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

[Alex Halavais]

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



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