Does Facebook Provide Educational Value?

Facebook has received considerable attention in a number of research areas. However, its educational value has not been fully confirmed and results from the mainstream educational paradigms are contradictory. A number of experiences related to the educational use of Facebook as a technology-enhanced learning environment are also flourishing. In these, Facebook has been used as a unique, or at least as one, learning management system tool, or as a platform for educational purposes. This chapter focuses on these issues, providing a wide overview of the current literature on the educational value of Facebook considering both theoretical positions and empirical findings. Furthermore, a few preliminary guidelines about Facebook usage are provided, pertaining to pedagogical, institutional, technological, and ethical issues. The chapter finally provides some hints about emerging trends and areas that deserve further research, such as professional development, academic practice, and location-based learning.

Diigo, Collaborative Knowledge Acquisition, and Social Networks of Graduate-Level Coursework

This chapter offers description and reflexive insight into the multiple ways the authors has used Diigo as a collaborative learning tool in courses associated with the Master's of Arts Management degree program at the University of Oregon. The author discusses the particular attributes of the Diigo platform when it comes to finding, sharing, and collectively exploring online resources, paying close attention to where Diigo sits on the landscape of social networking sites. Drawing on a handful of examples across two graduate-level classes, the author also details the kinds of assignments and pedagogical strategies into which the author has woven Diigo as a collaborative tool. The chapter concludes with a critical assessment of the ways in which Diigo resonates with ideas of networked learning by foregrounding collaboration and participation in educational settings.

Facebook as an Educational Environment for Mathematics Learning

In this chapter, the authors describe four successful experiments in using social networking sites (Facebook and Edmodo) in mathematics teaching and learning, where this use depended on populating the sites with historical mathematicians and/or mathematical phenomena. They describe two models of using social networking sites in mathematics education, as well as the phases of working mathematically with students when implementing each model. The authors emphasize the use of social talk as the first step to involve students with the learning of mathematics, as well as moving to cultural talk as a bridge between the social talk and the mathematical discourse. The experience in the four experiments indicates that social networking sites invite student collaboration, as well as encourage their learning actions and interactions. Teacher's or moderator's sensitivity is a very important factor for the success of the experiment, especially when young students are involved. Other factors which influenced the success of students' learning in social networking sites were the features of the social networking site, the properties of the inter-disciplinary phenomenon or the mathematics produced by the historical mathematicians, the background of the learners, and the activities of the moderator.

The Use of Facebook as a Pedagogical Platform for Developing Investigative Journalism Skills

This chapter evaluates the extent to which Facebook could be used as a training and learning tool for investigative journalism students. This study is based on the deployment of Facebook as a pedagogical tool for an “Investigative Journalism” unit at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. This chapter, accordingly, outlines the challenges, issues, and benefits of using Social Networking Services (SNS) as pedagogical tools for the training of future investigative journalists, which could in turn assist other instructors to make use of such online social platforms for media training. By conducting an observation of student usage of Facebook and interviewing students and tutors on their experiences from this activity, this chapter concludes that Facebook can serve as a useful online collaborative platform for investigative journalism students and as a progress monitoring tool for their instructors.

An Informal Use of Facebook to Encourage Student Collaboration and Motivation for Off Campus Activities

Facebook has become the students’ communication tool of choice. Instant messaging and online presence and the fact the “everyone you know” is on Facebook makes email look slow and clunky. Tutors may well be Facebook users themselves for those very same reasons, and as a way of keeping in touch with friends and family. Indeed, not to have a Facebook and Twitter account may be seen to be out of touch. At the same time, the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is embedded deeply into the higher education landscape. The VLE is an integral part of the student learning experience. The role of the VLE is well established and recognized as the place the students go to access learning materials associated with their unit of study. The VLE used at Southampton Solent University, UK, is MyCourse. A look at the patterns of usage of a selection of media students at SSU suggests that students access the VLE periodically, between classes, to review or preview learning materials and to review assignment briefs. However, by contrast, the students are connected to Facebook for long periods of the day. The VLE offers communication and collaboration tools, but does the “always connected, always checking in” nature of Facebook provide a more effective way of facilitating communication and collaboration? Similarly, the VLE offers the facility to share work via forums and message boards. However, do the instant update, commenting, and like features, combined with the fact that Facebook is a place the students choose to go, have an impact on student motivation if work is shared on a Facebook group?

