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Facebook Educator’s Guide

Educators have traditionally helped parents teach young people about appropriate behavior towards others. Now, with the explosion of social media, educators can be part of a larger conversation with young people about digital citizenship and online behavior. We will discuss more about what digital citizenship means in Section 4. As educators you can instruct them in safe, ethical, and responsible Internet use.

Today, Facebook plays a big role in the lives of millions of students. You may wonder, “Is this good or bad for educators?”

Like you, we’ve heard news reports that raise questions about the misuse of digital technologies, including social networking sites. Understandably, you may be wary about how social media is affecting your students, or you may be concerned about how new technology is changing your classroom. You may wonder if there’s a way to channel the enthusiasm students have for sites like for Facebook to achieve educational goals.

On this front, we have good news: Facebook can enhance learning inside the classroom and beyond. The way this can be done may not be obvious, and that’s why we’ve created this guide. In the pages that follow we explain seven ways to use Facebook effectively for teaching and learning.

We know it’s difficult to be an educator today. Our hope is to lighten the burden of new technology by offering clear explanations about Facebook in education. We believe that the information in this guide can help you turn the challenges of social media into opportunities that benefit you and your students.

7 Ways Educators Can Use Facebook
  • 1.Help develop and follow your school’s policy about Facebook.
  • 2.Encourage students to follow Facebook’s guidelines.
  • 3.Stay up to date about safety and privacy settings on Facebook.
  • 4.Promote good citizenship in the digital world.
  • 5.Use Facebook’s Pages and Groups features to communicate with students and parents.
  • 6.Embrace the digital, social, mobile, and “always-on” learning styles of 21st Century students.
  • 7.Use Facebook as a professional development resource

Introduction to Facebook for Educators

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The proliferation of digital, social and mobile technologies has created a culture in which youth participate more in creating and sharing content, profoundly changing the way students communicate, interact, and learn. In many cases students spend as much (or more) time online in an informal learning environment–interacting with peers and receiving feedback–than they do with their teachers in the traditional classroom.

Educators around the world are realizing the positive benefits of social networking in student learning and are working on ways to integrate it into their national curriculum. For example, in the 2010 U.S. National Technology Education Plan, Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology, the U.S. Department of Education calls for “applying the advanced technologies used in our daily personal and professional lives to our entire education system to improve student learning.”

Facebook in the Classroom

In our conversations with teachers, many have told us that they are looking for ways to better understand students’ emerging digital learning styles. Educators have also expressed that they are interested in learning how to integrate Facebook into their lesson plans to enrich students’ educational experiences, to increase the relevance of the content, and to encourage students to collaborate effectively with their peers.

Facebook can provide students with the opportunity to effectively present their ideas, lead online discussions, and collaborate. In addition, Facebook can help you, as an educator, to tap into the digital learning styles of your students. For example, it can facilitate student-to-student collaboration and provide innovative ways for you to involve students in your subject matter.

We also believe that Facebook can be a powerful tool to help you connect with your colleagues, share educational content, and enhance communication among teachers, parents and students. Nowadays youth use TikTok to show theirself’s, some of them buy cheap tiktok likes. There is a full A Step-by-Step Guide to Using TikTok

Get the Facts:Kids, Safety & Social Networking

Some educators who want to use Facebook and other aspects of social media face resistance from parents and school administrators. The concern is that students might encounter inappropriate content or sexual predators online. You can help colleagues make good decision about student access to social media by sharing research about the risks.

For example, research in the Journal of the American Psychologist found that many beliefs about sexual predators on the web are overblown. The study found that “the stereotype of the Internet ‘predator’ who uses trickery and violence to assault children is largely inaccurate.” Other experts confirm this view. This includes David Finkelhor, Director of the University of New Hampshire’s Crimes Against Children Research Center (https://www.unh.edu/ccrc/technologyinternet-victimization)

Once again, we realize that a “one-size-fits-all” solution rarely exists. We encourage parents and colleagues to take a fact-based, measured approach to social media in the classroom.

