Your Biggest Fan
Using Facebook Pages as a
Course Management Tool
Jeremy Sarachan
St. John Fisher College
May 20, 2009


Why Facebook
Matters for Academics
Where the students
• Communicate
• Find information
Useful for professors
• To reach students
• To find a community of scholars
• Other academics
• Groupshttp://www.facebook.com/friends/?id
=64802090&view=everyone#/profile.php?id=64802090&v=info&viewas=64802090

What are the features?
(Do you have a Facebook account?)
• Profile Picture • Photos
• Status Line
• Instant
• News Feed
Messaging
• Friends
• Applications
• Who’s Online
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=64802090&ref=profile

Course Management Tool
Pages…
• Memorial Art Gallery
http://www.facebook.com/s.php?init=q&q=CIT+2009&ref=ts&sid=af1a86f85d20861d40b8a1e9319c2f57#/pag
• George Eastman House
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Rochester-NY/George-Eastman-House-International-Museum-of-
• SUNY-Oswego
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Oswego-NY/SUNY-Oswego/19148818048?sid=92666b288d48315c8d354524
• Making a page
http://www.facebook.com/advertising/?pages
• Can be used by colleges or individual departments.

Course Management
Examples
Web Design
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=668716965#/pages/Web-Design
Introduction to Digital Media
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Web-Design-COMM369/45561207117?r

Blackboard vs. Facebook:
The Battle for Our Minds
Facebook Benefits Blackboard Benefits
Easier-to-Use More Features
Easy-to-access Better for Content-Intensive
Courses
More fun
Easier to Organize
More convenient
(for almost everyone) More Familiar to faculty
Open to Everyone Closed to Everyone

Some HTML: Formatting
<b>I’m bold</b> I’m bold
<i>I’m italic</i> I’m italic
<h1>I’m a big headline</h1> I’m a big headline
<h2>I’m a slightly smaller headline</h2> I’m a slightly
smaller headline

Some HTML: Links
(I wish the Apps were better)
Posting:
• Place documents in the public folder within your faculty server space-or
elsewhere where you can host web documents.
• <a href=“URL”>syllabus</a>

The Big Question?
Do I friend students?
Absolutely? Never ? With rules?
You don’t have to.

The Creepy Tree House Effect
Do students
resent
the intrusion?

Facebook Use in the Academy
• J.P Mazer et al. suggests that Facebook use by teachers (and
some form of self-disclosure) creates a more “comfortable
classroom climate,” if the Facebook persona matches the
teaching style.
• In a study of college library use, students were split on whether
the would welcome “friending” by library staff.
Groups were suggested as one way to circumvent this
issue. (Connell)

The Effects of Facebook Use
by Faculty
Sturgeon studied the effects of faculty use of Facebook:
• Friending creates “additional connectedness,” more significantly
among students.
• More “open line for communication.”
• Students wish to have relationship with their professors, even if there isn’t a
specific academic advantage.
• Difference between small colleges and large colleges

Anecdotal Evidence
• Julia Goode (pseudonym) in the Chronicle of Higher
Education: Facebook use with students makes you closer
with students, but also easier to contact.
• A professor at Dartmouth

How do you use Facebook?
One Identity? Or More?
Professionally? Carefully?
Use Security Settings!
Faculty Ethics on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2229343363&ref=ts

My Survey Results I
Introduction to Digital Media

My Survey Results II
Web Design

We have a group.
Please join.
• Look up CIT 2009 Attendees
• This presentation is available:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid
=89698656299#/group.php?gid=89698656299

References
• R.S. Connell, “Academic Libraries, Facebook and MySpace, and
Student Outreach: A Survey of Student Opinion.” Portal: Libraries
and the Academy. Vol. 9, No. 1, January 2009, pp. 25-35.
• J.P. Mazer, et al., “I’ll See You on ‘Facebook’: The Effects of
Computer-Mediated Teacher Self-Disclosure on Student Motivation,
Affective Learning, and Classroom Climate.” Communication
Education. Vol. 56, No. 1, January 2007, pp. 1-17.
• J. Goode, “Let’s Just Be Friends” The Chronicle of Higher
Education. Washington: June 20, 2009. Vol. 54, Iss. 41; p. A.28.

References Part II
• C.M. Sturgeon, “Faculty on Facebook: Confirm or Deny?”
14th Annual Instructional Technology Conference, Middle
Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN, March 29th-31st,
2009
• J. Young, “How to Lose Face on Facebook, for Professors”
The Chronicle of Higher Education. Washington: February
6, 2009. Vol. 55, Iss. 22; p. A.1.