The impact of social network applications in open education

• Autor(a) principal: Imwa, Mphatso
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.2/10078
• topic: Open-education; Open Educational Resources (OERs); Social media; Social network apps; Aplicativos de redes sociais; Educação aberta; Mídias sociais; Recursos Educacionais Abertos (OERs)

Open education is key to removing the education gap among people around the globe. With the development of the internet, open education has acquired a sustainable and effective channel of production, sharing, and access to Open Educational Resources (OER). Through social media platforms, students, educators, schools, and movements can learn and help solve problems and challenges in education. The development of smartphone social network applications is even influential as access to open education can be done on the go, anytime, and anywhere than web-based applications. Besides, most smartphone devices that are compatible with the applications are becoming cheaper due to mass production, which allows many people who cannot afford a personal computer to have one, therefore, have access to OERs. That positions the social network applications at a more crucial role in the production, sharing, and access to Open education, and this is what the paper intends to analyze.