Webinars and Social Network in Distance Learning: Students’ Views

Aims: The aim of this study is to present students’ views concerning the attendance of conference and/or seminars via Internet (webinars) and also how online social network are used in distance learning.
Study Design: Descriptive quantitative research. Especially, a survey using questionnaires and interviews for data collection.
Place and Duration of Study: University of Ioannina, one academic year, 2012-2013.
Methodology: A questionnaire was firstly addressed to a small self selected group of undergraduate students at the beginning of the academic year (mid–November) as pre-test. Then the questionnaire was revised and the final version of the questionnaire was addressed to all undergraduate 210 students attending the 3rd year of their undergraduate studies. This questionnaire was delivered at the beginning of spring term. Interviews were taken in spring semester (mid–April) for evaluation of the answers in the questionnaire. Moreover, a revised questionnaire for a postgraduate group students (20 self selected students) from the School of Education was given in mid spring semester.
Results: 18.29% of undergraduates use webinars. 84.28% of them believe that attending seminars via Internet (webinars) may contribute to the enrichment of the educational process and facilitates distance learning. 56.89% of undergraduates prefer to attend conferences and/or seminars with physical presence, since interaction amongst participants is greater. 89.56% of undergraduate and 93.47% of postgraduate students use social network for communication and information on learning material and on other educational issues.
Conclusions: Both undergraduate and postgraduate students recognize the advantages of webinars as part of open distance learning and they favor their application to a greater extent in education. The overall use of social network in distance learning, promotes communication and interaction amongst learners. In conclusion, this study revealed, that students use webinars and social network for learning, communication and information exchange for their studies.