An empirical study of lecturers’ appropriation of social technologies for higher education

Abstract

The use of Online Social Networking (OSN) educational activities has become commonplace in today’s higher education. OSN enables lecturers and students to generate and share content, interact, and collaborate in the knowledge construction process. The pedagogical benefits of social technologies have been widely discussed. However, less is known about the processes that lecturers follow when integrating social technologies into their teaching activities. With the aim of developing a practical guiding framework, this paper examines the processes that lecturers have followed when appropriating social technologies for learning purposes. Based on interviews with fourteen Australian lecturers and sixteen Malaysian lecturers who have used social technologies, different processes of appropriation are explored. Drawing on the empirical findings, this paper proposes a framework that can be used to guide lecturers in appropriating social technologies systematically. The framework will be beneficial for lecturers seeking guidance to support the appropriation of social technologies for structured and formal use in higher education.