actively participate in social media networks for experiencing a sense of connectedness and happiness (Valkenburg, Peter, & Schouten,2006). Furthermore, social networking and learning together are related to the increasing trend of young people engaged in multitasking and increasingly rely on digital processing of daily activities and responsibilities (Subrahmanyam and Šmahel, 2011). Students in the present time have the opportunity to use these social media platforms anywhere and anytime with just a single use of internet connection (Dewing, 2010). Students thus have the option to get engaged not only within the confined classroom, rather with the whole knowledge present on the internet. More precisely, the possibility of using social networking sites in curriculum-related activities have also enabled to improve digital literary skills (Greenhow, 2011). Other relevant studies have also elucidated that social media platforms such as Facebook or Ning can be integrated to get better educational outputs from the students.

2.3 Social network promotes communication and collaboration

Social network learning plays an active role in communication and collaboration, such as Facebook, it is growing in the educational field (Ranieri, 2012).  According to a study by Ranieri, Manca, and Fini (2012), the researchers aimed to elucidate on the fact why and how teachers engage in social networks by taking into consideration Facebook. The research revealed that such inclusion of social networking sites tends to have a positive impact on professional development and thus even the policymakers should encourage in professional learning. The social networking sites such as Facebook getting popular with more than 900 million users, its educational use is even more positive. Moreover, the majority of the studies conducted have highlighted the use of Facebook in education to the higher education sector, thereby being one of the most popular websites on college campuses. In the same vein, a study by Jiang et al., (2016) asserted that such social networking sites tend to achieve obvious positive results in design education, more specifically, collaboration and interaction on technical and design topics to improve education Furthermore, the use of social networking sites tends to eliminate the time and space constraints in communications between teachers and students (Cetinkaya, 2019). According to the study by Jiang et al., (2016), The social networking site was developed using an open source development environment called "LAMP stack". More explicitly, this LAMP technology is used as the core of web applications, thereby making the use simpler and easier to use. Similar bases functions and features are used in the social networking sites framework in China for students in design education in high school. 2.3.1 Supporting argument with relevant evidence

In a study conducted by Cetinkaya (2019), it was asserted that the use of WhatsApp is discerned to be one of the most useful social networking sites in sharing the school resources and materials for the students. More explicitly, the WhatsApp is an invaluable source of communication and resources at school, it can be used to send documents when necessary. Besides this, the study highlighted that different types of files are easily shared such as Photo, Video, Word, PDF, etc, thereby making the source more beneficial for the students. Overall, with the use of sources such as WhatsApp groups and other social networking sites, the students get the opportunity to extend the physical boundaries of the schools and hence contribute to the sense of belonging. Moreover, it was found that using social applications for the educational purpose such as WhatsApp enables to reach anyone at any moment of time. Thus, among the high school students, WhatsApp is the most widely used platform offering real-time communication, further ensuring ease of sharing information. For enabling better communications between the teacher and the students, the majority of the students in China prefer using advanced modern technology of learning wherein the education comes with better results in less time.

3.Recommendation Thus, by reviewing the relevant scholarly literature, studies highlight that although the use of a social media platform for learning has certain challenges, yet this advanced flexible curriculum indeed has a huge opportunity for broadening the learning experiences of the students. It is highly recommended that with the universities ensuring learning through such social networking platform must also ensure to enlighten the students on the not-so-good aspects of the learning through social networking sites. Thus, by ensuring such seminars in the universities, the students can be made aware of the issues pertaining to privacy, safety, professionalism, and setting up boundaries for the students to enable a good learning environment.

4.Conclusion

Conclusively, with the technology and social trends evolving continuously and dynamically, the modes of learning are also dramatically changing. This study evidently highlights the prospects of integrating education and social networking sites for better learning among the students. The use of social networking sites enables the students to get real-time experience to publicly evaluate themselves and even comment on their campus environment. With such a platform rendering students to become multitasking, their opportunities to learn in the most advanced environment further expands. With this knowledge building and technology-enhanced learning, the students in China have shown excellent results in new digital literary skills. Overall, learning through social networking sites increases the motivation among the students, thereby enabling students to become part of an effective online learning community.

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