1.
Quick guide to using Facebook for
engaging with students in and out of
class
Nia Wearn
Teaching Excellence Fellow
n.h.wearn@staffs.ac.uk
@wormella

2.
Facebook forms an important part of our groups
ways of communicating with our students

3.
Some things to remember
• Students are using facebook to help their
education whatever your feelings on it
– This isn’t a trend that’s going away
– Everyone is going to use it as a platform in a
different way
• The key world in all of this is SOCIAL
• I’m going to use these slides as a little guide to how we
use Facebook with our games design students

4.
A few bits of terminology to get
started
• Pages and Groups are not the same thing
– Pages are outward facing
– Groups are communities
• Your profile is how your seen and how you
interact with everyone else
– It’s up to you how you manage your profile
• People like a page, they join a group and they
add you as a friend

5.
Groups come in 3 flavours

6.
How we use groups – Current Students
– Public – so it’s easy to access
– Staff are admins
– Address for the group prominently linked
everywhere and e-mailed to new students
– Official announcements posted here and on
Blackboard (we have an organisational community
on there too)
– Community announcements are on here too
– Students are encouraged to post here if they have
questions to ask, work for critique etc -
– If one student is asking a question, it’s a good
chance someone else is too – so public answers
help everyone

7.
Subject Specialism Groups
Multi year groups
– keeping the
main group clear
of chatter and
having a places
for specific areas
to discuss and
flourish –
creating a sense
of community
Some modules also have year
specific groups too – keeping the
rumour mill at bay – but letting
us have conversations that run
over the summer or semesters

8.
Other ‘Global’ Groups we have too
• An Public Alumni Group
– We post jobs & opportunities that might be of
interest
– It helps us keep in touch with them
• A Secret Staff group
– Super duper useful for keeping in touch with each
other (we’re a busy, sprawling department)
• A Research focused staff group too

9.
Why use groups?
Speed & Communication
• Groups can be posted to from anywhere (even
e-mailed direct to the group)
• Track engagement
• Students use them
• No one reads e-mail
Mentions send students notifications
Click on this to see which group members have seen it
Pro tip! If you make
an event in a group –
it invites everyone in
the group – useful
for talks etc

10.
Other things about groups
• Apart from making
events you can do the
following:
– Host Files & collaborative
documents that everyone
in the group can edit
– Host photos and Videos
– Pin posts to the top of the
group so it’s the first thing
they see when they click
on it

11.
Pages = Promotion
• Pages are always public facing
– They are great for promoting
courses, institutes, personal
projects that you want people to
follow
– Events you make are also public
– and you can only invite people
your profile knows to events
• We have a global page for our
courses – we promote things
that show then in a good light
– This works very well for
recruitment too

12.
Pages for lessons & group work
• We also use pages for group
work
– Students upload videos and
images
– You can share them on another
page – so all of the content
from a module is in one place
(useful if like us you have 34
teams to deal with)
– Useful way of presenting and
managing media heavy
assignments
– Very useful way of being able
to quickly access and how off
your students work
Share content from one
page onto another

13.
What else?
• Facebook is an ever changing platform
– You need to keep on top of changes that might
happen
• And roll with the changes as they happen.
• You need to decide on your profile and how
you use it
– Some of my team have got separate profiles for
work and play – there’s pros and cons to both of
these options
• Don’t be afraid and have some fun with it all

14.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help
• Drop me a line
– I’m Nia Wearn – drop me a line on facebook – I’m
the only one on there and I’m always happy to
help
– Ask your students how they want you to use
facebook with them
– Drop Laura Allen a line if you’re looking to run a
promotional page for your course