This document discusses using Facebook in educational contexts. It notes that students are increasingly using online tools and have high levels of technology access. While students are often characterized as "digital natives," research finds their skills are more varied. The document explores using Facebook for a specialist conference module and hospitality placements to facilitate inter-year support and engagement through groups, images, and connections. It analyzes the educational affordances and challenges of using Facebook, such as managing privacy and constraints.

1. Facebook in the Classroom
Liz Bennett
MSc Multimedia and elearning
Course Leader

2. Growth in access to info over web

3. Figures for user generated content;
• 35 hours of video footage is uploaded to the Youtube every
minute.
• Over 2 billion videos are viewed every day
• Corporate bloggers receive 312,783 on average visitors per
month:
• 460k new Twitter accounts set up in Feb 2011
• Average Tweet per day (TPD) in March 2010 was 50M, in Feb
2011 140M 280% increase in a year.
• More than 500 million active Facebook users, 50% of our
active users log on to Facebook in any given day

4. Horizon Report 2011
1) Rise of technology ownership (Kindles,
ipads, phones) with access to internet
2) People’s expectations of flexible learning
expectations of wifi
3) World of work increasing collaborative
4) Rise in cloud based services

5. Horizon Report
The abundance of resources and relationships made
easily accessible via the Internet is increasingly
challenging us to revisit our roles as educators in sense-
making, coaching, and credentialing.

6. New ways of knowing
Transfer of attention from print to screen
Multiplicity of media: hyperlinked and hybrid media
Blurred boundaries of information/communication
Ubiquitous access to information and to connected others
Routine surveillance and capture of processes/events
Networked societies and interest groups
Power of the crowd (web 2.0, massive social data sets)
Offloading of cognitive tasks onto digital tools and networks
Presentation of self in digital contexts
Open scholarship and open publishing

7. How would you characterise your
learners?
• In terms of;
– Their access to kit
– The range of services they access
– The sort of activities they use the kit for
– The skills and practices they have in
relation to
• Their kit
• using it to support their studies

8. Digital Natives Debate
• Learners’ ICT skills are less advanced than educators and learners
think (Nicholas et al. 2008, JISC 2008-9)
• Characterisation of young people as ‘digital natives’ hides many
contradictions in their experiences (Luckin et al. 2009)
• Learners’ engagement with digital medias complex and
differentiated (Bennet et al. 2008, Hargittai, 2009)
• Learners experience many difficulties in transposing practices from
social contexts into formal learning (Cranmer 2006)
• Active knowledge building and sharing are minority activities which
they are introduced to by educators (Selwyn 2009)
• Can be clashes between everyday practice and academic practice
(Beetham 2009)

9. Affordances of Facebook
• Open groups
• Closed groups
• Easy to engage with
• Use of images
• Range of channels
• Being connected
• Finding and being found
• Serendipity
• Low cognitive exposure –
liking, commenting

10. Theorising this
• Communities of Inquiry; social
presence
• Communities of Practice; learning as
being and becoming
• Networked learning; learning in
networked communities
• Learning as conversation; Laurillard
• Learning as building networks;
connectivism

11. Use on Specialist Conference module
• Large scale module
• Online
• Types of engagement;
• Inter year support
• Feedback loops and
support

14. Use on Hospitality Management
• Placements for 1
year
• Across the world

15. Diamond 9 Activity
What makes Most Important
social media
most/least
valuable as a
teaching and
learning tool in
your context? Least Important
You may wish to replace a card with one of
your own statements
?

16. Off line online overlap

17. Analysis
• Function – purpose
– To etivitiy or not?
– Inter year support
– Low cognitive exposure
• Selwyn’s categories
3. recounting and reflecting on the university experience;
4. exchange of practical information;
5. exchange of academic information;
6. displays of supplication and/or disengagement;
7. ‘banter’ (i.e. exchanges of humour and nonsense).

18. Tutoring with Facebook
• Profiles
• Etiquette and privacy
• Reputational issues
• Managing constraints (troll behaviour)

19. MSc Multimedia and Elearning
• Prezi
• Liz Bennett
• E.bennett@hud.ac.uk

20. References
• Facebook (2011) Timeline (online) Available at:
<http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?timeline> (Accessed 19th August
2011)
• Facer, K. (2009). Educational, social and technological futures: a report from
the Beyond Current Horizons Programme.
• Peluchette, J & Karl, K (2010) ‘Examining Students Intended Image on
Facebook:’ “What Were They Thinking?!” Journal of Education for
Business. Vol 85. pp. 30-37
• Pempek, T, Yevdokiya, A, Calvert, S (2009) ‘College students’ social
networking experiences on Facebook’ Journal of Applied Developmental
Psychology Vol 30 pp 227 – 238
• Selwyn, N. (2009). Faceworking: exploring students' education-related use
of Facebook. Learning, Media and Technology, 34(2), 157-174.