Contributions and Usage Frequencies of Social Media Tools: Teaching Practice Example

Abstract

In this study instructors, teachers and prospective teachers used a social media based online
learning environment in a Teaching Practice course in order to facilitate the university-school collaboration. The
online learning environment was Social Media Classroom (SMC) which is an open-source web service,
providing an integrated set of social media tools like blog, wiki, forum, and social bookmarking. The study is
implemented with 70 participants. The purpose of this study is to examine the usage of the social media tools
according to the contribution types and frequencies in a Teaching Practice course throughout a semester long
implementation. In the study participants’ reports and SMC logs were examined. It was concluded that wiki’s
and social bookmarking’s contribution is information gathering. Blogs’ contributions are information gathering,
feedback, and reflection. Forum’s contributions are information, feedback, and discussion. The usage frequency
of tools could be listed in the order of most used to the least used as blog, forum, wiki, and social bookmarking.
The participation average is listed in the order of the most to the least according to the roles as instructors,
prospective teachers, and teachers.