Share Paper: Effects of Online Tool Usage on Sense of Community in Undergraduate Seminars

  1. Wakako Fushikida, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan
Thursday, October 18 11:30-11:50 AM Las Vegas Ballroom 5

Abstract: Undergraduate seminars are one of the inquiry-based and communal learning environments affectionately called “Zemi” in Japan. However, it has not been fully discussed in previous studies that what kind of online tools are used for supporting interactions between students and faculty members. The purpose of this study is to investigate the usage of online tools such as email, learning management systems (LMS), web sites, blogs, bulletin board systems (BBS), and social networking services, in order to examine how these tools affect faculty members’ sense of community. The results of this study showed that Twitter might be effective in maintaining a ...