Transmedia at university: suggested use of the social networks for the development of digital competence

Identifier:  TFM:373

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TFM373

Authors:  Sánchez Caballé, Anna

Abstract:
The social and educational development in the Information and knowledge Society involves changes in the curriculum and the learning conception. Young people who grow up in this context requires of new skills for the labour market. Some of these are referred to the use of technologies, which are necessary for the participation in the 21st century society. For this reason is required a training related to digital skills which integrates strategies such as social networks and transmedia narrative. Based on this, the present research extracts a guideline for the use of social networks in the performance of transmedia training experiences for the digital competence development in the university classroom with education students. This Master’s Dissertation presents a Design Based-Research (DBR) research project lasted three years and focuses on the first phase, turning it into a case study where an analysis of literature and the context of two university educational experiences is done. The data is collected by: (1) a systematic review of the last five years of the ISI Web of Science (WoS) and SCOPUS; (2) a questionnaire that has collected the students' perception of two formative experiences (n = 52); (3) two focus groups with the same students; and (4) the analysis of the social networks used in both educational experiences, Facebook and Twitter. According to the results, most of the studies carried out in the last five years are experimental and show the lack of training in reference to digital abilities of the young people, which can be observed with the results of the questionnaires and the focus groups, where the Students demonstrate a high level of motivation with the use of social networks in the classroom but still mistrust and present training weaknesses related to transmedia and digital competence. These skills also depend on the social network used, the students who used Facebook contribute with more curated content whereas those who used Twitter focused their publications in the content creation. Finally, to close this first phase of the DBR, a list of recommendations for teachers and students related to the use of social networks in transmedia training experiences for the development of digital competence have been extracted.