Implementation of facebook study groups as supplements for learning management systems (lms) in adult odl environments

Being an Open Distance Learning (ODL) institution, Wawasan Open University (WOU) employs a blended approach for delivering courses to its undergraduate and postgraduate students who are entirely adult learners. In this approach, the use of a Learning Management System (LMS) is absolutely crucial for student support as well as the enhancement of the whole learning experience to compensate for the lack of face-to-face interaction between the students and the academics. WawasanLearn, the Open Source moodle based LMS system used by WOU, is a comprehensive online tool which enables students and academics to effectively interact in a virtual environment. However, the analysis of data from several semesters shows that the rate of student interaction is low on WawasanLearn with respect to sharing of knowledge.

In order to qualitatively and quantitatively identify the factors contributing to the rate of participation of students in WawasanLearn, a survey was conducted among the undergraduate students studying in various disciplines including science and technology, business administration, liberal studies, education, languages and communication. Feedback regarding what manner of support students expect from WawasanLearn was gathered from close to five hundred and fifty students distributed throughout Malaysia. Another aspect of the study was to identify whether and why students are drawn to participate more frequently in social networking platforms such as facebook (facebook.com).

Resulting from the findings, a pilot project was implemented to study the use of facebook groups as study groups for supplementing WawasanLearn. These study groups were run in parallel to WawasanLearn for seven course modules over a duration of two consecutive semesters. This paper discusses the findings of this pilot project with respect to the implementation of facebook groups as supplements to LMS in an adult ODL environment.

Abeywardena, I.S. , & Tham, C.Y. (2011). Implementation of Facebook Study Groups as Supplements for Learning Management Systems (LMS) in Adult ODL Environments. Proceedings of the 25th  Asian Association of Open Universities Annual Conference, Malaysia. (http://library.wou.edu.my/vertical/vf2011-17.pdf )

Implementation of facebook study groups as supplements for learning management systems (lms) in adult odl environments

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