[Air-L] Examples of Successful Uses of Facebook in the Classroom?

Fri Aug 13 07:34:07 PDT 2010

Alex:

The privacy modes work fine on FB but the key is how you set up the group from the beginning. I actually began using FB for my dissertation research around 2006 and I have been using it in the classroom for the past three years successfully.
I set up the groups as private or secret so that as the administrator I do not have to worry about those features. I think that Blackboard and most university CMS' are equally susceptible to mischief from campus or outside hackers, but you generally do not hear about it in the media. I know because I have a dual career as a media professional and a academic researcher/professional. If you do a quick Google search, you will note that several major universities had serious data breaches where personal identifying information was found by the hackers. I actually received two letters informing me at the time.

My major point with my research on edutainment and convergence is that education when done well is a learner-centered (McCombs, 2005)collaboration. Therefore, it is imperative that we utilize the tools that the students are already utilizing on a regular basis to get my message across. In truth, my students are my best advertisements because they often Like one of my FB fan pages or ask to friend me after coming to a class or virtually attending like many students did during the East Coast American blizzards of 2010. We actually had class online in real time and students actually loaded up photo essays, video essays and standard posts on FB. I find Blackboard to be too limiting on the students and my own creativity since I am highly tech savvy.

I think FB has a easy learning curve and the students like and I am getting the educational outcomes that I need in courses that usually have students from multi-disciplines. I have been able to teach them how to use FB, Twitter, YouTube, podcasts and blogging in every discipline to assist them with their other classes too. Since I teach communications, PR, video production, speech and education/higher education courses at multiple levels at more than one institution I have been able to use FB and other tools as a bridge to get the learners where they need to be. 

In fact, the real tests in my courses are the last 4 classes where the students teach the content and I and their fellow students engage in peer evaluation and review (which FB and social media had already enabled us to do for the first 11 weeks). The students loved the "independence" and "innovation" but they love the collaboration. Twitter integration in the classroom was very exciting since we creating Twitter IDs to link course videos to test things in the real world. I had one student experience 10, 000 views with a how to video for example on soccer in preparation for the World Cup. I learned quite a lot, and he ended up creating a successful online series where he had to conduct real research of the rules, South African culture/history, geography and yes the science of soccer (football).

Chris A. Heidelberg, Ph.D.
Loyola University

-----Original Message-----
From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Alex Halavais
Sent: Friday, August 13, 2010 9:41 AM
To: Wallis, Cara
Cc: AoIR-L
Subject: Re: [Air-L] Examples of Successful Uses of Facebook in the Classroom?

With regard to alternatives to FB and Ning, you'll probably need to do
a little work, unfortunately. However, BuddyPress (a WordPress plugin)
can get you some basic social networking functionality, and I've heard
good things about Elgg, though I haven't used it.

That said, one of the reasons I went to FB in the first place was to
go to where the students already were, and avoid having to spend a lot
of time learning about new systems when that wasn't what the course
was about.

One of my chief complaints about Blackboard is not just that they seem
to have clue zero about user experience--I use lots of clunky
software--but that students spend a lot of time learning how to use a
system that will be of no use to them at all when they graduate. If
you are going to learn to use something that is clunky, at least let
it be something that is useful to you outside of the university or my
own course.

All that said, I still don't have a problem with students using
commercial systems when they do their work, and drawing on multiple
tools--especially when they are already using those tools. In
practice, it often raises teachable moments on issues of privacy and
intellectual property. I just found Facebook a bit of a bridge too
far, especially for students who are not already on the system, and
found no good way of tailoring Facebook's privacy model to hold both
coursework and personal networks.

Best,

Alex

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 9:04 PM, Wallis, Cara <cwallis at tamu.edu> wrote:
> I agree that Blackboard and such are quite clunky. I can't speak to the issue of university policies, but have a related query. I used a Ning site for the last few semesters with a course I taught on culture and technology and had quite a lot of success with it (part of the course involved discussing the privacy issues that students are already dealing with in their use of social media in their own lives outside of school). Now that Ning is starting to charge hefty fees for anything other than the most basic services I'm wondering if there is anything else out there, other than FB, that people would recommend.
> cara
>
>
> Cara Wallis
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Communication
> Texas A&M University
> 979-862-6956

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