Why are we “Facebooking” so little in class?

When Facebook started to become popular in the early 2000’s, no one would have guessed how fast the social media site would grow in a matter of years. First used only by students at Harvard University (most of you may know the history and story through the movie “The Social Network”), Mark Zuckerberg saw the potential to expand it to even more campuses and universities, allowing friends and acquaintances connect with just one simple click.

In a fast paced growing online community Facebook turned into the simplest way to express your feelings, ideas, projects and whatever was going on at the time and that anyone thought was relevant enough to be posted on their timelines. However, operating the website, paying for the server hosts and bandwidth made necessary to start looking for a way for Facebook to be profitable and soon enough you could see ads on your wall, targeted specifically based on your browsing history.

As a High School teacher it was clear to me that Facebook had a lot of potential for good things, like sharing relevant information with a group of students interested in particular topics. Schools and Universities had started using learning platforms like Moodle and Edmodo, each one with its pros and cons (mostly cons for a teenager eager to spend time on Facebook and not doing assignments on a boring website with little to no appealing interface and design). But let’s be honest: wouldn’t you like to spend a little more time on Facebook doing an assignment?

The use of Facebook as an educational tool is not innovative, it can be hardly considered appropriate by some educators, but there are some positive aspects of Facebook that were introduced in recent years that allow teachers to find better ways to promote self learning strategies as well as guided. Some may complain about the fact that your life and privacy is exposed when you use it, but this is not entirely true if you know how to navigate Facebook carefully. If we consider that some people are resisting change, specially older generations, it is hard for anyone to consider Facebook a tool, but have you ever considered using Facebook, or any other social media, as an educational tool? What made you stop or use a particular one?

There is extensive literature you can read that provides evidence about the use of Facebook in education; some of them explore the negative impact while others praise its benefits. It still depends on you to decide if it will benefit or be detrimental to your teaching practice. If you have any doubts, I will recommend some strategies that may help you make a decision.

Facebook Groups and Pages: is there a safe approach?

If you are already an active Facebook user (and I suppose you are since the amount of users grows at a steadily pace everyday), then there is something you need to know: your privacy settings need to be checked. This is the first step that you have to take to begin using Facebook safely and under your complete control; if you are not completely sure about this approach, then you can create a new Facebook profile that will only provide the basics of who you are and what you do, only available to those you select after a meticulous consideration.

Recently, from a personal experience back home, we were banned from using our personal Facebook page to contact students, on the simple basis that unsupervised minors are susceptible of manipulation, particularly when it comes to authority figures such as teachers; while this is a good argument to stop you from going forward, then I should let you know that you do not have to reply to private messaging. If you set the security settings properly, your page will allow posting only by members of the group, they can place their questions there to be visible for anyone and it can work as an interactive forum.

When you are setting up this account and you start using it, you can pin posts in the group that will have to be read by anyone joining the group; this is the opportunity to set the rules of use and the code of conduct while being an active member of the page you have created. This in time will prove valuable when it comes to resolve arising problems on a daily basis. Actually, you can prevent people from contacting you at all.

Sounds good, but won’t it be time consuming?

While so many of us spend lots of time grading, marking, reviewing and doing so many other things, it is understandable to feel inclined to set Facebook aside and move on with our daily occupations. But then again, there are moments in which we are just browsing, reading news articles while drinking some coffee and then we find something that is definitely worth sharing with your class, whether because it is relevant for the topic being discussed in class (most social studies teachers find some news articles worthy of debate) or because it exemplifies something we want to convey to a very specific group (YouTube has many videos available about Science and Mathematics).

All of these online resources can be shared with just a few clicks and your whole class will receive a notification about your post; there is something magical about this notification system in Facebook that is extremely appealing to teenagers, because they feel the urge to read whatever was posted online. In here is when your skills as a curator come handy, because you will have to be very selective and pick material that could be used for assignments or during your lectures.

When there is a sense of purpose in the resource shared (news articles, YouTube videos and even if you find hard to believe it, memes too) and you post them with a provoking questions, you will have immediate feedback from your students and they will feel encouraged to find more on their own. I’m stating something that may not be obvious, but let’s be clear about something: you will get a lot of different responses and even some unpleasant surprises because there is no way to predict the outcome of the post. Are you ready to deal with trolls that are willing to destroy your precious post with annoying comments? Are you willing to spend some time interacting in real time with your students?

The place for introverts

Have you noticed that some students are just not comfortable speaking in front of their classmates? Are they shy? Do they feel unsure about their answers or themselves? Once in one of my classes a student just burst out in tears, absolutely terrified and unable to utter a word. He had been in the same class for at least six years so he knew everyone and everyone knew him. While many consider that speaking in front of others is a natural thing, others (including myself) find hard to do so and it requires an extra effort.

Facebook can provide a safe environment for students to interact with their peers, as it gives them time to elaborate around their ideas and express them openly, also backing up their arguments with their own findings and sharing information so they feel more confident about their answers. This proves extremely useful in many different learning areas (some students like to share their Arts projects and Facebook is the perfect platform). By now the lurking trolls are definitely waiting for the right moment to show their ugly faces, but there is no need to fear such situations, as some posts can be published after you have reviewed their content and marked it as safe, as well as disabling comments to discourage cyber bullies.

There are actually multiple ways in which a teacher can use Facebook, it will require some extensive reading about all the features that it has to offer but are widely unknown to some educators; in the right hands and with clear objectives, it is a valuable tool that can promote a learning environment for students as well as fun.

Have you ever tried it? Have you ever considered it? Do you strongly disagree with the use of social media for educational purposes?

(This post was original published in a private blog for a class, I'm re-posting to share my perspective on the issue)