How Undergraduate Students Use Social Media Technologies to Support Group Project Work

• In Event: Explorations of Virtual Learning Environments: Uses of Social Media

Abstract

Social Media Technologies (SMT) are evolving and being adopted by higher education students. Concurrently, teamwork has become an important skill in academia and the workplace. Using case studies, primary data were collected from a variety of sources for 11 undergraduate students in a blended class to see how SMT impacted group development processes. Six themes emerged: 1) SMT choices depended on individual team members’ prior use and attitudes about technology; 2) SMT is most useful for “people” aspects of team projects; 3) use of technologies differ over a project’s life; 4) lack of an explicit group SMT “contract” leads to unintended, negative consequences; 5) immediacy associated with SMT impact project planning activities; 6) SMT produce a cooperative, not collaborative, deliverable.

Author

• Peter J. Mcaliney, New York University - Steinhardt