Our team will be critically examining TikTok and its relevance as an educational tool. TikTok is an intriguing outcome of the mobile internet technology that is attracting users into a new form of combined expression of music, video, and social (Liao, 2021). This open-source social media platform has many implications and impacts socially, educationally, and politically. From our initial research and team discussions, some questions started to emerge as of the opportunities and challenges for learning in TikTok, the implications (i.e., privacy, ethical dilemma, affordances) as well as the impacts (i.e., cognitive consequences) of using TikTok, and finally, the learning theories (i.e., mobile learning, social constructivism) supporting this social app. As part of our team project, we will experiment content creation by creating our first TikTok video to introduce the outcome of our critical inquiry.
Interweaved in our team project is the exploration of my individual critical issue of collaboration in virtual learning teams using social media and mobile technologies. With many organizations moving towards virtual or hybrid work environments as their Future of Work (FOW), leaders are placing value on collaboration to successfully implement their FOW strategies (Gino, 2020) for employee retention. Therefore, organizations will be embracing collaboration tools and practices such as the use of mobile technology to support and develop their virtual workforce (Viberg and al., 2021). According to Viberg and al. (2021), the use of mobile technology in formal and informal learning is frequently associated with collaborative learning activities, which primarily occur in conversation and data sharing. The just-in-time and educational affordances of mobile technologies contribute to the efficacy and the interactivity of mobile collaboration learning activities (Qing-Ke & Gwo-Jen, 2016).
Our team project is also an interesting platform as a firsthand collaborative effort to utilize mobile and social media technologies for the purpose of learning in a digital learning environment (DLE). As a participatory observer, I will critically reflect on my collaborative team experience from a theoretical implication supporting TikTok as a learning tool. One model has already emerged from my initial readings, which is the Mobile-Blended Collaborative Learning model that conceptualises the use of mobile technologies in connecting formal and informal learning (Viberg et al., 2021).
I am looking forward to comments and questions in respect to team collaboration in a DLE.
References:
Gino, F. (2020, January 9). Six techniques for sustained collaboration. Harvard Business Review [Video]. https://hbr.org/webinar/2020/01/six-techniques-for-sustained-collaboration
Viberg, O., Andersson A., & Wiklund, M. (2021). Designing for sustainable mobile learning – re-evaluating the concepts “formal” and “informal”. Interactive Learning Environments, 29(1), 130-141.https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2018.1548488
Qing-Ke, F., & Gwo-Jen, H. (2018). Trends in mobile technology-supported collaborative learning: A systematic review of journal publications from 2007 to 2016. Computers & Education, 119, 129-143. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2018.01.004
April 24, 2022 at 4:14 am
You’re looking at an interesting line of research, studying TikTok as a potential collaboration tool. It’s also timely, as you say, with the growth of virtual or hybrid work environments. Linking this to mobile technology more generally is an additional angle that will provide you with a strong base of research literature.
April 27, 2022 at 8:08 pm
Thank you Irwin for your comments. It is indeed fascinating but also interestingly a topic of interest in the literature given the popular nature of TikTok and the need to improve virtual collaboration in organizations.