A Project-based Learning Internship for IT Un- dergraduates with Social Support from a Social Networking Site

Project-based learning provides students an authentic learning experience in which they are able to practice skills by constructing a sharable artifact. Internships are another approach in which students are given a real life work experience by being placed and working in an actual workplace. Thus, in this paper, we present an exploratory case study of a project-based learning internship in which seven undergraduate IT students were recruited to work on individual projects under the supervision of academic staff members. Additionally, a social networking site (SNS) was used by the interns and supervisors to determine its suitability for this particular environment. The SNS was used as it is conducive with project-based learning since they both have a strong social focus. It was found that the structure of the internship and the design of the projects were appropriate as positive results were obtained. Both supervisors and interns enjoyed the internship and the interns underwent a significant learning experience. The SNS was not found to be particularly useful for the environment in this study. This is primarily due to interns being close in terms of geographical proximity and time. It should be noted that the interns were working on independent projects and there was little value for them to communicate with each other in regard to their projects.