Personal Learning Environments and Social Networks in the Traditional School System

An effort to integrate new technologies in learning and school life in general has been put forward by the ministry of education in Greece with an action known as “Digital School.” One of the components of “Digital School” is the digital platform that includes all schoolbooks converted to an electronic format (e-books), enhanced with additional interactive educational material. This research focuses on how the enhanced 10th grade mathematics books could comprise a constructive learning environment beyond the classroom, facilitating pupils studying on their own and at their own pace. The results of the research show that social networks, digital tools, and the resources that pupils use on a daily basis can pave the way in this direction on condition and that they are utilized for the configuration of a PLE (Personal Learning Environment) by each pupil, which ensures the required communication and feedback between the community of pupils and teachers.

Teachers’ Use of Social Networking Sites for Continuing Professional Development

On the basis of the results of a study conducted amongst secondary school teachers of English in Malta, this chapter explores the use of Social Networking Sites (SNS) for professional development purposes. In the digital era, SNS provide teachers with the opportunity of creating a Personal Learning Network (PLN), which is an increasingly significant way of acquiring new knowledge and enhancing pedagogical skills while also having the capacity of making teachers feel they belong to a Community of Practice (CoP). This chapter shows how despite their regular use of SNS for personal reasons, teachers do not always exploit these sites to achieve professional development. It is argued that training is a necessary means of not only enabling teachers to learn how to use such tools for such a purpose but also of redefining the way they think about the process of acquiring and sharing knowledge and skills in the 21st century.

New Visual Social Media for the Higher Education Classroom

This chapter examines how next-generation visual social platforms motivate students to capture authentic evidence of their learning and achievements, publish digital artifacts, and share content across visual social media. Educators are facing the immediate task of integrating social media into their current practice to meet the needs of the twenty-first century learner. Using a case study, this chapter highlights through empirical work how nascent visual social media platforms such as Pinterest are being utilized in the college classroom and concludes with projections on ways visual networking platforms will transform traditional models of education.

Facebook and the Societal Aspects of Formal Learning

An online subject used social media to provide “collaborative spaces” that were “additional and complementary” to discussion in the university’s Learning Management System (LMS). Facebook and Twitter provided optional “informal spaces” in which students “talk about general issues to do with media and connect with other students in the unit.” This chapter’s analysis of Facebook posts shows a cooperative group of peers providing advice on assessment and recommending useful resources. Analysis, however, reveals that, as well as supportive posts, a proportion of posts could be considered inappropriate, distracting, or even, infrequently, inflammatory. Guidelines about acceptable behaviour must be imposed by teaching staff. More importantly, optional participation in social media sites requires critical consideration. If Facebook is used as a student support space for an online subject, it should be integrated into the curriculum and have an explicit purpose; making social media sites optional alongside mandatory university-supported platforms can prove problematic.

Preparing Your Digital Legacy

With the increasing use of social networking tools and sites available, we must be mindful of the long-term consequences of posting information online. The combination of images, comments, and other personal data shape our online digital persona. Over time and throughout the lifetime of our many online profiles and digital identities, these representations and data become our digital legacy. When we pass away, it is this information that is left behind to represent who we are to other users, family, and friends. Additionally, all of the photos and other content remain online. In this chapter, the authors discuss the construction of one’s digital legacy and focus on the need for additional education about social networking usage for the future. Additionally, they present feedback from a study of college-aged students related to this topic and their views on social network usage.