Facebook Professional Development

We know that as an educator, you work hard and have limited time for professional development. That’s why we’ve worked with people at Facebook to provide you with a concise, accurate overview of how you can use Facebook effectively for teaching and learning.

We’ve also created a separate “how to” document and printable handoutsat FacebookForEducators.org that provides quick-start tips and step-by-step guidance for getting the most educational benefit from Facebook tools.

Are you ready to dive into the seven things we suggest for using Facebook in education? Let’s go!

1. Help Develop and Follow Your School’s Policy about Facebook

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We believe it’s important that you be a part of developing your school’s Facebook policy.

At Stanford University in 2008, virtually every undergraduate student was active on Facebook. Despite that fact, there was no policy about Facebook on campus, and there was no ongoing conversation among staff and teachers about how to best use Facebook to enhance learning at Stanford.

That year, Stanford rose to the challenge and brought stakeholders together across campus–teachers, administrators and researchers–in a series of meetings to discuss how to use Facebook and other social media to achieve university goals. Today, this social media group continues to meet four times a year, updating approaches to the emerging realities of social media.

Creating a Social Media Policy

We think the Stanford team has created the right formula: Bring together a group of stakeholders at your school and meet regularly to stay updated. Your use of Facebook may be different from a university like Stanford, but the overall purpose is the same: To determine how Facebook and social media can help achieve the goals of your school, instead of detracting or distracting from those goals. You also could achieve more pupils if you buy cheap tiktok followers.

We encourage you to make sure that your policy is current. A policy written years ago may be outdated. Even a policy from last year could be outdated. The social media landscape is changing quickly, and your school policy needs to change with it.

If your school doesn’t yet have a Facebook policy, why not help create one? You will be doing a service to your school and your students.

We can’t give you a “one size fits all” Facebook policy, but we can recommend elements you should consider when developing (or updating) your own school policy. For more information, including examples of Facebook policies from a wide variety of schools, see FacebookForEducators.org.

2. Encourage Students to Follow Facebook’s Guidelines

In addition to developing and following your school’s policy on Facebook, it’s important to encourage students to follow Facebook’s guidelines. Below we highlight a few key issues.

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How Facebook Protects Minors

First of all, to be eligible to sign up for Facebook, people must be 13 years of age or older. As you might expect, since Facebook is a U.S.-based company, it complies with United States privacy laws, including the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) ( https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/topics/protecting-consumer-privacy-security/kids-privacy-coppa)

This lawrequires web sites to get parental permission before collecting personal information about children under the age of 13. If you live outside the United States, we encourage you to learn more about the laws that apply to children and their use of the Internet in your country.

To be clear, Facebook doesn’t collect information from young children; instead, it prohibits them from using the service. If you have students that are under the age of 13, they will not be able to create an account or access any groups or pages on Facebook.

Facebook, as a company, has always believed that fake names and hidden identities are a bad idea in social networks. We agree. Facebook’s policy states that people who register must use real names. We think that’s good. Facebook’s “real identity” culture means the site is more likely to be a trusted community of friends, family, coworkers, and classmates. Also TikTok views help you get more attention, especially if you purchase tiktok views.

Facebook Community Standards

Facebook has outlined standards for content in an online resource called “Facebook’s Community Standards” (facebook.com/communitystandards). We encourage you to review these standards and share them with your students as part of a larger discussion about appropriate online behavior.

The ever growing number of people who use Facebook are, in some ways, part of the world’s largest “neighborhood watch.” “Report Abuse” buttons are located on nearly every page of Facebook. If users report offensive or abusive content such as photos, someone on the Facebook safety team will investigate and remove it from the site, if needed. For information on how to report violations, see the Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (facebook.com/terms.php).

