A Project-based Learning Internship for IT Undergraduates 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 stu-dents 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.