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

[Alex Halavais]

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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