We encourage you and your students to report offensive content to help keep Facebook a safe and positive place for everyone. To learn more about Facebook’s rules and how to resolve problems, please visit the Facebook Safety Center ((www.facebook.com/safety)

3. Stay Up to Date with Safety and Privacy Settings on Facebook

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The next action we advocate is to stay current with safety and privacy settings on Facebook.

A priority at Facebook is giving everyone control over their privacy. This helps create an online environment where teachers, parents, and students can connect and share safely. We encourage you to review the Facebook privacy settings ( www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=privacy) to understand which settings are right for you and which are right your students. Below we explain some of the key issues.

In our view, Facebook does a good job of addressing online safety and privacy for students and educators. But the tools Facebook has created can’t help you if you don’t use them. That’s why in our own work, teaching and training about social media, we devote a lot of time to explaining safety issues and how to use Facebook’s privacy settings effectively.

Navigating Privacy Settings on Facebook

When you first set up a Facebook account, you will get default privacy settings. These settings are different for adults and for people that are under the age of 18. (As you might imagine, the privacy settings for those under 18 are stricter. We’ll explain more about this soon.)

Whether you are an adult or a minor, here are the steps for adjusting your privacy settings:

  • Navigate to “Account” in the upper right hand corner of any page on Facebook.
  • Click on the down arrow to reach the drop-down box where you’ll find “privacy settings” in blue letters.
  • By clicking on those words, you will then be taken to the Choose Your Privacy Settings page, where you have the ability to control what information you share and with whom.

Once inside your privacy settings, you can review or adjust your settingsfor four categories:

  • a. Connecting on Facebook
  • b. Sharing on Facebook
  • c. Apps & Websites
  • d. Block Lists

Below we explain each of the four categories briefly. For more details, including step-by-step guidance, see FacebookForEducators.org.

  • a.Connecting on Facebook

    The “Connecting on Facebook” section controls who can see the information you’ve filled out in your profile, and how people can find and connect with you on Facebook. From this page you can use the handy “Preview My Profile” tool, which shows you how your profile will appear to people who aren’t your Facebook friends, as well as to any specific friend whose name you enter.

  • b.Sharing on Facebook

    Under the “Sharing on Facebook” section there are nine general areas to help you set who has access to information about you and what you share. Here you have the choice to set your privacy to “Everyone,” “Friends of Friends,” “Friends Only,” “Recommended” (which is the default setting), or “Custom.”We recommend your students choose the “Friends Only” setting.

  • c.Apps and Websites

    This section controls what information is shared with the companies who create Facebook apps (e.g. games like Farmville). It also controls what other websites, including search engines like Google, can find out about you. You can view your apps, remove any you don’t want to use, or turn off platform completely.

  • d.Block Lists

    This section lets you block people from interacting with you or seeing your information on Facebook. You can also choose to ignore app invites from specific friends, as well as see a list of apps and people that you’ve blocked from accessing your information and contacting you.

Special Privacy Settings for Your Students and Other Minors

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Most people don’t realize that Facebook’s privacy settings work differently for people under the age of 18. Basic information about adults and people under 18 will appear when people navigate to their profile, including name, profile picture (if posted), gender and networks.

Adults and those under 18 appear when people on Facebook search for them, but young people under 18 do not have a public search listing. In other words, you can’t find people under the age of 18 who use Facebook by searching on Google, Bing or other search engines.

We think that’s a good thing.

Also, the “Everyone” setting works differently for those under 18 than it does for adults. When people that are under 18 years of age set information like photos or status updates to be visible to “Everyone,” that information is only visible to their friends, friends of friends, and people in any verified school or work networks they have joined, not “Everyone” who has access to Facebook.

There’s one other restricted area related to the privacy of people under 18 years of age: Facebook Messages. If theychoose the “Everyone” setting for “Send me messages,” only messages from their friends and friends of friends are delivered to them, not from “Everyone” on Facebook as it is for adults.

