1. INTRODUCTION
Recently, Internet users in Indonesia have shown an increasing trend. The number of Internet users reaches 63
million people in
2012 (APJJI, 2012), became 74.57 million in 2013 (MarkPlus Insight, 2014), and may reach 107 million in 2014, and
139 million users
in 2015 (Semuel, 2014). Following
the increased usage of the Internet, social
media users also
increase. Survey result of the Directorate
General of Information and Public Communication, Ministry of Communications and Information
shows that 95%
of Internet users accesses social
media like Facebook
and twitter (Investor Daily, 2014).
The use of social media does not only occur for the
social network interaction but also can be used for
learning and teaching includes discussion forums, blogs, wikis, and 3D virtual
worlds (Victoria University, 2014). This
evidence allows users to modify existing content, create new content,
personalize their Web experiences, and build online educational networks around
shared interests (Lightle,
2010). Various social media are perceived to have positive contribution
in learning. The dominant use of social media in face to face classroom and
synchronous and asynchronous distant learning are Facebook, twitter, YouTube,
blogs, Myspace, wikis, LinkedIn, flicker, and slide share (Moran, Seaman, and
Kane, 2011).
These
media, however, have not been integrated systematically in Indonesian classroom
setting, even in Islamic higher education. Internet network, technology
unavailability, and lack of lecturers’ ability become dominant reasons of the
integration activity. Meanwhile, students’ activity to accomplish the assignment
outside the classroom setting is more dependent on using the Internet rather
than entering library to manually access the physical information from book,
journal, newspaper, etc. The students prefer accessing goggle, web-blog,
e-book, YouTube, 4shared, and other online software to looking for physical
books in library’s catalog (Damopolii AND Yaumi, 2013).The phenomenon indicates
students’ high expectation in learning with technology especially social media
as online software.
Using
social media in learning is imperative to create student-centered learning. The inclusion of social media like a wiki has been so
useful for engaging students in class participation that the instructor has
started using a wiki as a key component in a face-to-face undergraduate course
(Hu and Johnston, 2011). Student-centered learning enables personalized
and customized learning, social and emotional support, collaborative and
authentic learning experiences, assessment for learning (Jo An and Reigeluth,
2011). Besides, student-centered
learning empowers students to construct
their own knowledge and enables them to think critically, learn to work in
teams and solve problems collectively (Neo
and Tse Kian, 2003).