The W&M Fb network is a fairly active network. Many students connect to each via Fb. Several campus organizations invite new members and post their activities and calendar events with this tool. A few academic-related associations and groups also invite new members and post their events via this tool.
What I could not find were “COURSES” (faculty members using FB in their classrooms). At W&M the Fb “bug” has not caught up yet!
There may be several reasons for this:
- Facebook itself – is considered to be primarily, a social tool for college students. Faculty may have ambiguous feelings about “infiltrating” their students’ space. A student at State University of New York says: Facebook was created as a place for students, not for professors. Students should be able to express themselves freely there, he says, without worrying what some professor will think. http://www.sivacracy.net/2007/12/good_article_on_professors_who.html
- I know several faculty members who have started their own Fb accounts but, as stated by this professor, One of the first questions professors face is whether it’s OK to add their students as Facebook friends. http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/2584/facebook-not-just-for-students-anymore
- Younger faculty views this venue, not necessarily as a tool that can be implemented for teaching/learning but instead as a way to build their reputations and forging professional networks using Facebook. http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/2584/facebook-not-just-for-students-anymore
I have been thinking about ways to introduce our faculty to Facebook. I believe It would be worth the effort to invite them to learn about this tool, and encourage them to find out what other faculty at other institutions are doing: - Facebook already has a group that deals with this very topic, called Teaching & Learning with Facebook. The group has as of 3/19/08 738 members. Here is the link: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2408370557
- Create a campus Focus Group that explores and examines not just Fb but other social networking tools as well.
- Design a Pilot Course where Fb is integrated into the class curriculum: Use it/test its applications/Assess it/Follow up recommendations.
- Design a Best Practices/How To Guide for faculty who would like to learn more about it before making a decision to use it.
1 comment:
One of the things that always happens when we encounter an innovation (in this case, a new tool with specific affordances and constraints) is that we think of it -- at first, that is -- as similar to the innovation to which it seems most similar. We tend to use the innovation in ways similar to its "cousin."
Later, as we experiment more with the innovation, we begin to see how its affordances and constraints can be exploited to assist our work (and/or play) in new and novel ways.
SO -- the question that arises from these comments sounds something like this:
Are the uses for -- and drawbacks of -- Facebook used for instruction a result of a limited, early interpretation of the tool, or are they directly reflective of the full range of possible Fb educational uses?
What do you think? Has there been enough experimentation for us to make a decision about educational uses for Fb yet? If not, what still do we need to explore with and about it?
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