There’s an exception to the “Everyone” setting for those under 18, and it’s an important one for parents and educators to understand. Your students can be found on a public search on Facebook if they change their default setting and select “Everyone” in these two areas: “Search for me on Facebook” and “Send me friend requests.” (Sound complicated? It’s really not so bad. Learn more at FacebookForEducators.org)

If young people misrepresent their age when they register on Facebook and enter a birth year that identifies them as an adult based on the information that they provided rather than someone that is actually under the age of 18, these additional privacy settings will not kick in. So it’s important that students register with the correct birth year.

We hope this helps you see why knowing about privacy settings is extremely important. For a video tutorial that will walk you through Privacy Settings step by step, go to FacebookForEducators. There is also more tutorials on youtube, also you can always buy youtube subscribers

4. Promote Good Citizenship in the Digital World

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As technology becomes more and more infused into our lives, students need guidance from adults on how be respectful and courteous to each other online as well as off line.

The educators we have spoken to have told us that developing a culture of compassion within the physical walls of their school during the school day sets the expectation for a culture of compassion to be exhibited by students in their online associations outside of school.

As an educator, you not only need to teach and model this behavior, but students need to know that you expect this behavior. Educators that are willing to build a sense of online community and instill responsibility for good digital citizenship in their students find that they are empowering their students with valuable skills that benefit them beyond the physical or virtual classroom.

Teaching Students to be Good Citizens in the Digital World

Learning how to become a responsible digital citizen isn’t just a school related issue. In our increasingly ‘flat world’ developing digital literacies, such as learning what it means to be a good digital citizen, will be a key to success in the 21st Century workplace. Offcourse if you want success in social media you can always buy youtube views cheap. It’s important that students begin to develop and refine their online communication skills as soon as possible.

There are many ways to define “digital citizenship”, but we feel that it comes down to three main components:

  • 1.Conducting yourself in a civil manner in the online world just like you would be expected to behave in offline world. Universal rules of social conduct apply in both environments.
  • 2.Behaving responsibly and compassionately with your online actions.
  • 3.Watching out for each other in your online community much like you would in your ‘real world’ neighborhood. By doing so, you are promoting a healthy and safe online community

In our discussions with educators, we have found that teachers who have been successful in developing a culture of good digital citizenship have done so by creating classroom scenarios where they can have ongoing discussions regarding what is and isn’t appropriate online behavior with their students.

Facebook Social Reporting Tools

Perhaps one of the most important ways that students can be good digital citizens is by reporting bullying, abusive or inappropriate comments. If the abuse is happening in a school-related Facebook Group or on a Facebook Page, students should be encouraged to immediately inform their parents, teacher or principal.

That said, it’s also important to remember that in order for Facebook to assist you on digital citizenship issues, you have to report abuse to them as soon as it happens. You can learn more about social reporting tools in the Facebook Safety Center
(http://www.facebook.com/safety).

How Educators Can Combat Cyberbullying

Good digital citizenship means thinking about the effects on others before posting content or sending messages. It also means standing up for anyone they may see being targeted by bullies–online or off. This may be difficult for students. But with teaching and encouragement, we believe young people can rise to the challenge.

Recent media attention to cyberbullying (which includes harassment via texts, email, and social media) sometimes implies that bullying is new. As you know, it’s not. Bullying has long been a problem.

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In today’s world, online bullying is often a reflection of what’s going on offline. Because online bullying can happen faster and travel farther, it requires quick acts of good online citizenship from educators and from students themselves to prevent–or at least reduce–the problem.

In March 2010, Facebook employees and others joined President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House to discuss how educators, parents, and community members can work together to prevent bullying. You can watch a message from President Obama about preventing bullying at Facebook.com/StopBullying.gov or Facebook.com/fbSafety.

The video from President Obama is something you can share and discuss with your students. Whether you use this video or not, we feel that it’s important that educators and parents help young people be good citizens and take a stand against bullying.

