Education or Distraction: Facebook in the Classroom Patty Sullivan Dennis Beck

Facebook???? You’re kidding! Why? How?

Why Use Social Media?  Because everyone is doing it………..  More than 80 percent of college faculty are using social media, with more than half using these tools as part of their teaching, according to a recent survey, "Social Media in Higher Education.” May, 2010 –conducted by the Babson Survey Research Group in collaboration with New Marketing Labs and Pearson Education

More information from the survey  Nearly 1,000 faculty from across the nation participated in the survey. (me, too!)  Most faculty respondents (59%) have more than one social network account; nearly 25 percent have accounts on four or more social networks.  In order of frequency of use  Facebook YouTube Skype LinkedIn Twitter Pearson Survey

Really, everyone is doing it.  More than 30 percent use social networks to communicate with students and use social networks to communicate with peers.  Over half report using video, podcasts, blogs and wikis as part of their classes. Pearson survey

Surprised?  By a ratio of over four to one, faculty members report that social media has value for teaching. Pearson Survey

However…..  The survey indicates that social media are used mostly to convey information, not to communicate (passive use versus active use)  Only about 10% report active use such as tweets, posts, etc. Pearson survey

And more…..  Watching a video or listening to a podcast is the most common activity for both faculty personal use (72%) and for use within a class (46%).  Older faculty (those teaching more than 20 years) make substantial use of social networks; in fact, older faculty's use of social media is only slightly lower than that of their younger peers. Pearson Survey

So, if everyone is doing it, why should I? Ease of use Cost Flexibility

Caveat emptor  Something for nothing?  Privacy  Boundaries  Ease of cheating  And, remember, technology doesn’t equal learning.

Using Facebook in the Classroom We talked about who and why, Now on to how……

FaceBook: Best Practices

Best Apps - Links

Best Apps - Notes

Best Apps - Events

Best Apps - SlideShare

Best Apps - CiteMe

Best Apps - Bing

UARK Library

Social Media – The Future  Personal learning networks  Created by an individual learner  Specific to the learner’s needs  Extend relevant learning connections to like-interested people around the globe

Why PLN’s?  Overcomes isolation of online teachers/learners  Supports knowledge construction through distributed nodes/networks  Empowers learners to become self-led, independent knowledge seekers and creators  Allows customization of learning paths specific to individual interests or needs

5 ways to begin building your PLN 1. Join a professional social network  Classroom 2.0  EduBlogger World  Transforming Ed for the 21 st Century  Plurk  FriendFeed 2. Pick 5 blogs and read them  Identify – what’s out there?  Lurk – How do things work here?  Contribute – What can I offer?  Create – What can I construct?  Lead – How can I lead and mentor others?

6 ways to begin building your PLN 3. Set up iGoogle account 4. Subscribe to the blogs you selected - Google Reader 5. Become part of the conversation  Comment on the blogs you read

6 ways to begin building your PLN 6. Join Twitter  Start by selecting 5 microbloggers and follow them  Suggestions  WillRich45  Coolcatteacher  Stevehargadon  Acarvin  Penelopetrunk

Q & A