social media for educational purposes in iranian university classrooms; from challenges to implications

This study aimed to investigate challenges, attitudes, and implications of using social media for educational purposes at universities in iran. to this end, a questionnaire was answered by 57 students and 7 instructors from different universities and academic degrees in iran. the questionnaire included 4 phases, first phase includes 7 demographic questions to make sure that students and instructors are from different universities and teaching or studying at different academic degrees. second phase includes 7 questions checking the details of access and use of social media among iranian academicians. third phase includes 6 questions focusing on the academicians’ attitudes towards social media. fourth phase include 2 questions focusing on challenges of using social media for educational purposes. results showed that participants were students and instructors that are studying and teaching at different academic degrees. this could help generalizations of findings to iranian academic context. concerning second phase of the questionnaire, results showed that almost all the participants have access to social media and they use social media for more than 1 hour every day. as to the third phase of the questionnaire, the results showed that participants had a positive attitude towards using social media for educational purposes. one of the interesting point reported in the answers to this phase of questionnaire were that the participants were eager to use social media in the process of learning and teaching and not only to share information. the answers to the last phase’s questions showed that most of the participants complained about the speed of internet, and quality of social media apps. they pointed that local social media apps are not attractive and easy to use for teaching and learning. they are mostly useful to share information. based on the findings, it could be concluded that iranian academicians are interested to use social media in the educational process. they also ask for considerations of the challenges by course designers and developers.