Teaching Digital Responsibility

As educators and parents, you can make clear to students that what they post online is traceable; it is not as anonymous as they might think. In the event that legal action is taken, online services and Internet Service Providers can be required to provide identity information to the proper authorities. These online traces can be used as evidence against students if they are involved in cyberbullying.

We want to emphasize the need for educators to talk with their students about appropriate online behavior, and to take rapid action to head off instances of bullying online, just as they would if they saw inappropriate behavior in the cafeteria or school hallways. If it takes place on Facebook, you can report it. If physical threats are made, you should immediately notify appropriate law enforcement agencies.

Responsible digital citizenship is no different than the responsibility that we have offline to be good citizens and protect the welfare of our students when emotional or physical harm is being inflicted.

Facebook Pages Bullying Resources
Facebook Safety http://www.facebook.com/fbsafety
StopBullying.Gov http://www.facebook.com/StopBullying.Gov
No Name Calling Week http://www.facebook.com/nonamecallingweek
Beat Bullying (UK) http://www.facebook.com/Beatbullying
GLSEN http://www.facebook.com/GLSEN
BullyBust http://www.facebook.com/upstander
BullyingUK http://www.facebook.com/BullyingUK
Cyberbullying Research Center http://www.facebook.com/cyberbullyingresearch
Bullying Canada http://www.facebook.com/BullyingCanada.ca
The Trevor Project http://www.facebook.com/TheTrevorProject

5. Use Pages and Groups Features to Communicate with Students

We recognize that as an educator, you are concerned about appropriate and inappropriate methods of communication between you and your students. In this section we outline how you can use Pages and Groups to communicate with students in a manner that we feel is appropriate and professional.

For people new to Facebook, it may seem a little confusing. Here we want to make it easier to understand. You’ll get more clarity if you understand these four Facebook features:

  • “Home” – This has your own News Feed, which includes updates from friends.
  • “Profile” – This shows a person’s photo and their information.
  • “Groups” – This is a good tool for projects. Groups can be closed, open or private.
  • “Pages” – This is used by brands and celebrities. You can create one for your class.

We’ll explain these in order. The purpose isn’t to explain all of Facebook but to show how you can use Groups and Pages to connect with students without needing to “friend” them on Facebook..

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Home on Facebook(this shows your News Feed)
Learn more at facebook.com/help/?topic=newsfeed

When you log into Facebook, you will first see your “Home” page. This has your News Feed, which are mostly updates from friends.

Your “Home” page on Facebook is unique to you. Each person sees adifferent News Feed on his or her Home page. The News Feed is a running stream of updates, photos, links and check-ins from your friends. It also shows updates from Pages you “like” or Groups you belong to. For example, if you “like” the CNN Page (we’ll talk about Pages in a moment), then updates from CNN will go into your News Feed on your Home page.

People on Facebook spend much of their time browsing their own Home page because that’s where all the new information about their friends comes together. People often buy facebook video views to get more attention. It’s like a launch pad to everything else.

Profile on Facebook(this has a person’s photo and information)
Learn more at www.facebook.com/help/?topic=profile

Your Profile is different from your Home page. When you first create an account on Facebook, you’ll be prompted to create a Profile for yourself, with information like your hometown, your education and work background, what sports you like and your favorite music, as well as movies and television shows.(Note that providing this information is optional and the availability of the information to other people on Facebook is dependent on your privacy settings)

Your Profile is what people see on Facebook when they’re searching for you, or when a Facebook friend types your name or clicks on a link to your Profile. When you post something on Facebook, it gets added to your Profile, so people can see what’s on your mind, what you’re doing, and how you’re interacting with other friends on Facebook.

Remember that you can control most aspects of what you share about yourself via the privacy controls (http://www.facebook.com/settings/?tab=privacy).

When you become friends with people on Facebook, they typically gain access to your Profile. And you can see their Profile as well.

Various educators use professional services for promoting their pages or profiles, they tend to buy facebook likes.

