Using Social Network Sites in Higher Education and Modern

Languages: A Literature Review

Rhianne Jones
Liverpool John Moores University and the University of Salford
r.jones@ljmu.ac.uk and r.jones@pgr.salford.ac.uk
April 2009

Abstract

The mass uptake of social network sites (SNSs) by young people has prompted
educationalists to investigate the implications this may have for university
students’ social experiences and future learning. This review sets out to discuss
existing literature about the pedagogical applications or uses of social
networking in Higher Education and to open up discussion of how social
networking sites might prove useful to undergraduate language students whilst
taking their year abroad.

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Today’s students are part of what has been termed the ‘Net Generation’
(Tapscott 1998; Oblinger and Oblinger 2005; Tapscott 2009): a cohort of
young people who have grown up with the Internet and new Information and
Communication Technologies (ICT). A series of reports have emerged in
recent years highlighting the extent to which new ICTs are becoming
increasingly embedded in the educational experiences and everyday lives of
today’s student population (Jones and Madden 2002; Kvavik and Caruso
2005; Selwyn et al 2008; Salaway and Caruso, 2008; JISC-Ipsos Mori 2008;
Katz 2008; Johnson et al 2008 & 2009). Students today have been identified
as being particularly active users of a variety of new technologies, from
personal laptops and mobile phones to MP3 players and portable computing
devices. Moreover they have been identified as some of the heaviest users of
the internet (Jones and Madden 2002; Salaway and Caruso 2008). The arrival
of ‘Web 2.0’ – a term coined by O'Reilly (2006) to denote a second generation
of web development and design where web content is characterised by
interconnectivity, interactivity and collaboration – has stimulated a new wave
of interest in students’ use of the Internet, particularly in relation to new social
media such as blogs, wikis and social networking, as these are web services
which have proven to be particularly popular with younger generations.

The mass uptake of new social media by students has subsequently become
the source of significant debate in education (Bryant 2006). It has been
suggested that this surge of interest is because Web 2.0 technologies display
characteristics such as interactivity and collaboration that link with socio-
cultural theories of learning which tend to stress the co-construction of
knowledge in social settings (Selwyn et al 2008). This has prompted
educationalists to consider how they can capitalise on the popularity of these
new technologies and harness them for learning purposes. Social Network
Sites are one of the latest and arguably one of the biggest of current social
software trends, as evidenced by the proven popularity of sites such as
MySpace, Facebook, Friendster and Bebo (Ellison and boyd 2007). Ellison
and boyd (2007) define SNSs as:

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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, and (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.

In essence, these sites allow people to produce personal profiles, link their
profiles to the profiles of other users, and communicate with people in their
network(s). Many of these sites also allow users to upload and share
information and content i.e. photos, music, videos, and web links. Like many
of the new Web 2.0 technologies, SNSs have proven to be popular with the
young generation (Ellison et al 2006 & 2007; Salaway and Caruso 2008) and
research in both the UK (Selwyn et al 2008) and the US (Salaway and Caruso
2008) has reported a particularly strong uptake of these sites among student
populations. For example, the 2008 ECAR study revealed that up to 82% of
college students were registered with one or more SNSs, with Facebook and
MySpace being the most popular. Moreover the report revealed that these
students spend up to five hours per week on these sites with the majority of
students logging in on a daily basis (Salaway and Caruso 2008).

Research into young people’s use of SNSs has reported that in the majority of
cases students are using these sites for social purposes in their own time
(Salaway and Caruso 2008). However the 2008 ECAR study reported that
nearly half of the student users in their sample (49%) had integrated SNSs
into their academic life as a mechanism for communicating with classmates
(ibid). This is a significant figure and suggests that the ways in which students
are using SNSs might have implications for their learning and educational
experiences.

As with many web 2.0 social software technologies, it has been argued that
SNSs would provide good spaces or platforms for student learning (Selwyn et
al 2008). This is because they are seen to support a range of applications
which display qualities associated with educational technologies already in
use at university level such as communication, participation, interactivity and
collaboration (Selwyn et al 2008). SNSs are thus seen as having the capacity

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to provide an attractive interactive and participatory environment where
students can connect with friends, peers, like-minded individuals and
communities in a space outside the formal or immediate setting of the
educational environment. The argument here is that SNSs might offer a
potential space to support and expand discussion beyond the classroom and
provide students with new ways to communicate, interact and collaborate with
one another (Bryant 2006). This has in turn prompted a great deal of interest
and discussion about SNSs in educational contexts and their potential uses
and significance to student learning (Selwyn et al 2008).

