Because of the sub judice rule, I cannot comment on the case of the girls who were barred from joining their school’s graduation exercises because of photos posted on Facebook showing them in bikinis. Although not barred by the court from commenting, I shall also not discuss the case of the boys facing sanctions from their school for posting a photo featuring a computer-generated fake kiss on Facebook.
Instead, I want to discuss the way schools are missing the chance to use Facebook as a teaching tool.
I must say at the outset that I am a Facebooker. At one point, I reached the Facebook limit of 5,000 friends, and I was forced to defriend some in order to accept new ones. I also had to put up a Facebook page to which I now direct those asking me to friend them. (By the way, one of the contributions of Facebook is the way the noun “friend” has become a verb.)
According to Internet World Stats, as of the end of 2011, Facebook had 799,092,160 users, representing 11.5 percent of the world’s population. If we subtract from the total population the number of people below the age of 13 (the minimum age to join Facebook), the percentage of users is much bigger.
According to Facebook, the Philippines is the 10th largest user of Facebook among countries, with more than 7,000,000 users. Worldwide, 79.4 percent of Facebook users are above 18, dispelling the myth that Facebook is only for the young.
According to one of the latest versions of the YouTube video “Did You Know” (“Did You Know 2011 Social Media Revolution”), today’s students generally use Facebook rather than email to communicate with each other.
Teachers who do not use Facebook are not good teachers. I say this categorically because I firmly believe in the advice given by St. Ignatius of Loyola (pardon my Ateneo background, Lasallian friends!) to teachers, “Enter through their door, leave through yours.”
Facebook is the door which students enter every day. They use it not only to record their thoughts, feelings, and actions, or to connect with friends all over the world, but even to search. (According to Wikipedia, which is often though not always accurate, Facebook has replaced Google as the most popular Internet site.)
If Facebook is their door, why are teachers not entering that door and, of course, leaving later through their own door? The reason lies in the inability of the older generation to appreciate the paradigm shift that occurred with Mark Zuckerberg (the founder of Facebook, in case you did not even know that).
Still useful as a way of classifying people is Marc Prensky’s 2001 article on “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants.” A digital native is one that grew up with technology (think of a delivery room with computers). A digital immigrant is one that was born before the Web but knows how to use a computer. Those that do not use computers at all are treated in online discussions as non-persons.
Teachers are digital immigrants because of their age, and they are sometimes even digital non-persons. Students today are digital natives. Remember that, to college students that know about the People Power Revolution only through nostalgic stories from their parents or grandparents, the 20th century was last century.
How can you teachers use Facebook as a teaching tool?
First of all, you must have a Facebook account. There is no need to friend everybody you know nor to accept everyone who wants to friend you. You can have only your family members as friends, if that is what you want. Facebook can be as private or as public as you want it to be.
Second, you must have a Facebook page for every class you teach. In this page, you friend only the students in your class. This page becomes your class website. You can post your lessons (written and audiovisual) on this page. Your students can post their answers to your quizzes either on your “wall” (what everybody can see) or through “PM” (private message, or something only you can see). What Facebook can do that is cumbersome to do through email is linking to Internet sites (YouTube, newspaper sites, Google Books, research tools).
Third, you must use all the resources that Facebook offers. For example, Facebook offers users a way to put markers on a world map; this would be extremely useful to courses that involve geography, such as literature surveys. (Caution: Facebook’s map is not always accurate. One of the disadvantages of Facebook is that the managers rely on users to give them information, and sometimes, the rule is “garbage in, garbage out.” To supplement Facebook, you could use Google Maps.)
How did I get into Facebook anyway? I was writing a scholarly paper on literature, and I discovered that a critic in Italy had written something on the work I was analysing. Since I wanted help understanding the work, I wanted to contact her but did not know how to find her. I did not have a Facebook account at that time, and someone told me, “Maybe she is on Facebook.”
I got into Facebook and found her. She helped me with the article. From then on, I was hooked. Social networking is great for research, and it is also great for teaching.
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