Interesting fact #2: FacebookTM has a Community Page feature that allows user to garner support for a cause in the community.
Interesting fact #3: FacebookTM allows Group functionality where people who share a common interest can easily communicate with each other.
(NOTE: Images in this review are small within the formatting of the text. Please click on them to explore the actual detail further.)
Overview:
Most students today have some familiarity with FacebookTM. Regardless of individual thoughts on the usefulness, safety, or even societal impact of this tool, one thing is for sure – it is powerful. Take the personal account for instance. Not only has FacebookTM replaced common email functionality with its own embedded email tool to some extent but the personal account is also packed with features such as:
- Organized photo and video albums
- Calendars for events and birthdays that allow users to populate them with their individual information
- Instant chat with FacebookTM friends
- Games
- Digital gifting
- Group affiliation
- Community action participation
- Mobile applications for staying connected including SMS capability
Screenshot: FacebookTM Wall
But even more important is the ever present Wall and News Feed. These two features alone give FacebookTM the punch that sets them apart from other applications such as MySpaceTM and TwitterTM. The FacebookTM Wall feature is basically a message board where friends can send instant messages to the owner. Say they want to update the owner on a good grade they received, an assignment question they might have or give details of the most recent episode of Glee; this is where they do it. But what makes FacebookTM so powerful is that other friends can read these posts and add their comments. And their friends can read these same comments and post comments through the News Feed feature that captures all these posts and organizes them into a sequential message board for friends to follow. It is truly an easy way to stay informed and entertained. Not to mention that FacebookTM send notifications of messages from friends and groups to the users external email such as GmailTM .
Screenshot: FacebookTM News Feed
For more information on FacebookTM, access their Help/About page at http://www.facebook.com/help/.
System Requirements:
FacebookTM works with any OS because it is a web-based application. All the user needs is access to a web browser. Furthermore, FacebookTM has mobile applications that work on the iPhoneTM, BlackberryTM and AndroidTM. Access more information at http://www.facebook.com/mobile/.
Features:
So you are probably saying to yourself, “What does this have to do with education?” Granted the use of an email account, the instant sharing that is available to users and the ability to track strings of conversations is useful in any situation, but what else could an educator use it for? In this review, we will focus on FacebookTM Groups. Since the application has so many interesting features for personal accounts, my focus will be on the FacebookTM tools teachers might use to inform students, promote collaboration, or even check for understanding. To do that we must log in to a personal account and then create a FacebookTM Group.
The FacebookTM Group offers functionality not too different from a FacebookTM personal account. To start, the Group can be found on FacebookTM just like a normal user. In this case I searched for the term “course” and found Course in Box. This course is administered by an individual out of Egypt.
Screenshot: FacebookTM Group Info Tab
Further down the Info page, we see that the course is for students that have taken a graphic design and creative advertising course from Mo'men Mokhtar in the College of Fine Arts.
Screenshot: FacebookTM Group Info Tab - Course Information
Clicking on the CIB Wall, notice that past students are able to post comments, not only in English but also in Arabic. Furthermore, the comments are sequential.
Screenshot: FacebookTM Group CIB Wall Tab
Next, click on the Photos tab where students have shared materials they have created or accumulated. Clicking on the photo opens another window that allows closer inspection of the photo as well as the ability to comment on the work.
Sharing photos is not the only collaborative activity that students of this course Group page can do either. On the Discussion tab, students/group members are able to start discussion topics to be discussed by the entire group and logged. More than one discussion can be taking place at a time.
Screenshot: FacebookTM Group Discussion Tab
Within a discussion, individual postings are recorded and organized for sequential viewing.
A course administrator also has the option of including video. On the Video tab, we see a list of videos available to students. Clicking on the videos launches other pages where the video may have originated.
Screenshot: FacebookTM Group Video Tab
Last but not least, Group administrators or instructors can schedule events. This offers teachers to administer their course effectively using scheduled dates that require the student to acknowledge attendance.
Clicking on the event, allows students to see the time, date, location of the event. Even more useful, is the student's ability to post questions or comments to the event Wall, to download the event information for population in an email calendar such as EntourageTM or OutlookTM and to respond to attendance.
Final Thoughts:
To be honest, I would never have thought of using FacebookTM for educational purposes. As an individual user I find the tool way to "needy" for my liking. The level of privacy it offers is not standard and therefore users are at leisure to offer as little or as is more often the case more than enough information about their personal lives. However, the truth of the matter is that most students are using it these days. And to further that point, most of them have a level of comfort with the tool that is scary to old people such as myself. Nevertheless, I see potential in its use, albeit cautiously.
The ability to form a group, to communicate through instant messaging, email or through a message board is not unlike MoodleTM. In fact, FacebookTM offers a great deal of the functionality that resources such as MoodleTM do. Missing is the server space that stores textual content, though there is room for photos and videos. Absent is the ability to easily control the viewing of content or even what is said. In any case, FacebookTM coupled with other Web 2.0 tools through hyperlinks throughout the Group page might have the potential to imitate a tool specifically meant for online learning. But why waste time, when you have tools such as MoodleTM?
I do however see great potential in allow students to experiment in a collaborative manner. Maybe work/study groups could be set up that with monitoring from an instructor would provide insight into the productivity and status of student projects. Or maybe there is opportunity to use FacebookTM Group pages for project groups to organize, produce and share their final work. The good news is that we don't have to spend too much time thinking about it. The tool is easy enough to explore the possibilities, FacebookTM is adding more tools all the time, and as witnessed in my example from Cairo, Egypt, users are beginning to see its power.
In Summary:
Advantages
- FacebookTM is free.
- Provides an opportunity to integrate with other Web 2.0 products using hyperlinks within the Group page.
- The interface is rather intuitive though it takes a while to acclimate.
- There is a mobile component to the tool.
- Groups have control over who is included.
Disadvantages
- Advertisements. There are a lot of them within FacebookTM. Though they are not intrusive they are still there and possibly a concern.
- The administrator has limited control of the environment. Discussions for example do not have start and end times.
- FacebookTM has had previous issues with personal data security.
Hope this entry was useful to you. As I mentioned early, I’ve only reviewed the Group page functionality of FacebookTM. Check back next week when I'll provide a comprehensive presentation of how Web 2.0 tools can be used in distance education.
Steve
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