Facebook is so popular among students. On one hand, it is good for them to communicate with more people, make more friends, and know more fresh info, etc. On the other hand, time is devoted to Facebook. It seems some students' academic performance has been influenced. What do you think about students' use of Facebook?

Tags: facebook, students, study

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Facebook is like "behind the bike shed at school"...a place to speak your mind and use all the nasty words your parents don't like hearing frorm their mouths. Many in my experience swear worse than the truck driver on Facebook.
My son developed serious academic problems with Facebook and became almost addicted. This is something that should be carefully considered before bringing it into the classroom especially for younger students.
Seen this happen too. but if it was used properly to collaborate on projects it works well.

I used Facebook for students to share their work and to discuss aspects of their work. marks were awarded for the level and type of contribution they made. As an online learning journal it is not too bad, but I find blogger better to have children document thier experiences.
Yes, this is also what I'm worried about. They can get various information from Facebook. Whether they can tell right from the info sea is a problem. I think Katy Scott , the first replier of this discussion offers teachers some good advice.
ePals LearningSpace was developed specifically for use in K12 schools, to allow for the power of "social learning" while also protecting kids and focusing attention on instructional activities.
Like Facebook, there are profiles and groups. Unlike Facebook, there are features that teachers asked for to help manage instruction and things in place to protect student privacy. Educators were involved in the design of the product, and doesn't that always make a difference in how easy it is to use something to help impact student learning?
Two groups of students -- one in Iowa, one in China -- can collaborate through a wiki, blog, email or other communication tools inside LearningSpace. Students can share a work in progress, get feedback from peers in their class or in a partner class, and revise. The finished product can be kept in a digital portfolio or posted for the world to view (safely).
Teachers also have a "teacher lounge" where they can share best practices, post questions on forums for each other, collaborate with colleagues in the district or across the globe. Documents can be posted and quickly searched, rather than spending a lot of money on copying things that are quickly subject to change. Teachers can get 'just in time" help from colleagues, too.
Best of all, the technology does the work. Teachers don't have to register all their students for this blog and then later for a wiki. It's click and the blog is created. Click again and these two classes are registered to use it.

See an 8-minute video on the features this offers at: https://learningspace.epals.com.
Or sign up for a free trial for your school.
(This product is e-rateable too for places where they have e-rate eligibility. Facebook does NOT have e-rate eligibility!)
I think the idea is great to communitcate with students all over the world through wiki, blog, email, etc. The pure learning evironment is needed for children's study and development.
I've actually been using Facebook for one of my educational technology courses and it has been really helpful. For our final project, to test out all of the multimedia skills we have learned this semester, we are creating an art show to be displayed at the university on campus. The catch was that we, the students, we not allowed to talk about this project in class. All of the planning had to be done using social media (twitter, e-mail, our course wiki etc). Using Facebook has so far been the best mode of contacting the other students and getting them involved with the project. Students are always checking their Facebooks, so they are always going to be seeing new updates on the project.
I do think facebook can be a very helpful networking tool, I feel it's becoming the new Myspace. There is a lot more adware, more silly surveys, games, and quizzes, and for academic purposes, I think it could be distracting for students in secondary education. I think Twitter is something worth using, though. I feel like there are no serious distractions (as long as your students can avoid adding all the celebrities on there), and Twitter gives you the option to make lists of groups of people that you're following, so students will be able to separate their school related tweeting from their person tweeting.
I've read many of the concerns people have posted about FB, and I must say that I share the majority of them. However, we cannot fight the computer battle at home. That's up to the parents. What we can do is try and make the technology work for us. I took a quick pole of my high school students one day, and the majority of them have FB accounts. This started me thinking: how can I tap into this resource?
I decided to build a class page for students to follow if they so desire. I started with a small test group of two students and another teacher so that I could get a little feedback about its usefulness. The students said they loved it because homework reminders, class previews, and other important class information popped up on their walls. Once I was a little more comfortable using FB, I announced to all of my classes that there was a page for our class. I even had FB unblocked for an hour one afternoon so students could sign in, find the page, and become a follower. (I was the coolest teacher ever for that hour.)
Slowly but surely, I gained a following. I even have parents following the page now. We have even started trying out the discussion boards. It has been great fun, and it keeps the students off of my personal FB account. I did explain to them that we cannot be "friends" on FB because that would not be appropriate, but that they are free to leave me messages on our class page. I've decided not to fight the ever growing technological distractions, but, rather, I'm going to exploit them. Who knows... maybe the kids might even learn something academic on FB someday!
I'm curious about this distinction. I was planning on making an alter ego acct as Ms. Strohm so I can engage with former students, parents and colleagues. I'm not teaching right now, but I also need to use Facebook for projects I'm working on by creating an official page - my personal account is then linked to and I'd rather not cross those two lines.

Has anyone else made use of two accts in FB? Any thoughts or suggestions?
Jane,
I originally didn't want to cross the lines either. However, I discovered that making a page is almost identical to having the personal page. I am the administrator on my page and it says that I am a follower, but my private settings don't allow page viewers to see my private account. If you'd like to see how I have things, here is the link to the class page: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pages/Zion-IL/Power-Skills/10150110634395472 Feel free to poke around. It's nice not having two separate logins and when people post on the classroom page, I get a notification on my private page so I know to check in.
It's a thought. Please let me know if you see other issues I may have missed. I'm pretty new to FB, so I don't know all of the ins and outs.
http://www.facebook.com/education#!/education?v=app_4949752878
Recommends making a teacher page, but Ms. or Mr. are not allowed. There are now two of me on FB.

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