Teaching Sports Pedagogy through Facebook: A Case Study

Sports pedagogy is a subject matter, which is taught in all sports sciences courses in all Italian Universities, which offer programs of this kind. Being this discipline entirely new in Italy, the impact of its teaching on students has been scarcely studied and explored by scholars. Also, the subject has never been innovated by adopting new teaching and learning models. Starting from this genesis, our study aims to reflect on the possibility of innovating the teaching of sports pedagogy through the technologies offered by Web. 2.0. In our research, we show that this innovative way of teaching sports pedagogy in the University can be found in social networks and Facebook when it is conceived of and used as an online learning environment capable of integrating all media and e-tools provided by Web 2.0. As evidence of this, in the second part of our paper, we will present a case study conducted in Italy at the University of Rome Foro Italico in which Facebook has been utilized as an online learning environment for teaching sports pedagogy in a blended modality and tutoring the students who couldn't attend the classes. After describing the scenario of the case study, we will show the results of a questionnaire administered to a group of sports sciences bachelor’s degree students involved in the case study. In conclusion, we will analyze and interpret the data from the questionnaire and answer the question whether Facebook as an integrated online learning environment and model can be, as it is, an innovative and useful tool to teach sports pedagogy or it needs a revision or adjustment to a better implementation