The use of online social networking for higher education from an activity theory perspective

Abstract

Social technologies including blogs, wikis, social bookmarking sites, photo sharing, video sharing and social networking sites (SNS) have been widely used to facilitate online social networking (OSN). We define OSN as a range of activities enabled by online social technologies and operationalised by a group of people. OSN is widely popular for non-educational purposes among students. However, OSN also has the potential to be appropriated and repurposed to support teaching and learning delivery in a formal learning environment. Despite the availability of implementation cases and trials, detailed studies on why and how lecturers and students appropriate and repurpose social technologies for O..