My ePic faiL: facebook and the classroom

Chapter Three

He said, “There are many interesting possibilities and applications for classrooms when it comes to utilizing networks to gather information.  Not only do teachers need to recognize the importance of strong and weak ties in online information, as well as in a broader epistemological sense, the students need to adapt this type of schema or technique as well.”

I see a trend in education, at least at the college level, of moving to a digital environment. If the course material is not delivered entirely digitally, the instructor may be supplimenting the course work through D2L, wiki, facebook, or email submissions of assignments, or any combination of these tools. Chapter three of her book Blogging, explores the issue of weak ties and colliding social spheres which, when applied to an educational arena, may be the main reasons why a social networking sight might not be a great tool for the classroom.

This was my attempt at creating a social networking sight to suppliment my College Writing course (Fall 08). My idea, or hope, was to give my students a place to connect outside of class. In my supposed world, students would be able to post requests for missed notes or assignments, or discuss assignments – maybe finding answers to questions from their classmates. If you can access the facebook group I created, you will see only six of my twenty-five students joined the group. I was the only one to post anything. Some of the comments that were on the wall (all mine) have been lost due to changes in how facebook displays group wall posts.

Why was my facebook group an ePic faiL?

♦Colliding social spheres: I believe this was one of the biggest factors. Joining this group would give all of my students access to each others’ facebook profiles, including me. I think that most of my students were reluctant to open that door. They did not want their professor and their classmates to have access to the testimonial posts on their facebook wall. Nor did they want me (or any of their classmates) to have access to their photos (depicting their wild and crazy weekend, thus revealing the true reason their homework is incomplete ).

♦My bad: I did not make joining the facebook group a required part of class. Membership was voluntary and I did not require posts or feedback. This mistake only further weakened the weak ties people tend to create through facebook. Were I to revive this idea today, I would build assignments around this tool, requiring posts and particpation.

♦Hammer vs. Pliers: I was trying to use the wrong tool. Facebook does tend to “appeal to our instinct for collecting” (Blogging, 72). When you think about how people interact, or don’t, with collections, it is plain to see why facebook would not necessarily be the right tool to suppliment student interaction. Collections tend to be looked at, not played with, not used. People tend to observe collections from a distance. They don’t want their collections to observe back. Having been on facebook for a couple of years now, I see what I didn’t see then, facebook groups are a collection, not a connection. (Do you agree?)

Tony, I agree with you; teachers must recognize the importance of strong and weak ties in the online networks available to them. It is the only way a teacher is going to make the right choice about which tool to use to suppliment the education they are giving.

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