Educational facebook usage context: university teachers and students` position

• Lamanauskas, Vincentas
• Šlekienė, Violeta
• Ragulienė, Loreta

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Facebook; Focus group; Social networking websites; University studies.

ENSocial networking website development takes place rapidly and extensively. A fierce competition between different companies creating and supporting networking websites is going on. New ways are sought to attract potential consumers and to support those consumers. SNW usage in various organisations’ activity does not raise any doubts, in fact. In Lithuania e.g., about 40% of inhabitants use social networking websites, and especially Facebook. Two things are obvious – the number of consumers is constantly growing, especially in the youth population and networks give new opportunities for organisations to expand and develop the activity. Thus, a grounded question arises for the Facebook, treating it as an ICT instrument (technology) – how to purposefully and effectively use the possibilities provided by this technology from an educational point of view. Intensive ICT implementation happens to be one of the most important factors in recent decades determining essential changes forming environment and quality of the studies in higher schools. It is likely, that Facebook as a social network might be effectively used in the study process. However, two essential and opposite moments collide here – Facebook as a waste of time and facebook as an effective educational tool. [From the publication]