Exploring teacher attitudes towards the official use of social networks in well performing historically disadvantaged secondary schools: a case study in Pinetown and uMgungundlovu district networks in well performing historically disadvantaged secondary schools: A case study in Pinetown and uMgungundlovu district.

Abstract

This study explored teachers’ openness and acceptability to using social media for teaching and learning in two previously disadvantaged secondary schools in the township of Clermont and the peri-urban area of Mbhava Swayimane. These schools suffer from poor infrastructure, lack of political and technical support yet show resilience through adopting unique strategies of conducting teaching and learning by using social networks. The study used a purposive sampling method to select suitable schools for inclusion in the study. The selection of appropriate candidates within schools was guided by literature and took into account key personal characteristics (e.g. gender, age) that previous studies had found to influence the adoption of ICTs by teachers in secondary schools. Data was collected from respondents via the administration of a questionnaire during a oneon- one interview. Topics covered related to knowledge of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and social networks and whether they used them for educational purposes. Thereafter, respondents were asked to suggest ways to improve the uptake and use of ICTs in schools. Ten respondents were interviewed in total, four at the management level and six teaching staff. It was found that teachers in the sample schools had already incorporated social networks into their teaching and learning. Teachers mainly used the Whatsapp social network application and had adopted three unique ways of using it. In the first model, the teacher identifies and selects a learner to act as group admin and gives the selected learner school work to distribute among their fellow classmates. In the second, the teacher creates a temporary group when learners are about to write exams to discuss academic challenges and in the last one the group is active for the whole year but only consists of learners who are keen to learn. In light of these findings and the success sample schools have achieved with ICTs, it is recommended that the models identified above be adapted and rolled out across more schools in South Africa and other developing countries where the education sector is beset by great challenges.