INTEGRATING SOCIAL MEDIA TO PROMOTE STUDENT-CENTERED LEARNING AT ISLAMIC HIGHER EDUCATION OF EASTERN INDONESIA

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). 

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