Comparison of social networking sites utilization (Facebook) and moodle as a course management system in a face-to-face course

2018-09-03
Albayrak, Duygu
Yıldırım, Zahide
The purpose of this study was to investigate and compare the students’ utilization of Moodle and Facebook as course management system (CMS) in face-to-face course. The research question guided the study was: “How do students compare course Facebook page and Moodle in face-to-face (F2F) course?” A CMS can basically be defined as a software program, containing a series of web-based tools to support a number of teaching, learning and course management procedures. Over the past eight years, CMS systems, considered critical software for both colleges and universities, have developed quickly (Cole & Foster, 2008). The CMSs, being utilized in education in different forms, are evolving. A CMS can be used as a supplement to the traditional classroom curriculum, i.e., as an electronic repository of course materials (Vovides et al, 2007). Nowadays, one of the most commonly used CMS is Moodle (modular object oriented developmental learning environment), a free learning management system enabling the creation of powerful, flexible and engaging online courses and experiences (Romera et al, 2008). Most used features of CMS are publishing syllabus, sending e-mails and providing soft copy of lecture notes or readings while the communicative and interactive features and tools of CMS are mostly unused (Kvavik et al. 2004; Morgan, 2003; Yueh & Hsu, 2008). Brady, Holcomb and Smith (2010) stated that CMS such as Moodle and Blackboard tend to be much focused and lack the personal contact and networking capacity that SNSs offers. Moreover, they emphasized that in contrast CMSs that are class centered, SNSs are user centered and have the potential to increase student engagement by encouraging personal interactions. Additionally, researchers have suggested SNSs can be an effective environment for teaching and learning as an alternate to the traditional CMSs such as Moodle by promoting students' motivation, engagement, and interaction (Albayrak & Yildirim, 2015). This study results might be helpful to understand whether the reason is that CMSs are different software which students did not use in their daily lives by using Facebook which students use as daily. This study is important to the field of instructional design because it explored how the utilization of SNS may be beneficial to increase collaboration, communication, and interaction in F2F courses. Moreover, instructional designers will see an example of how SNSs can be utilized in F2F courses. The results of this study are also crucial for both instructional designers and practitioners to make clear the expectations of students from a CMS. The results of this study might demonstrate instructional designers and practitioners might recognize students’ comparison of Moodle and Facebook as CMS. Considering the limited number of research studies related to utilization of SNSs as CMS to solve the problems of CMSs, new studies should be carried out to investigate how SNSs can be used in teaching and learning processes. This study shows that many students felt they benefited from utilization of Facebook as a CMS and they preferred to use Facebook instead of Moodle as a CMS.
European Educational Research Association-ECER, 3 – 7 September 2018

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Citation Formats
D. Albayrak and Z. Yıldırım, “Comparison of social networking sites utilization (Facebook) and moodle as a course management system in a face-to-face course,” presented at the European Educational Research Association-ECER, 3 – 7 September 2018, Bolzano, Italy, 2018, Accessed: 00, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/86851.