THE DEVELOPMENT OF A SOCIAL NETWORK TO SUIT USC STUDENTS` PROFILE
With the advent of information and communication technologies (ICT) the education panorama has been changing every day. It is observed that, due to the increasing need of the use of technological tools, teaching and learning change. This research resulted in the development of a social network prototype a mobile application for the Android platform aiming to help the integration of students, giving them the opportunity to meet according to the degree of relevance. The application enables the interaction with professors by sharing information, projects, courses and other services offered by the university. Introduction Moran (2012) affirms "The school is attractive" (p. 7) According to this author, the school does not offer attractions, and it is demotivating and for this reason, many students, especially those in higher education, are giving up studying because of lack of interest and stimuli. They do not like to research, and believe that school is too far away from their realities. Also, according to Moran (2012) "It is not enough to put students in school. We must offer them an instigating, challenging, provocative and dynamic education, active from the start and in all educational levels" (p. 8) Many schools and universities are still attached to traditional teaching models, in which students are submitted to traditional, inflexible, repetitive and monotonous methods. It is true that many of these students are fully connected and immersed in a virtual world that is already part of their daily lives; their relations and interactions with the world are no longer the same as they communicate and update themselves constantly through information and communication technologies (ICT) that are available and growing all the time. Schools that are not connected are incomplete. Students without a continuous access to digital networks are excluded from an important part of current learning: the access to varied and available online information, the quick search in databases, digital libraries, educational portals; the participation in communities of interest, in discussions and online publications, in short, the varied range of digital services (Moran, 2012) For this reason, universities must be connected and ready for a new student profile, so that they can keep up with the advance of technologies and become more complete. It is necessary to offer students an innovative learning that motivates them, which is not necessarily conditioned to a classroom, as for Moran (2012) " we can learn by being physically together and also connected, we can learn at the same time and rhythm or at different times, rhythms and forms" (p. 10) ICICTE 2016 Proceedings 391 With the advancement of ICT, social networks emerged and quickly became part of the teenagers' daily routine. Social networking is one of the representation forms of affective or professional relations from one human being to another, in the form of network or community. It can be responsible for sharing ideas, information and interests (Lorenzo, 2013) According to Rosa and Kamimura (2012) social networks allow their users a diversified exchange of information and subjects of common interest, such as photos, videos and ideas. Thus, social networks are groups on the Internet that allow the sharing of data and information of various characters and shapes. For example, through them, you can post different files, texts, images and others. The spread of social networks among the new generations, who are familiarized with the use of computers and mobile phones since childhood, has established a radically different scenario for social interaction. Even from a distance, you can stay connected to someone, and, in different circumstances, the distance tends to increase the level of connection. At first, the use of social networks was mainly focused on the relation between friends or people with common interests; however, with their remarkable expansion, these networks now have a different role in society, in politics, in the media and in education. Academically, we can say that social networks symbolically toppled walls. We no longer need to be together in the classroom or occupying the same space for interaction. According to Lorenzo (2013) some institutions have found useful applications of social networking in education, and, currently, these applications have become important tools in the teaching and learning process in higher education. According to Lorenzo (2013) networks allow us to share information about topics studied or proposed in the classroom as well as to strengthen the involvement of students and teachers through a new communication channel, making it an effective option for the construction of the relationship between students and teachers. Social networks should be seen as virtual environments that offer various forms of interaction, which stimulate the contact with socio cultural diversity, create conditions to create a network of friends and, at the same time, stay informed about the user`s interest issues. According to Monteiro (2011) Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, which are often cited as study dispersers, are increasingly inserted in the student`s life. It shows that the problem and also the solution are not the social networks, but how these tools are used. With the use of a collaborative space, such as social networks, the teacher has the opportunity to verify aspects often difficult to identify in the classroom, such as the ability to write texts, the writing improvement, the research about a subject, the presentation of an opinion and the debate among students (Lorenzo, 2013) The teacher is a professional who needs to recognize the possibilities and the added value to the teaching and learning process that social networks, virtual communities, blogs and micro blogs provide. It is not enough to be "new" the teacher has to understand what this "new" brings for their pedagogical practice. ICICTE 2016 Proceedings 392 It is possible to share with students many materials involving subjects to be worked on in the classroom, such as multimedia, news, videos, music, film clips, etc. However, besides using the networks for the provision of content, teachers can use them in different ways in the teaching and learning process. According to Pechi (2013) "To use the time students spend on the Internet to promote interesting discussions about everyday topics helps students to develop critical thinking and encourages the most timid ones to express their opinions" (p. 1) It is possible to take advantage of such proposals for individual and collective evaluation. There are other applications provided by network communication that contribute in the educational process, such as notes and work results consultation, answering questions, calendar, instructions on activities, etc. According to Lorenzo (2013) "The challenge for educators is the incorporation of internet resources in social networking with the purpose of benefiting the teaching and learning process" (p. 35) Pechi (2013) presents some social networks resources that allow this merging, such as: Virtual Groups, Discussion Forums, Blogs, Chat, Instant Messaging, Meetings and Video Conferences, E mail Bases, Video Bases, etc. These resources leverage the educational processes and open up new possibilities for class complement in higher education; they do not limit the student to the physical space of the classroom because, according to Moran (2012) " the physical and the virtual world are not opposite, they complement and integrate each other in an increasing, continuous, inseparable interaction" (p. 9) It is believed that the use of ICT and social networks have become indispensable to an innovative class proposal. However, the traditional educational process must be respected. Therefore, the use of technological proposals through information and virtual communication tools are complementary to the classroom. Considering that the Universidade do Sagrado Coracao (USC) provides students from different courses the opportunity to meet each other in common subjects, the development of the social network proposed here exclusively created to suit USC students` profile aims to help integrating students by a Similarity Algorithm between profiles, giving users the opportunity to meet according to the level of relevance. For example, those who attend the same disciplines, providing a greater connectivity and even a first contact with a classmate. The social network proposed in this study also aims to facilitate the interaction between teachers and employees sharing information, extra curricular activities, projects, courses, events, publications, discussion forums, and many other services offered by the university, giving visibility to the whole community involved and allowing its effective evaluation.