Post #1 Reflections

Facebook fits so well within the natural makeup of the net generation (today's student).

It seems to feed right into their needs: social connections (peer search, personal profiles, mood updates, mini-feeds, etc); resource sharing (pictures, interest groups, events, My Questions app.); instant feedback and gratification (gifts, pokes, the wall); job/professional connections (job market, resume posting).

According to Reynol Junco and Jeanna Mastrodicasa (2007) in their book: Connecting to the Net.Generation: What Higher Education Professionals Need to Know About Today's Students, they found that in a survey of 7,705 college students in the US:
97% own a computer
94% own a cell phone
76% use Instant Messaging.
15% of IM users are logged on 24 hours a day/7 days a week
34% use websites as their primary source of news
28% own a blog and 44% read blogs
49% download music using peer-to-peer file sharing
75% of college students have a Facebook account
60% own some type of portable music and/or video device such as an iPod.
http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Generation_Y

The next step would be to determine how/if Facebook features can/do apply to learning and teaching. Should it be left alone (outside of the classroom) as another social networking tool or does it have the potential to become a useful classroom tool?

Mark Zuckerberg himself explains why he developed Facebook:
When I made Facebook two years ago my goal was to help people understand what was going on in their world a little better. I wanted to create an environment where people could share whatever information they wanted, but also have control over whom they shared that information with. I think a lot of the success we've seen is because of these basic principles.
http://kairosnews.org/facebook-furor

I believe his basic premise could be transferred into the pedagogical ideas of collaborative learning and resource sharing.