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

[Dan Perkel]

There is an initiative going on through some people at UC Berkeley's School
of Information to try to fill this need. You can read more about it here:

http://ngtl.ischool.berkeley.edu/initiatives/participatory-media-for-education

To be honest, I am not quite sure if they have "productized" the technology
so that it is easy to just drop into any classroom situation. But my
understanding is that this is a goal that they are working towards (at least
I hope they are). Perhaps there is an opportunity here for some pilot
programs beyond what's been done over the past couple of years here at
Berkeley?

If anyone wants to contact me off-list, I can put you in touch with the
people who are running the new Center. I am not that familiar with what is
going on, but I have talked to the people in charge.

Dan

--------------------------
Dan Perkel
PhD Candidate
UC Berkeley School of Information, Berkeley Center for New Media
http://people.ischool.berkeley.edu/~dperkel


On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 6:04 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
> ________________________________________
> From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org [air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On
> Behalf Of Michael Zimmer [zimmerm at uwm.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, August 12, 2010 7:46 PM
> To: AoIR-L
> Subject: Re: [Air-L] Examples of Successful Uses of Facebook in the
> Classroom?
>
> Alex is right to question the ethics of requiring students to join Facebook
> in order to complete course requirements (or create a Google Account to
> access Google-hosted content, or similar services). There are the privacy
> and behavioral tracking issues, and in Alex's particular example, the
> students are also compelled to violate the service's terms of service by
> creating fake accounts.
>
> The question is, however, what alternatives do we have as educators to best
> "reach" our students other than the popular social media they already use?
>  Blackboard and D2L are clunky and often poorly supported, so it's
> understandable to want to find outside sources.
>
> Has anyone seen any university policies regarding the use of 3rd party
> platforms for coursework?
>
> -michael.
>
>
> --
> Michael Zimmer, PhD
> Assistant Professor, School of Information Studies
>  (Interim Undergraduate Program Director)
> Associate, Center for Information Policy Research
> University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
> e: zimmerm at uwm.edu
> w: www.michaelzimmer.org
>
>
> On Aug 12, 2010, at 4:00 PM, Alex Halavais wrote:
>
> > I've used facebook for a course, organizing pretty much everything
> > through the site. This was at a time when the group functionality was
> > not as fleshed out, and I wanted to be able to use RSS feeds into it,
> > so I created fake "people" for the course that could be friended by
> > students. (cf. http://www.flickr.com/photos/halavais/1300239816/ )
> >
> > While it was sort-of fine for students who already lived much of their
> > lives on Facebook, it was difficult for those who had no interest in
> > the site. I encouraged them to create fake personae for the site, but
> > even with that, I am concerned enough by the privacy implications of
> > requiring (or encouraging) students to use the site that I have
> > abandoned it. And once you go through the pain have having students
> > create "alts" for the site, it becomes a lot less about the course
> > content and a lot more about negotiating issues of privacy on the
> > platform.
> >
> > - Alex
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > --
> > //
> > // This email is
> > // [x] assumed public and may be blogged / forwarded.
> > // [ ] assumed to be private, please ask before redistributing.
> > //
> > // Alexander C. Halavais, ciberflâneur
> > // http://alex.halavais.net
> > //
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