1. Teachers and Facebook: Using Online Groups in classroom
Fernando Rezende da Cunha Júnior
Bert van Oers
Claudia van Kruistum
ICO National Fall School Utrecht

2. Brasil?

3. A land of contrasts
São Paulo
Countryside

4. Schools Classrooms with smart boards
Classrooms with no windows, no toilets and no access to digital technology

5. Rationale
Developing countries – difficulties for implementing or improving the use of digital media at schools
Teachers and students are familiar with Social Networking Sites (SNS)
Lack of technical resources and speed tools change (ICQ, Orkut, MSN, Facebook, WhatsApp)
Groups on Facebook as an alternative for providing access to digital media.

6. Objectives
[1] to clarify teachers’ perceptions concerning the engagement of students
[2] how communication between teacher/students is influenced during the process of using such groups.
[3] how teachers improve their use of digital technology at schools through the use of online groups.

7. Theoretical Background
Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT)
Tool mediated activity
Implications of cultural and historical contexts for research
level of involvement of the actors, the type of rules, and the degrees of freedom
Critical Collaborative Research (CCR)
All stakeholders as subjects
Shared evaluation and reorganization of practices

8. Research Setting
Started in February 2013, with 43 teachers and 500 students
5 teachers with groups of students
385 students (secondary education)
Voluntary participation
No use of schools’ resources (computers)

9. Groups overview Curricular Subject Teacher’s age
Curricular Subject
Teacher’s age
Teacher’s experience (in years)
Location of the school
Classes per week
Number of students
Number of classrooms in the group
Grade
(United States as reference)
G1-Biology
Biology 26 5
Minas Gerais 2 22 1 10
G2-Sciences
Sciences 30 8
220 7
8-9
G3-History
History 33
G4-English
English as foreign language 9
São Paulo 77 3 12
G5-Portuguese
Portuguese 34 6
11-12

10. Data sources Posts from the groups of teacher/students
Online questionnaire
Chat logs with the teachers

11. Conclusions
teachers are aware of an improvement of their students, with more collaboration and interest for the topics studied
use of groups on Facebook improved communication between teacher/students
teachers use the groups for many different purposes

12. Thank you
fernandorcjr.wordpress.com