Abstract

Social Networking Sites (SNSs) are basically used for social interaction among individuals and people. Some students often use them basically to meet friend and discuss on trivial things rather than their academic issues. SNSs popularity has made researchers to look at a way to connect advantages of social networks with classroom interactions and collaboration. This could culminate into the infusion of SNSs into the classroom setting. The study aim to identify, analyze, and classify the SNSs used by respondents in order to see how instructors could tailor their uses for academic purposes. The study employed sample survey descriptive design approach targeting higher institution as study population. Both content validity was established through colleague in research; while construct validity was done via KMO (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin) with 0.762. The reliability index yielded 0.788, Chronback Alpha. Responses to the questionnaire items were collated and analyzed using cross tabulation statistical tool via SPSS. Findings reviewed that SNSs platforms are used by students majorly for fun as well as photo, video display and information sharing, but seldom used for serious academic purposes. The introduction of SNSs into classroom situation offer good advantage and opportunity for students’ academic achievement if instructors could discourage and task students on their better use. The students can be challenged and guided to use SNSs to schedule classroom time, share academic materials and also engage in classroom collaboration.

Keywords: SNSs, Time scheduling, Material sharing, and Class collaboration