Most educators don’t want students to browse their Profile. Why? Because your Profile can have a lot of personal information about you, including photos posted by other people (like your little sister in Miami). By the same token, most educators don’t seek to browse Profiles of their students. We advocate this approach. It’s a good way to respect student privacy—and to have students respect your privacy.

Here’s a key point: You don’t need to “friend” students (or say “yes” to friend requests from them) to interact on Facebook. Instead, we encourage teachers to set up Facebook Groups and Pages for these interactions, which we explain next.

Groups on Facebook

Learn more at www.facebook.com/help/?topic=groups

Facebook Groups are an online space where people can interact and share with others. This is a great way for students to work on collaborative projects with each other and with you. Again, you don’t need to be Facebook friends with someone to interact with them in a Group.

In an educational setting, we suggest you create Groups that are “closed,” not “open.” This means that while the list of group members is public, the content of the Group is private, available only to members of the Group. This helps protect the privacy of your students. More and more educators tend to use treding platforms like Snapchat or TikTok, you can always know the difference in this guide: Snapchat vs. TikTok: What’s The Difference?

When a Group member posts something in the Group, such as a link to an article, other members will receive a Facebook message or text message from Facebook with that update. For example, you, as the teacher, could post a study question to a class project Group. All students who are members would get notified.

Think of this as an opportunity for you to extend learning outside the walls of the traditional classroom. When you use a Facebook Group to complement what you teach in the classroom, you are providing students with on-demand learning opportunities.

If you’re like most teachers, your students are already using a Facebook app on their mobile phones while at home or when riding the bus. Your teaching can reach them at these moments. That opens new doors for teaching and learning.

Pages on Facebook

www.facebook.com/help/?topic=pages

In an educational setting we believe that interaction between students and teachers should be open, transparent and secure. Pages on Facebook are good for this.

Pages allow you to interact with a specified set of other Facebook members. For a teacher, this could include your students and their parents. A Facebook Page is public facing; anyone can “like” the Page and get updates in their News Feed from the Page administrator (in this case, from you, the teacher).

Pages create an easy way for both teachers and students to share relevant links, like newspaper articles, online videos, or RSS feeds from your class blog or school website. Facebook Pages also have collaborative features, including Notes (these are like blog entries) and comments. Educators might be interested in buying instagram reels views using paypal. These features of Pages allow you to extend teaching beyond the classroom. For example, you can continue a discussion that started in the classroom.

On one hand, you can create a Page for your class. On the other hand, you can have students “like” a Page that others have created. “Liking” a Page subscribes you to its new content. For example, if everyone “likes” a Page created by NASA, you will all get updates from the NASA Page delivered to your News Feed (remember: this is on your Home page).

For example, there are Pages on Facebook created by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists, politicians, museums, and the National Geographic Society and thousands more that students can “like” in order to have relevant content delivered to their news feed.

In your teaching, you can also include Facebook Pages in your list of recommended websites that you provide students. The chart below includes examples of Pages relevant to learning.

Facebook Pages for Educators
National Geographic Education http://www.facebook.com/natgeoeducation
British Museum http://www.facebook.com/britishmuseum
Girl Up (UN Foundation) http://www.facebook.com/girlup
NASA http://www.facebook.com/natgeoeducation
Smithsonian Institution https://www.facebook.com/groups/279220513738117/
Youth Olympic Games https://www.facebook.com/olympics/
Library of Congress http://www.facebook.com/libraryofcongress
Musee du Louvre http://www.facebook.com/museedulouvre
PBS Kids http://www.facebook.com/PBSKIDS
Kabul Museum http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kabul-Museum/317714056516
Discovery Channel Global Education https://www.facebook.com/DiscoveryUK
Scholastic Teachers http://www.facebook.com/ScholasticTeachers
Facebook in Education http://www.facebook.com/education
Encyclopaedia Britannica http://www.facebook.com/BRITANNICA
Facebook for Educators https://www.facebook.com/MetaforEducation

As you can see, Pages can open new opportunities for teaching and learning. Like Groups, the content from Pages can reach your students when they are outside the classroom. Most young people are already accessing Facebook using their mobile phones when not at school. Now the learning opportunity can reach them where they live and play online. This is the focus of the next section.

