การใช้เครือข่ายทางสังคมในการเรียนการสอนในมหาวิทยาลัยเชียงใหม่

Abstract

This research entitled “Social Network Usage in the Teaching and Learning at Chiang Mai University” has the objectives to study the usage of the social networks related to its benefits, problems and needs for supporting in the usage of social networks among the instructors and librarians of Chiang Mai University. This research is a survey research using questionnaires as a tool for collecting data from two sample groups: 346 instructors of Chiang Mai University in the first year of the academic year 2013 and 65 professional librarians of Chiang Mai University who engaged in teaching information acquisition skills and question-answer services along with faculty librarians. The statistics used were frequency, mean and standard deviation. The results were as follows: Regarding using the social networking for teaching, most instructors had used it for more than 5 years and had learned to use it by themselves or from friends. The most popular social networks were Blogs followed by Facebook and Slide share. The instructors used it mostly from their residences and workplace. The tools used were mostly cell phones, laptop computers and desktop computers respectively. The purposes of their usage were to view educational websites and useful sources of knowledge, to contact students in arranging the teaching and making appointments as well as sending documents, information and interesting sources to students. The instructors felt that the social networking was useful for their teaching at a moderate level, especially in building good relationships with students, allowing students to communicate with the teachers and allowing teachers to better follow up on students. The problems by using social networking were mainly concerning the slowness and frequent failure of the university networking system followed by inadequate skills and knowledge to use the system. As for their attitude towards social network usage, the instructors felt that it allowed them to express their opinions in a variety ways, to easily search for information they needed. The instructors would like to continue using the social network in their teaching and to obtain a handbook or manual as well as training on how to use the social network. For the librarians, most of them had used social networking for more than 5 years, mostly by self-learning and from friends and colleagues as well as from training. The popular kinds of social networking were Facebook, Blogs and Line. Most of the librarians used it from their workplace and residences. The popular tools were desktop computers, cell phones and lap-top computers. The purposes of usage were to send documents about interesting information sources to students and to exchange information and news as well as to provide group and individual advice respectively. The librarians felt that social networking was useful at a moderate level, mainly to provide communication channels to clients/students, sending documents and information as well as interesting resources while publicizing about the training on library use and research. The problems with social network usage were mostly about the students’ lack of tools to access the network followed by lack of skills to use it and the slowness and failure of the university’s network systems. The librarians found that the social networking is a wide open channel for people to express their ideas freely in many ways at anytime and from anywhere as well as being a useful teaching and learning tool. Most of the librarians still need a training course and a manual for further use the social networking in their service and to promote the usage by providing training and a user’s handbook.