Week 10: Facebook in the Classroom

Highland Park Independent School District has just decided to experiment with using the social network Facebook into the classroom. The power that Facebook could have in the educational setting is extremely strong, yet this has been a hot topic for awhile for several reasons. First, many students, especially at the middle school level, are not allowed to use Facebook. Parents view it as an area where they cannot control what their children see and do as well as fear of online predators, etc. Student safety and privacy is extremely important at school, so for years the school has avoided social networking sites for educational purposes. Also, many students do not want Facebook to come into the educational setting. They like keeping school and social lives separate and the idea of it is somewhat invasive.

I tend to be the guinea pig at my school with new technologies and experimentation, so I was more than willing to create a Facebook group and test out if this can really work and be successful. My group has about 90 of my students out of 150, which I think is pretty impressive! On Facebook, students can interact which each other through blogging in discussion forums or writing on walls, which is not as extensive writing. I can post YouTube videos that I find interesting or post links that are helpful. I can hold online tutorial sessions before tests/quizzes and even chat with my students.

To draw the line between teacher/student privacy, you are able to invite students to the group without being friends with them and seeing their profiles. This is important, because most students feel uncomfortable with teachers being able to see their profiles and pictures. Most teachers feel uncomfortable with this too! You can set the group to have very secure privacy settings. I have loved it so far and find that it’s a great way to really bring the class together and promote learning in a virtual way.