[Air-L] question about use of Facebook in classroom

[Heidelberg, Chris]

Steve I like this approach whether using Google or Facebook. Both are
known for targeting and profiling! I actually did something similar once
for a class project. 

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org
[mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Steve Cavrak
Sent: Thursday, August 21, 2008 11:53 AM
To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
Subject: Re: [Air-L] question about use of Facebook in classroom


On Aug 20, 2008, at 7:18 PM, Stephanie Tuszynski wrote:

> But still, I wanted to run this concept by the people who deal with 
> these kinds of exercises and have spent more time thinking about the 
> ethics of this kind of thing than I or any of my colleagues. Does this

> sound acceptable, from an ethical standpoint?

I like the concept, but the comments have suggested that maybe modifying
live facebook pages isn't reliable or a good idea ... so I began
wondering about different ways of exploring this phenomenon.

- using just google, have students do some standard searches and record
which ads appear. do they seem targeted? to the student? to the
geographic area? to the search? to different types of google users (e.g.
people who use gmail and or igoogle might be different than the people
who surf "anonymously."

- turn it into a mini-ethnographic survey. Each student would ask 2 or
3 of their friends to describe their experiences and perceptions with
targeted ads, etc. Do they feel they are being targeted ? Do they feel
that the "net knows" something about them? Is facebook different than
myspace, etc ?

In both of these, there would have to be some discussion about how to do
this type of research, and what can reasonably be expected from it.

Moreover, we're studying a moving beast. "Targeting" and "profiling"  
algorithms are changing rapidly - this fall's facebook will be different
than next spring's, etc.

Steve
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