There have been a number of projects highlighting the significance of social

software to education which have identified the importance of SNSs to
students’ ICT practices (Kvavik and Caruso 2005; Ellison et al 2007; Salaway
and Caruso 2008; Selwyn et al 2008). Research into students and SNSs has
focused on a number of different issues including identity, community, privacy
and surveillance, and social capital, highlighting the many ways in which
students are using these sites as spaces to construct identity, to connect and
communicate with friends and to upload and share information and content.
The literature on Web 2.0 social software and education is rapidly expanding,
however consideration of the ways in which SNSs may be able to support or
facilitate learning is still emerging, and is often more speculative in character
then empirically based. The extent to which these sites may facilitate both
informal and formal learning is still largely indeterminate.

Literature on the potential pedagogical uses of open SNSs such as MySpace

and Facebook has tended to focus on the way the specific design features of
these sites can provide an interactive and participatory platform which can
potentially offer a useful means for student collaboration and social
organisation (Mason and Rennie 2008). As a form of ‘distributed media’ (ibid),
SNSs have the potential to support learners across a wide range of
geographical locations and networks, offering a space for connection,
communication, collaboration and user content production. More generally,
the current literature suggests that these sites offer students a useful way to
visualise their social connections (Donath and boyd 2004), acquire social

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capital (Ellison et al 2007), develop social networking skills (Selwyn et al
2007), keep a written record of discussions and dialogues, and maintain
flexible and mobile contact with their peers (Mason and Rennie 2008).

The established popularity of SNSs with students has led universities to try
and engage with these sites in a variety of ways. Some universities have
created university profile pages as a means of advertising the university and
recruiting student ‘fans’. Examples of UK universities using Facebook include
the University of Central Lancashire, Cardiff University and the University of
Kent. Using SNSs in this way is believed to offer universities an alternative
route to connecting with students. However these profile pages are used to
represent institutions rather than people, so they do not function in the same
way as a standard user profile page and have a managerial rather than an
educational function as they are often restricted to university announcements,
or mass messaging affiliated student users. In addition to university
homepages, educators are also creating profiles on SNSs to use to
communicate directly with students. An example of this can be seen in
Szwelnik’s (2008) research at Oxford Brookes University where a subject-
related Facebook group was set up as a supplementary social learning space
to facilitate teaching for a module in the Business School. The site was used
for a range of activities including on-line discussions, support regarding
assessment and giving encouragement to students (Szwelnik 2008). This
practical investigation into students’ experiences of using Facebook
demonstrates the potential educational use of the site. However the findings
raised a number of student concerns in relation to access, privacy and the
boundaries between social and educational spaces, and the author
acknowledged that further empirical work was needed to provide more
conclusive evidence.

Interest in using SNSs in relation to teaching practice is also seen in the

Facebook group Educators using Facebook, an online interest group forging
connections between educators wishing to use Facebook in their teaching
practice. As of 1 April 2009, the group was providing over 900 registered
members with a space for discussion on related issues and for sharing

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relevant content. This group offers an example of efforts on behalf of
educators to develop means and strategies to engage with SNSs in
educational contexts. It also illustrates how the sites themselves can bring
educators together and provide a discussion space around shared vocational
interests. The online service Ning also supports groups and communities in
this way, as illustrated by the network Ning in Education, a community of
educators using Ning to power their own educational social networks, and the
network Classroom 2.0, a network supporting the use of Web 2.0 in the
classroom. In contrast to Facebook and MySpace, Ning allows people to
design and create their own social networks. Although Ning is not as well
known or as popular as the more mainstream SNSs, it has been reported to
be increasingly used in education and learning as an alternative to university-
specific virtual learning environments (Armstrong and Franklin 2008).

