Development of Educational Applications on the Social Network of Facebook and Its Effects on Students' Academic Achievement

Abstract

Nowadays Facebook with a population of over 1 billion members is one of the biggest communities in the world. Besides this, educational computer games are the applications that make learning more fun. In this study, an educational game was designed and developed through the model of Digital Game-Based Learning-Teaching in relation to the OSI Model in the Computer Networks Course and integrated into the social network of Facebook. After that, the effect of this application on the students' academic achievements was investigated. Therefore, a game called "the Osi Network Game" was developed and put online on Facebook as an educational application. There were two scales of attitude used for the analysis stage of the model of Digital Game-Based Learning-Teaching: to determine the students' attitude towards the educational computer games and the educational use of social networks. The quantitative research was conducted with a group of 70 volunteer students taking the Computer Networks course at the vocational school of Computer Programming and at the department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology at Amasya University. According to the results of the study the students' attitudes towards educational games and the educational use of social networks were found to be positive and "the Osi Network Game" had positive effects on the students' academic achievements. It can be suggested that such applications be used in other areas such as mathematics, science and so on.