Facebook in Higher Education: The UNITEC Case

Published in: Proceedings of the 13th Latin American and Caribbean Conference for Engineering and Technology: Engineering Education Facing the Grand Challenges, What Are We Doing?
Date of Conference: July 29 - 31, 2015
Location of Conference: Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Authors: Carlos Roberto Arias Arévalo
Refereed Paper: #54

Abstract:

To reach our students, faculty needs to be where they can be found: online. There is no question that Internet technologies have changed the way we live, so it is obvious that there is an impact on education. Students learn differently, and furthermore they interact differently. It is imperative that education institutions recognize this reality. This paper is the result of a study made on the Universidad Tecnologica Centroamerica (UNITEC) Tegucigalpa campus to measure the penetration of Facebook in the classroom, and to explore what the usage of Facebook by UNITEC faculty and students. Results show that students are more willing than faculty to incorporate the Facebook platform to their academic life. A proposal on how to effectively use Facebook in course work will be presented, based on the findings on the experience of two years integration of Facebook in computer science courses.

Keywords—Facebook, social networks, education