Project-oriented group work that develops team skills has been identified
as important by accrediting bodies in higher education. Understanding what
technologies and processes support learning team skills can help instructors to
better design project-oriented group work that can meet the needs of the
workplace. However, students entering the workforce and organizations hiring
new graduates both agree that students are not adequately prepared to be successful, productive members of groups that will work together in some
combination of face-to-face and virtual modes. Given the increasing role
technology plays in higher education and the workplace, educators need to know
more about how groups use social media technologies in a group project
environment to develop team skills.
Additionally, findings may provide higher education instructors insight
into recognizing how social media technologies impact learning in conducting
project-oriented work. Just as managers in the workplace establish expectations
on how employee work groups can use available and emerging social media
technologies to be productive, instructors need to gain this same insight to
identify how social media technologies impact their students’ learning.
Instructors also could benefit from learning how students use the technologies to
better support stage development of teams doing group project work. Further,
findings may provide an understanding of how social networks within an
academic ecosystem and associated social media technologies can contribute (or
not contribute) to how students working on a group project learn together.