Another way universities have begun to use of SNSs for educational purposes
is by integrating the sites directly into teaching practice. In 2007, Stanford
University became one of the first institutions to offer students taught classes
on building applications for SNSs (Baldwin 2007). The course, entitled ‘Create
Engaging Web Applications Using Metrics and Learning on Facebook’, was
designed to help students in computer science, engineering and business to
learn how to build and market user-friendly software. In a similar move, West
Chester University of Pennsylvania integrated the use of SNSs into the
classroom as a means to teach students about the concepts of social
networking (for review see Mason and Rennie 2008). The course required
students to design their own profile pages, investigate the technology and
reflect on the process (ibid). These cases offer course-specific illustrations of
some of the potential educational uses of SNSs.

Whilst examples such as the foregoing show that universities are currently
making use of SNSs for educational purposes, there is also a valid case for
arguing that these sites may not be the most appropriate tools to use in
educational contexts. In assessing whether or not SNSs are viable
pedagogical tools, it is important to acknowledge that students’ use of SNSs
may not always be straightforward, steady or predictable (Mason and Rennie

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2008). For example, students may be registered with, and may regularly use,
multiple SNSs, but their navigation between different sites may cause
problems for educators wanting to engage with them using this technology.
There are also no guarantees that students will remain active users of
particular SNSs over set periods of time. Students may discontinue their use,
or migrate to other SNSs (ibid). Research investigating student views on the
use of SNSs by educators has also highlighted concerns over privacy and
identity management (Hewitt and Forte 2006; Szwelnik 2008) and issues have
been raised over the implications of students’ use of SNSs in terms of their
professional reputations. Cain (2008), for example, has highlighted the
potential risks to students of having their online personas blend with their
professional lives, noting that students may reveal information in their profiles
about themselves which may have implications for their studies and their
future careers (ibid).

Whilst evidence has suggested that students do use SNSs for educational
purposes, the exact relationship between students’ use of these sites and
their learning experiences is rather more complex. While the 2008 ECAR
study showed that 49% of student respondents in their study were integrating
SNSs into their academic life as a way of communicating with classmates and
peers (Salaway and Caruso 2008), the report revealed that fewer than 5% of
the students (less then 5%) were actually using these sites to communicate
with instructors (Salaway and Caruso 2008). Similarly, whilst evidence
suggests that some students believe SNSs might be potentially useful in
‘enhancing their learning’ (JISC-Ipsos MORI 2008), research in this area has
also revealed a number of student concerns over the prospect of universities
capitalising on SNSs and appropriating them for educational purposes. For
example, students have expressed unease at the idea of educators having a
presence in what they view as their personal social spaces. Szwelnik (2008)
offers an illustration of this, as she integrated Facebook into her teaching
practice and used follow up interviews to encourage students to reflect on the
experience. While her findings suggest that there are some ways in which
Facebook works well as a learning environment, they also indicate that some
students felt that integrating Facebook into the curriculum was an invasion

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into their private social space. Some students preferred to have clearly
demarcated boundaries between educational and social spaces, something
which was also illustrated by their use of separate email accounts for
educational and social purposes. These concerns about privacy have also
been reproduced in popular media discourse in articles such as ‘Students tell
universities to ‘get out of MySpace’’ (Hoare 2007). As the 2008 ECAR study
suggests, peer-to-peer interaction on these sites, whether social or
educational, is more appealing to students than peer-to-tutor interaction
(Salaway and Caruso 2008).

What these findings may suggest is that students may not always be in favour
of educators occupying what they see as personal online spaces. As an
alternative, open source software such as Elgg can be used by universities to
design their own closed social network sites. Social software like Elgg has
been designed to provide similar functions to mainstream SNSs such as
blogging, tagging and community functions (Bryant 2006). Universities have
begun to use this type of software to design their own closed social
networking tools (Ryberg 2008). The University of Westminster’s ‘CONNECT’
service is an example of this in practice (Oradini and Saunders 2008). The
service has been designed to run alongside the Blackboard virtual leaning
environment, allowing both teachers and learners to create their own profiles,
participate in discussions and upload and share content (Selwyn et al 2008).
This site supports the creation of communities and facilitates social
networking as well as the formation of study groups specifically relating to
learning. A further example of an educationally based online social network is
School of Everything, an award-winning open SNS that seeks to connect
individuals with an interest in teaching and learning. School of Everything is
orientated towards a collaborative model of education aimed at using online
tools to bring people together around shared interests and goals. In addition
to Elgg, the aforementioned online platform Ning also allows people to create
their own social networks, as well as join and participate in other networks. By
allowing users to create social networks, and to be creative in designing them,
Ning offers an alternative to SNSs such as Facebook and MySpace. In
contrast to these sites, Ning provides educationalists with a potential platform

