“What’sApp” with the Social Message? Networked Learning and Social Media Interactions in Curriculum Design: Exploring Student Perceptions

Abstract

This paper discusses a small scale research study concerned with answering the research question: “What perceptions are held by students regarding networked learning and social media interactions?” This question was part of a wider research focal question: How do digital technologies and digital learning resources mediate Communities of Practice to support participation and learning? The aim of the study was to explore how the use of Web 2.0 technologies involving social mediated communication within higher education using the WhatsApp social media tool can gain further insight into the value students place on mediated interactions in education and adaptive learning. The author explores the use of WhatsApp as a data gathering tool in participant-observation techniques and how the virtual space it creates affects the data collection and evaluation processes involved in ethnographic research. I raise awareness to the empowerment that this gives to students and the opportunities for transformative and adaptive learning. The relevance of the paper is pertinent to vocational educators as it highlights how technologically mediated communication and virtual ethnographic research is a viable blended educational practice that can support the personalisation of aims and objectives to be achieved in working learning environments.