Incorporating Social Media in Blended Learning Courses at Higher Learning Institutions

Abstract

Social media in teaching and learning has become the latest trend at higher institutions. The paper shares the reasons of incorporating social media in the blended learning courses at Universiti Teknologi MARA, Sarawak Branch. Five social media platforms were incorporated in teaching and learning. The platforms were Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and WhatsApp. The social media platforms were fully used during the Week Without Wall which was implemented by university for one to two weeks in every semester. A survey method was used to collect the data. Open ended questions were used to scrutinize the reasons lecturers incorporated social media in the blended learning courses. Google form was used to collect the survey data. The survey form was disseminated via social media platforms. 74 lecturers responded to the online survey. The study found that incorporating social media in blended learning courses were to reduce the generation gap, allowed flexibility, extended face-toface teaching, ease of use, convenient, easy to apply different teaching approaches, allowed linkage, allowed self-pace learning, enhanced teaching and learning process, monitoring and evaluation, sharing, fast response and learning community.