Students' perceptions on Facebook as educational tool: Center of Diploma (CDP), Multimedia University / Rubiah Mohd Yunus

The acceptance of Social Network Sites by students is demonstrated especially in Facebook. The apparent and potential of using Social Network Sites for educational purposes is still being discussed. This project will explore the use of Facebook group within final year of Center of Diploma Student (CDP) in Multimedia University (MMU) Cyberjaya in E-Commerce subject. A depth study is conducted in terms of determining students' attitudes and perceptions in utilizing Facebook to assist informal learning. In addition, students understood that they more knowledgeable by exploring Facebook and would like to use Facebook for other educational tools. Students also able to communicate directly and get fast respond from lecturers and other coursemate after class time. This study attempts to identify the students' perceptions of Facebook usage for education tools. This study is needed to see a purpose to carry out this study provides a platform to discover pedagogical implication that would affect diploma students in MMU Cyberjaya. A Facebook group, named as Diploma in Information Technology is created to connect a group of Center for Diploma (CDP) students and a lecture with shared-interest of knowledge and experiences. Student's involvement in the group was final year students and depending on students' learning autonomy to regulate the learning responsibility. The finding revealed that there are five factors perceptions on Facebook usage for education tools. The five factors are motivation, interaction with lecturers, interaction with other students, technology, and learning/pedagogy. At the end of the analysis, the study found that technology is the main factor of students' perceptions of Facebook usage as education tool for CDP students. The understanding the use of Facebook will provide CDP students and lecturers an opportunity to develop pedagogical effective Facebook learning environment.