Abstract:

As the Internet has been progressed into Web 2.0, softwares and service with concept of Social Network has sprang up rapidly. Social Network provides access to power, information, knowledge and capital from other people. People can contact with others through Internet so that interaction, communication and sharing can be expanded from reality to virtual space on Internet, creating relationships with larger scale and more possibilities. Web 2.0 is applied to education as well and, through a matching mechanism from social network, allows learners to quickly find teachers offering complete answers, saving search time and promoting learning efficiency as well as building up greater learning network via interaction.

Social Network is a group of connected nodes through specific patterns of social relations, such as friendship, business, equal membership and so on. In elementary schools and junior high schools, information technology application and Web 2.0 are in vogue. Elementary school and junior high school students have been developing their own network via Web 2.0; with friends but teachers can they learn easily to use softwares, such as Facebook, Blog, Instant message softwares, etc.

To discuss how students feel about interactive learning, it is generally to give students questionnaires instead of observing interaction in the whole class. However in terms of social network, concerned is relationships and models for interaction, focusing features of structure of group connecting as well as models for interaction. Therefore this study is discussed by social network analysis. In the “National Digital Archives Program” for students in elementary schools and junior high schools, lasting 3 months, all members in the class were assessed and observed in aspects of advice network, information network, friendship network, culture network, computer network and collaboration network. It was expected to know whether there was correlation and difference among six sorts of network within those students and development of models of interaction.

This study took 25 elementary school students and 25 junior high school students as subjects and adopted social network analysis to discuss density, distance and degree among students. According to the results, the density among elementary school students is higher than that among junior high school students, which means there is more interaction among elementary school students, especially in friendship network, culture network and computer network. Regarding the distance of social network, the result among junior high school students is the same as that among elementary school students, which means both groups of subjects have similar opportunities and restrictions. Regarding the degree that relates to the number of people students are living with, junior high school students are familiar with more neighbors than elementary school students are, which means the former probably receives more social support or power. Models of six networks are almost identical, revealing that for students their friends are not only in reality but also in network society. They consider that friends are their life; they ask for their friends' favor whenever they are in trouble. As a result, teachers must take this factor into account while proceeding related interactive learning activities. Besides the efficiency of collaboration, how to interact with people that are not friends should be also considered in teaching.

Keywords:

Web 2.0, Social Network, Interaction.