Abstract
Alongside social media, mobile instant messaging services such as Whatsapp and Facebook messenger have rapidly transformed the way people communicate. Much like social media, instant messaging platforms are used to connect, collaborate, socialise and coordinate. They can be used to share images, videos, documents, audio files, to make calls and to send texts to individuals or groups of up to 200 people at once. The point of difference from social media is that messages sent via instant messaging services can only be sent to those who are in your contact list; they are not public feeds as per social media. This chapter focuses on how one such instant messaging service- WhatsApp- is used to support learning in higher education. WhatsApp has emerged as one of the most popular instant messaging services for smartphones. It is used by more than 1 billion people in over 180 countries, and is the most popular mobile instant messaging app used in the Middle East region. WhatsApp is used widely across many fields including 2 in the dissemination of political campaign messages, by health professionals to share information about patients, and by the media as a forum to keep updated on the experiences and interests of their readership.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Encyclopedia of Education and Information Technologies |
| Editors | Arthur Tatnall |
| Place of Publication | Switzerland |
| Publisher | Springer |
| Pages | 1-12 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9783030105761 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9783030105754 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2019 |
Keywords
- WhatsApp (application software)
- education, higher
- educational technology
- feedback (psychology)