For our first Emerging Technology & Pie event of the semester Steve Fox, lecturer in the Journalism Department, joined us to present on his use of Facebook and Twitter in undergraduate Journalism courses. We had a good number of new faces showed up, and a wide range of ages and departments were represented in the group that came to hear about Steve’s use of Facebook for instruction.
Facebook, most commonly used amongst students as a tool for social networking (read: sharing photos and sending quick messages to one another), also has viable instructional uses, as Steve demonstrated. By taking advantage of Facebook’s popularity and ease of use, Steve showed the group how he helped create a user group for connecting prospective and current Journalism students with alumni of the department. While not an uncommon use of social networking, it was clear how quickly and comfortably students took to asking and answering questions about the program by the volume of posts seen on the group page. Additionally, Steve uses the UMass Journalism group created within Facebook as a medium of posting and sharing links to interesting and useful news articles on the web. In addition to sharing links with students Steve uses Facebook to stay in contact with colleagues owrking in the field who share links with him to think they are writing or reading about.
In addition to creating a sense of community within the Journalism program, Steve has asked his students to use Facebook to establish connections outside of their immediate community. For a recent assignment, Steve had his students find primary resources (interviewees) beyond the Pioneer Valley to gather views and opinions about the upcoming Presidential election. By taking advantage of Facebook’s ability to create and expand one’s sense of community, Steve showed how students not only connect with him, but with each other, thereby increasing and strengthening their arsenal of learning resources.
There was a sense of excitement amongst the attendees while Steve demonstrated Facebook’s affordances for learning and community building. I certainly walked away with a renewed inspiration to explore how internet sites like Facebook and be retooled to suit more progressive educational uses.
Learn more:
7 Things You Should Know about Facebook: http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7017.pdf
Blog post at Edumorphology: Schools Should Embrace Facebook and Social Networking, Regardless of Impact on Instruction
For more about Steve Fox’s use of Twitter, check out our earlier post: Journalism Students use Twitter to Cover Debates