Social networks as a tool for teaching and learning at high schools

The growing trends and the rapid developments of technological innovation have led to a new way of communication. These developments have seen individuals and organizations spending a lot of money on technological devices, software and applications much higher than ever before. On the other hand, institutions of learning are also advancing with technological innovations by shifting away from the face-to-face teaching and communicating with learners to the use of Learning Management Systems (LMS). Amidst these challenges, these institutions of learning could leverage on freely available social networks for communication and for teaching and learning. However, these transitions have been impeded by many factors that need to be explored in order to adopt social networks for teaching and learning. The foremost objective of this study was to develop a framework for the adoption of social networks for teaching and learning at high schools. To explore the factors that could fit the framework, extensive literature was reviewed from which a conceptual framework was designed. The Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS v21) was used to quantitatively analyze the data collected from four high schools. The outcomes of the study revealed several factors that influence the adoption of social networks for teaching and learning. The results further indicated that institutional factors significantly contribute much higher to the adoption of social networks; this was followed by the individual factors. The results also revealed that Perceived Usefulness's contribution to the adoption of social networks was not significant.