The use of social media to enhance student learning in engineering

This session presents the findings from a study which evaluated the potential of LinkedIn as a flexible and mobile social media platform to contribute to high quality and engaged collaborative learning in higher education. Specifically, the study examined how LinkedIn could be used in transport engineering courses to enhance learning outcomes in sustainable transport practices by engaging students, from Swinburne’s Melbourne and Sarawak campuses, through student, faculty and industry learning collaboration. The project included setting up a LinkedIn group to which students and local and international academic and industry specialists were invited to join and participate. Every week, discussions were initiated and moderated around a topic in the units of study, allowing students to participate and collaborate with their classmates at both campuses and with the domain specialists. The project also investigated whether students perceived LinkedIn contributed to enhancing their critical thinking and knowledge of global sustainable transport practices. Preliminary results showed that the project has achieved its overall aim of improving engagement with the students. LinkedIn analytics showed a growing interest in the evolution of the project, with nine articles generating more than 4,700 views and 470 interactions between March and June 2015.