A PROFESSOR'S ADVENTURE IN FACEBOOK

By Jason Snyder and Kathleen McQuiston, Research Services Librarians

The 2007 ECAR Study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology asked undergraduate students how they use technology and what its effect was on their educational experience. The study shows a steady increase in the use of computers and technology.1 This is no surprise. You can’t walk into the library without seeing dozens of students at the computers, their cell phones close by, ready to receive or send their next text message.

A quick glance around the computers in the library shows that students are also increasingly being drawn to social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace. According to ECAR, students use these tools in their personal lives, but not for academic purposes. However, even though students may see academic use of Facebook as an intrusion into their private spheres, forward thinking faculty are finding it to be a useful tool for teaching and classroom management.

Alf Siewers, Assistant Professor of English, took a risk and used Facebook in his teaching. Surprisingly, he encountered no resistance from students resentful of his entrée into their domain. In fact, at the beginning of each semester, Alf asks his students if they are comfortable using Facebook for classroom purposes, and tells them that alternate arrangements can be made. So far, he has not had to make any special arrangements. Alf is conscious of the fact that students may not be completely comfortable interacting with faculty on Facebook, so he arranges things so that his students don’t even have to be his “friends” to interact with him in this virtual realm.

Rather than using Blackboard for his course pages, Alf uses Facebook. He quickly found that his students “liked being engaged there” and that they found Facebook to be “more intuitive than Blackboard.” At the beginning of each semester since Fall 2007, he has created a Facebook group for every class, which allows him to use the “News” feature for posting syllabi and assignments. The discussion board also plays a big part in his courses, allowing students to post reading responses and comment on each other’s thoughts. He makes the groups “secret”, so that no one other than those enrolled in the class may see what’s posted.

What does Alf like best about using Facebook in his classes? First, the groups are never deleted, therefore, he has a permanent record of the interactions that happened between him and his students. The discussions and assignments posted by students remain online for everyone involved with the class to refer to indefinitely. He likes that students can create links to relevant videos, photos, pages and other resources they find online and in databases. Alf also values the increased engagement students have with the material in Facebook, because it is a virtual world they enjoy and one in which they feel comfortable.

Alf also aims to educate his students about this virtual world they inhabit. During the course of the semester, his students also get some lessons in online privacy. Outside of class, Alf feels that it is important for students to understand that what they post on Facebook could be seen by someone other than their friends. For instance, because Facebook is made up of networks that include alumni who may one day be potential employers. Alf tries to educate students on the use of privacy settings that allow them to control who can view their profiles, posted items, and so on. Hopefully, in the process of learning to use privacy settings, students will realize that what they do online can have repercussions in the real world. After all, one embarrassing picture can make the difference between gainful employment and rejection. Students who interact with professors like Alf Siewers will learn to recognize the increasingly blurred difference between public and private.

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1ECAR study available at: www.educause.edu/ers0706/13903 In our next issue, we will feature an article about Professor Carl Milofsky’s video adventures in Northern Ireland.