6. Embrace the Digital, Social, Mobile and “Always-On” Learning Styles of 21st Century Students

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Facebook can help educators embrace the digital, social, mobile, and “always-on” learning styles of today’s students. Mobile technology has changed the landscape.

According to a Pew Internet study, 75% of American teens have a mobile phone (https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2012/03/19/cell-phone-ownership/). This shift in how teens connect to the Internet provides teachers with an opportunity: To bring instant access (even to those students whose only Internet access is via a mobile device) to learning through teacher-moderated Facebook Pages, Groups and Chat, and keep students in “learning mode” outside the classroom.

Teaching Digital Natives

Raised in the “always-on” world of interactive media, the Internet, and social media technologies, students today have different expectations and learning styles than previous generations. The ubiquitous use of social and mobile technologies gives teens an unprecedented opportunity to use tools like Facebook to create self-organizing learning communities or Personal Learning Networks (PLN).

When the curriculum allows for self-directed online learning, students can learn more than what is taught in class because they are able to create meaning for themselves beyond the intent of the teacher.

Understanding and incorporating these digital learning opportunities into your coursework will increase student motivation and enhance learning, while better meeting the needs of today’s students and their digital learning styles. Below we give an overview of these new learning attributes and highlight how Facebook can bring these elements to the learning environment.

Digital Learning Experience Attributes
  • Interactive: Students who create their own content and interact via social media can express their identity and creativity.
  • Student-Centered: Shifts the learning responsibility to the student, requiring students to take a more active role in their own learning process and emphasizes teachers as providers of help as needed to overcome difficulties.
  • Authentic: Teachers should find ways to reconcile classroom use of social media to the authentic way teens are using them outside of the classroom. The use of social media and technology should be tied to a specific learning goal or activity.
  • Collaborative: Learning is a social activity, and many students learn best through working with a group of peers. This collaboration and peer feedback can take place in either a virtual or in-person environment.
  • On-Demand: Course content should be made available “on-demand” so the learner can view course materials when, where, and how they want to view the content, whether on a desktop computer, mobile phone or handheld device.

When carefully integrated, these web-based learning communities on Facebook can support a new level of social exchange and interaction that will, in turn, promote and foster student motivation.
Social technologies like Facebook can help students compare their understanding of the current course topic with their peers. Moreover, as students share their thought processes with their peers online, they are able to help each other work through difficulties, while also building a collaborative peer support system.

Facebook Mobile as a Learning Tool

The use of Facebook as a mobile learning environment should be designed to encompass the best aspects of the traditional classroom along with the benefits of real time and mobile technology.

Facebook automatically converts the web-based content you share on your Facebook Pages and Groups into a mobile format. That means without any additional work from you, students can access your content on-the-go through tablet computers or mobile phones.

Moreover, a mobile learning platform provides members of the class with on-demand opportunities for further participation and reflection. This approach also gives students the freedom to use technology in a way that best fits with their individual learning styles.

When thinking about using Facebook for mobile learning (mLearning) opportunities, it’s also vital that educators have a better understanding of how minority and urban youth connect and interact on the web so that they can create more inclusive digital experiences, also they use Instagram as expression platform and some of them even tend to buy Instagram likes with PayPal

In his keynote at the Digital Media Learning 2010 Conference, University of Texas, Austin professor S. Craig Watkins presented a number of emergent patterns on African-American and Latino youth and their use of mobile phones. His key finding was that for many urban and minority youth,a mobile device is their primary access point to the Internet.

This isn’t just the case in the United States. According to OnDevice, a mobile research company, in many developing nations the majority of mobile Web users are mobile-only, highest include Egypt at 70 percent and India at 59 percent.

