Safe and Effective use of Facebook in Supporting 16-19 students

“Facebook is a global social networking site used by 10% of the population on the planet. Its phenomenal popularity has

been defined by the opportunities it gives its users to communicate, collaborate and share in a way that has never

been possible before.”South West Grid for Learning, 2010

Purpose of Briefing Paper

•to explore the benefits and address the concerns of using Facebook with students aged 16-19,•to look at how Facebook pages and groups can be used within teaching and learning,•to provide information regarding the befriending of students •to examine students’ attitudes towards using Facebook.

According to Ashton Sixth Form College (2010), there are many benefits to using Facebook with students:

•It is their preferred method of communication•It is accessible from any Internet enabled computer•It is accessible from students’ own mobile devices•It is easy to use•students are familiar with the format; therefore there are no training needs

Other Benefits

•Practicing safe / responsible use of IT•Sharing original work such as creative writing and film•Honing of social skills•Developing collaboration skills•Honing 21st century skills•Developing a positive attitude towards using technology

Drawbacks?•Staff / student personal information could be compromised•Staff/students becoming subjected to inappropriate behaviour from either party•Students feeling ‘their technology’ being improperly used by teachers•Facebook in teaching and learning could become time-consuming

“When you share your data with someone else, whether it be an email or a photo, it becomes their data as well. You cannot normally rescind data you

share with other people in an email. So why should a social network be any

different?”Mark Zuckerberg, 2009

Page vs Group

Page-based content cannot be amended, deleted or added to by anyone other than the administrator or administrators of the page. They make great ‘virtual notice boards’ or ‘information posts’ where teachers can, for example, post homework tasks, assignments, links to noteworthy websites, relevant images or film clips or share presentations and notes with students.

Page vs Group

Groups make it easy for members of a community to connect, share or collaborate and provides a shared space where members can participate in communal activities. Groups are closed by default but their settings can be changed so as to be public. The content of closed groups is private but the membership list is public. Group settings can also be changed to make the group secret, so the member list, the contents and the existence of the group are secret to anyone other than the people in the group. One feature that can be utilised within groups but not pages is the ability for members to participate in back-and-forth Instant Message (IM) conversations with everyone in the group at the same time.

To Friend or not to Friend?

Although Facebook generally frowns on users creating two accounts, it has actively encouraged teachers who have wanted to do it. The Official Facebook in Education group suggest on their Safety for Educators page that teachers create a group or page specifically for interacting with students, parents or colleagues and that the user creates friends lists to control what parts of their profile students are able to access. Friends lists create different privacy levels for different groups of friends.

“When you are on a long plane journey, you turn off your phone - and, to an extent, switch off your life - for 8 hours. As soon as

those hours are over and you have left the plane, you can switch your life back on again. For many children, school is the place

where they turn their life off for eight hours every day.” (Date and source unknown)

Case Studies“The primary use of our Facebook fan page was to communicate with

Cornwall College students about sports fixtures and events. The secondary benefit is the updates appearing on the “News Feed Wall” of

our fans, which friends of fans will see and then acts as a marketing tool.” Kym O’Mara, Cornwall College

“The Facebook page is a great thing to have. We can look at pictures from events and fixtures, check sports results, and as we spend a fair bit of time on Facebook anyway, page updates instantly appear on our Facebook pages and via RSS feeds. It’s

really easy to use and a good way to talk to other course members and our tutors.” Joshua Manfredi & Sam Bennetts, students at

Cornwall College

“This is a subject that is rapidly changing: new species are constantly being discovered, and we need to be ‘on top of this’. The BBC films we

upload to the page help keep students up to date with the subject. Content and information from these films has been referred to explicitly

in students’ essays and exam papers.” Hazel Selley, Cornwall College

“Use the skills they already have - don’t fight against them!”

“Stop banning ‘stuff’ - we need to go to where the learners are!” Simon Elliot and Tony

Bird, Mounts Bay School

"It is actually about giving pupils the opportunity to create their own

curriculum. We produced a framework to keep them safe and we created acceptable use policies.” Dan Roberts,

Saltash.net Community School

"It is actually about giving pupils the opportunity to create their own curriculum."

Outcomes and Attitudes

“The College decided to conduct usability research into student online trends focusing on the technology they liked to access and use. The study determined that around 99% of their students used Facebook, with some 70% using internet-enabled mobile devices. The research results prompted the music team to try and facilitate the development of an online presence through Facebook and YouTube, which culminated in the music department requesting a trial period at the College to evaluate whether it would be embraced by students. This has had a direct and positive impact on e-learning and has been so popular with the students that the College has seen a 100% success rate for assignments completed. This is the first time the College has seen such a high success rate for its music courses. All courses have now moved to a grade 1 and 2 for Ofsted inspection results and their use of Web 2.0 applications (e.g. Google Docs, Facebook and YouTube) has enabled a real collaborative community, which is constantly thriving and seeing real success.”

http://www.excellencegateway.org.uk/page.aspx?o=299885