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to create their own social networking spaces that can, for example, be based
around university affiliation, academic topics, courses and projects. The
benefit of creating a specifically designed social network, as opposed to
creating one on SNSs such as Facebook, is that it circumvents the concerns
put forward by students that using these sites in education is an intrusion into
their private or personal space. Moreover, it has been suggested
(EDUCAUSE 2008) that Ning can also be used by colleges and universities to
help current or incoming students to build connections or as a way for
universities to stay in contact with students after they have left. Ning can also
be used in a similar way by students allowing them to create their own social
networks based on university affiliations, activities, courses and projects and
as a way to meet people, cement friendships and sustain contact with peers
after their course has been completed.

Taking a slightly different approach, Dalsgaard (2008) provides a useful

contribution to the debate about using SNSs such as MySpace and Facebook
in educational contexts. He presents a case for needing to understand
students’ existing use of SNSs in light of their learning experiences as
opposed to trying to use these SNSs for educational purposes. He argues that
SNSs have the potential to facilitate a form of ‘transparency’ between
students, a means by which students have insight into each others’ work,
thoughts and productions. As SNSs are individually orientated, rather than
shared spaces such as forums, he argues that these sites support a means of
indirect or passive communication: a form of communication that is not always
direct or collaborative but arises from users following links and gaining access
to information. This position advocates SNS facilities as a means of indirect
communication including the sharing of resources, thoughts, productions and
writings. Dalsgaard argues that unlike virtual learning environments, SNSs
should be viewed as a supplement to other educational tools, which, by
creating transparency between students, can in itself facilitate the learning
process.

If, as Dalsgaard suggests, these sites support student learning in subtle and
new ways, then looking at students’ existing use of SNSs may yield useful

9
insights into how these sites are facilitating learning in informal ways. This
approach has been taken by academics at Leicester University who are
involved in ongoing research into students’ existing use of Facebook through
an investigation into the importance of the site to students’ integration into
university life. The research investigates how pre-registration engagement
with a Facebook network influences students’ post-registration social
networks (Madge et al 2009). Revealing that students used Facebook as a
way to make new friends at university, the project describes the site as a kind
of ‘social glue’ for first year undergraduates which helps them settle into their
new social and academic life (University of Leicester 2008). Facebook is,
however, situated alongside other social networking practices and face-to-
face interactions, and the authors are careful not to overprivilege the role of
the site in students’ integration into social life at university more generally.
Similar findings were also reported by Jones (2007) whose research
investigated students’ uses, experiences and views of Facebook and found
that the site played an integral role in students’ broader experiences at
university. The findings highlighted the importance of Facebook in providing
students with a space for the micro-management of their social lives at
university, a means of cementing and building connections with other students
and a way to ‘socially monitor’ or keep themselves informed about the
activities and interactions of other students, a view which has affinities with
the concept of transparency put forward by Dalsgaard (2008). What this
research suggests is that students’ use of SNSs can , and does, play an
important role in their educational experiences, but in social contexts rather
than formal educational contexts. Given these findings, future research should
be guided by attempts to further develop an understanding of students’
existing use of SNSs and how this can feed into students’ educational
experiences by investigating the ways in which these technologies might be
providing a social infrastructure for students during their time at university.

This emerging body of literature on students’ informal use of SNSs addresses

the potential significance of social networking to student learning experiences,
both as a form of transparency (Dalsgaard 2008) and as part of their broader
educational experiences (Jones 2007, Madge et al 2009). This work usefully

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supplements earlier findings on student uses of SNSs in such areas as the
acquisition of social capital (Ellison et al 2007). There is also a growing body
of work on the pedagogical uses of SNSs which looks at ways in which
educators can create profiles on existing SNSs, integrate SNSs into their
teaching practice, build groups of interest and practice on SNSs, and use
social networking software such as Elgg or online platforms such as Ning to
build open or closed SNSs. However there are still areas that have been
unexplored or largely overlooked. One such area is the role that SNSs may
play in the experiences of students who, during their time at university, will
move from one educational context to another during their studies, for
example foreign students or language students (notable exceptions include
Blattner and Fiori 2009 and Halvorsen 2009).