In many developing nations, the mobile-only tend to be under 25. This is an important consideration to keep in mind when asking students to access web-based learning experiences.

7. Use Facebook as a Professional Development Resource

If you’re like most educators, your busy schedule makes it challenging to find time to connect with your colleagues. Facebook can make the challenge easier. In this section we highlight some ways you can use Facebook as a resource for professional development.

First and foremost, you can use the Facebook in Education Page(facebook.com/education) as a place to learn about and share best practices, teaching strategies, or tips on how to use Facebook and other social technologies in the classroom. This Page has become a professional development hub where thousands of educators share ideas, inspiration, and solutions.

Another way to use Facebook in professional development is to “like” the Facebook Pages that relate to your subject matter. This includes your professional association and conferences you attend. When you “like” Facebook Pages that are relevant to you, it will save you time by delivering resources of interest to you directly to your Facebook News Feed.

You can also create a Group on Facebook for the teachers in your school, district or subject matter association.Doing so provides on-demand opportunities for professional development, knowledge exchange and the ability to easily share content or even your Microsoft Office files with the Docs.com Facebook App.

Share Your Story: Facebook in Education

Each week educators are creating new ways to use Facebook to enhance teaching and learning. You’ll find a collection of examples from around the world at the Facebook Stories Page (stories.facebook.com/).

You can add your own experience to that collection. You can also email your experience to us at stories@FacebookForEducators.org. Your experience will then be added to an Educators Community Blog on FacebookForEducators.org for other educators to reference.

Professional Development Resources on Facebook
Teachers.TV https://www.facebook.com/Teachers-TV-219280396170206
National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) https://www.facebook.com/NSTA.FB
National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) http://www.facebook.com/ncte.org
National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) http://www.facebook.com/TeachersofMathematics
National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) http://www.facebook.com/socialstudies.org
U.S. Department of Education (DOE) http://www.facebook.com/SecretaryArneDuncan
International Reading Association (IRA) https://www.facebook.com/InternationalLiteracyAssociation/
National Parent Teachers Association (PTA) http://www.facebook.com/ParentTeacherAssociation
National School Board Association (NSBA) https://www.facebook.com/SchoolBoards/
National Art Educator Association (NAEA) http://www.facebook.com/arteducators
American Library Association (ALA) http://www.ala.org/
United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organizations https://www.facebook.com/unesco
International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) https://www.facebook.com/ISTEconnects/
Department for Education (UK) http://www.facebook.com/educationgovuk
More Resources for Facebook in Education

In addition to our Facebook for Educators Guide, we have created a series of step-by-step free handouts) to help you learn how to get the most out of facebook pages and Facebook Groups, along with ‘Pro Tips’ to teach you how to use the many features on Facebook in your classroom.

We also invite you to join the conversation and share your best practices for using social media in the classroom with educators from around the world on our About the Authors

Linda Fogg Phillips

linda

Derek E. Baird, M.A.

derek

Derek E. Baird is best known for his work in educational media, online community & understanding how kids, parents and teachers use the social web. He advises technology, education and media companies how to connect with youth on the web.

He has conducted professional development workshops and designed social media and anti-bullying curriculum for teachers and corporate education programs in the United States, Philippines and Southeast Asia.

Derek has authored numerous www.debaird.net and http://www.debaird.net/about.html

Reach Derek at debaird@gmail.com

BJ Fogg, Ph.D.

fogg

Dr. BJ Fogg directs the Persuasive Tech Lab at Stanford University. A psychologist and innovator, he was the first to teach university courses about Facebook, including a course on Facebook Apps and one on the Psychology of Facebook.

Fogg has created a new model of human behavior that is changing how industry teams design products for everyday people. He has authored and edited books about how technology changes people’s behavior. Fortune Magazine selected Fogg as a “New Guru You Should Know.”

For more, see captology.stanford.edu and www.bjfogg.com.

Reach Dr. Fogg at bjfogg@stanford.edu

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