Social Media's Potential to Facilitate Dialogic Learning

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Author(s): Jin Yang (University of Memphis, USA)
Copyright: 2014
Pages: 13
Source title: Handbook of Research on Education and Technology in a Changing Society
Source Author(s)/Editor(s): Viktor Wang (Florida Atlantic University, USA)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-6046-5.ch068

Keywords: Education / Educational Technologies / Information Science Reference

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Abstract

The chapter explores the use of social media in educational settings and assesses its potential as a learning tool in facilitating deep learning and knowledge development. Guided by Vygotsky and Bakhtin's theory of dialogic learning, the chapter argues, by discussion, that social media may facilitate deep learning and knowledge development due to social media's convenient discursive space and heightened interactivity. Specifically, social media's discursive space may provide a platform that is egalitarian and democratic to all who have access to it. The breakdown of traditional communication barriers in this discursive space can be significant in engaging students in dialogic learning. Social media's heightened interactivity embodied in social, procedural, expository, explanatory, and cognitive dimensions may shorten psychological distances, lighten class-managing load, expedite learning materials' delivery, expand the learning space without time constraint, and encourage cross-pollination of ideas and viewpoints. The chapter discusses the profound opportunity that social media may have to enhance knowledge development.

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Social Media's Potential to Facilitate Dialogic Learning

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