Article Summary The study by Jiang, Tang, Peng and Liu (2018) looks at using social networks as a tool to facilitate collaboration among students and interaction between teachers and students in a Chinese high school. The investigations into the utility of social networks were conducted among various design and technology classrooms in high schools throughout China. Based on the findings, Jiang et al. (2018) were able to produce a theoretical framework for web-based design learning and teaching system in the style of social networking. They tested their framework and found that the most important features of the framework are its ability to facilitate innovation, collaboration, and interaction.

The researchers additionally “validated necessary techniques and design features required to make an education-related social networking site effective and affective for the students and teachers” (Jiang et al., 2018, p. 189). The overall finding was that social networking sites help to enhance the collaborative and interactive aspects of learning for design and technology students and teachers.

The study begins with a discussion of the prevalence of social media usage in China with nearly 500 million people using social media, or 1 in 3 Chinese. Teenagers make up a substantial portion of the social media using...

With 1000 design schools but only 10 of them being of high quality, there is a problem of deficiency in Chinese design schools that needs to be addressed. Design education at the high school levels lags behind Europe and the US. Because Chinese schools focus on memorization, the students miss out on the collaborative and interactive experience needed for design education. In order for innovation and creativity to be encouraged, schools should focus less on memorization and more on collaboration and interaction. That is where using social networking comes into play.
The research question the study asked was ‘‘How does integrated social networking and computational techniques support design education in high schools in China?” (Jiang et al., 2018, p. 194). The researchers described the social networking site used as one that allow engagement with participants, content and teachers to come together in an overlapping and integrative manner.

The researchers monitored discussions by group…