Gargano (2008) describes how international students have to negotiate

transnational social fields which involve maintaining ties and connections back
home whilst simultaneously creating new networks in their current social and
environment abroad. In such instances, SNSs can offer international students
or students who live abroad access to online social spaces which, in addition
to other communication technologies such as the telephone, can be used to
maintain their existing connections whilst also being used to cement, build
and maintain new ones when moving to new educational contexts. They may
also provide students with access to new networks or contexts with potential
for collaborative learning. Research showing that students use SNSs to stay
connected with peers suggests that many language students may already use
SNSs to stay connected with fellow classmates. Existing case study examples
of universities and educators using SNSs to connect with students also
illustrate how academic staff in modern languages might find SNSs useful as
a way to stay in contact with students while they are away from the home
university. In such instances SNSs may offer language tutors a space to stay
connected with students both individually and on a group basis, in an
interactive and participatory platform and in a time- and cost-effective way.

These sites may also be useful for language students as a way to improve
their language skills. Shetzer and Warschauer (2000) use the concept of

11
electronic literacy to highlight the importance of computer-mediated
communication and networks to language learning. They suggest that typing
in an SNS in a foreign language may have positive effects on students’
language skills, written expression and acquisition of colloquialisms (ibid).
Facilities such as live or instantaneous chat as well as asynchronous
messaging facilities could prove a fruitful means for students to interact with
peers or friends made in a foreign country. Moreover, sites such as MySpace
and Facebook offer users multilingual interfaces and offer the option to
change the language in which the site appears, giving users the option to
interact with the site in a number of different languages. Blattner and Fiori
(2009) take up some of these issues in their recent study of the educational
potential of Facebook for language students. They argue that Facebook
facilitates socio-pragmatic competence – the capacity to use language
appropriately in specific social contexts – and the ability to study language
from the point of view of users (Blattner and Fiori 2009). They argue that
through asynchronous and synchronous chat as well as other interactive
facilities, Facebook can be an innovative tool to facilitate the development of
socio-pragmatic awareness and competence in second language learners
through meaningful intervention, and that it can aid cross-cultural
understanding. However, as O'Dowd (2007) argues, there is a need to be
cautious and not to overemphasise the ease with which students can engage
in intercultural exchange in this way. Students face a number of difficulties
when communicating across social and cultural contexts, arising from
differences in social and cultural expectations. While it is suggested that
SNSs may be able to facilitate this process, the extent to which remains
tentative rather then conclusive.

Research by Halvorsen (2009) into SNS use in the language classroom also
considers SNSs in relation to language learning and acquisition. He
investigated the pedagogical potential of MySpace for educators and second
language learners in a study of the way Japanese students used MySpace
while learning English as a second language. The research formally required
students to register with the site and interact, through blogging and posting
comments, with other students that they did not know. Halvorsen found that

12
MySpace proved to be a functional tool for student learning which had three
primary benefits: it facilitated learner autonomy by encouraging student
authoring and sharing of content, it assisted identity formation of students in
the target language, and it encouraged student collaboration and support.
Halvorsen’s research provides a good example of how SNSs can be directly
integrated into teaching practice, and the range of pedagogical benefits that
may result, from course-specific language acquisition skills to more general
benefits to student learning including student collaboration and support.

Research into the implications of SNSs for language learning is still emerging.
A body of literature exists on new social technologies and language learning
in areas such as Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) and Second
Language Learning (SLL) as well as broader literature on students’ use of
SNSs and the implications of this for learning and education. However the full
implications of the use of SNSs in relation to the experiences of foreign
students or students abroad is still largely unexplored and further empirical
research is needed to explore how SNSs are being used by these students,
and what the implications this use is for both social and educational, and
formal and informal experiences. What is clear is that these sites are
increasingly integrated into young people’s lives and this reaffirms the need
for further research and empirical investigation into the myriad of ways in
which students, from different backgrounds and with different needs, are
using social networking technologies.

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