Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, cilt.1, ss.690-698, 2015 (Hakemli Dergi)
New technologies have transformed profoundly the way in which people live, communicate and work. One of the main areas which was affected by the development of new media technologies is higher education. Academic institutions of today’s knowledge societies are embracing some transformational benefits like distance education, using podcasts and blogging practices which put education within reach of many more individuals around the world. The new technology savvy digital-age generation in higher education today, are living online with their different mobile tools most of the day and use the social networking sites effectively. Accordingly instructional paradigms are expected to shift from one way lecturing to two way interactive learning process which requires using new media tools and networks. There are studies proposing the use of social media and blogging as supportive and effective educational learning in the digital era. This study tries to determine how social media is being used by the communication faculty students in Turkey as a daily practice and for academic purposes to support educational and cooperative learning. The main reason of choosing communication students is because there are courses about new media and new media literacy at these faculties. Therefore it is also aimed to find out the new media skills and habits of both scholars and students in this field. The study was designed as an exploratory online survey and shared in student facebook groups of communication faculties between 1-30 April 2015 to adress the questions which were central for the perception, practice, expectations of the students’ social media use and the way of academic interactions with their scholars on social media. The paper discusses the instructional and learning benefits of social media use for academic purposes.