| dc.description.abstract | Social network sites (SNSs) such as Facebook have been an essential aspect of learners’ daily life all over the world. Social learning network (SLN), a network of interaction between learners, teachers, and educational practices, could be found in SNSs that are specifically designed for educational environments. However, to understand the effects of SLN on a designed social learning platform, researchers must consider how varying individuals and social context influence social learning. Because complexity and interconnectivity of connections in SLNs, an approach for scrutinizing student patterns is needed and timely. Therefore, this dissertation aims to fill those research gaps with a new developed social network learning platform called CoCoing.info. The investigation is focusing on students’ SLNs on CoCoing.info based on two empirical studies, including (1) the SLN pattern analysis on CoCoing.info and (2) the effects of student homophily on cellular learning network. Each study has core research questions, designed analysis approaches, and insightful discussion of the research findings and indications. Overall, the findings of this dissertation revealed that (1) students continued to use CoCoing.info to interact with their peers and developed high density interaction patterns, (2) teachers on the CoCoing.info had key player roles in the SLNs, (3) a cellular learning network revealed students learned in a group format in social learning environment, (4) cellular learning network has higher student homophily than SLN, and (5) the cell size in cellular learning network has positive correlation toward student homophily development. | en_US |