Learning in Facebook?

I embarked on an exploratory journey towards pre-assessing the potential of integrating the use of social networking sites to instruction. In my content analyis, the five most popular sites all over the world are Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, Friendster and Hi5, they are visited and subscribed to by millions to billions of users. Facebook top all of them.

My interest was drawn out of the observation of their popularity among young people. Everyone in my classess, had bugged me for several months as whether I have an FB account. Surprisingly, but I just forgot I had an idle account. I used to be active in friendster, posting pics and reading testimonies, nothing else. I have reserved that to very close friends, relatives and some previous students.

I signed up for a new FB account. Out of the need to communicate with some of my students for some very important reasons, I invited a limited few into my network. Then everyone else sent me friend add requests. Online, I would see them in the Net, some would send me private message in the chat with simple "hi" or "how are "you" but other's would simply ignore my presence.

One morning in the faculty room, during the conduct of my investigation, a math teacher came in and with a farce tone exclaimed: "Tomorrow, I will have my laboratory class in facebook. Many of them are absent, but they are all in Facebook." Funny, indeed. I have never heard of anyone from the faculty using an OSN to augment instructional processes. Some teachers are using Moodle, or maximizing yahoo groups, but none was into using Facebook.

In one news over the television, a teacher was featured to be using Multiply in instruction. That was a high school teacher, and the students interviewed appreciated her effort, because for them, it was convenient since they can go through the lesson modules the teacher uploaded and shared in the site.

I know of some teachers using texts, objects, files and other stuffs from the Internet. Many of my colleagues use videos from Youtube, or other games, quizzes that are avaiable as freewares from the Internet. I myself use them sometimes, like when I sense that my students are just not interested to listen to what I have to share anymore.

As a teacher, it surprises me that I have more of my present students (25%) than my actual friends (16%), or my relatives (24%) or my previous students (22%) out of the 255 listed people in my FB network, and only 5% of those in my network are my present colleagues. Allowing a few of my present students to add me into their network has provided me access to their networks.

At several times, it was useful for me to reach students whom I didn’t have email accounts, when I needed to remind them of deadlines or check on their progress with their assigned projects. Sometimes, I just happen to connect with those students who hardly get to hear participating in classroom discussion. Those casual conversations gave me the chance to get to know more my students at personal level and an opportunity to encourage them to do well in the class.

At one time, I tried to upload some videos on climate change, and posted a message seeking on what an ordinary person can do about it. None of my students commented on them. When I am online, some students would bother to greet me, and most of them exploit FB’s chat function with me as their teacher only when they need something. At the end of the term, students tagged in the photos I have with them. There are just three instances that I got many comments from my students to what I posted in my FB wall: 1) when I gave ‘heart-hitting’ assessment of my experience with one class as comment over a photo; 2) when I edited my stats; and 3) when I coined a funny word to refer to some kind of people. But through the chat, there were several instances that I get to help some students develop a thesis statement for their essay, one on one.

I may be able to share video, audio and other links, but FB can’t support instructional needs to share word documents or presentation slides, not unless I scan them or upload them to other online applications.

How much have I impacted the students whom I have encountered in FB? Much, not all, moderately? Affectively, if I were to consider their replies, the emoticons they added in our conversations, I can assure myself that probably I am making an impact. As to what degree that affects their learning, I can not approximate. I guess, my exploration has not finished yet.

Personally and based on the data that I have obtained, OSNs are useful tools to communicate with students outside the class borders, with some limitations. Theoretically, communication bridges, it moves people into action, it enlightens, it inspires,it teaches -- and so we learn. How it is useful, does not really rely on its power or potential, but as to how it is actually implemented and integrated to achieve some educational purpose.