Facebook for Educators

When you become friends with people on Facebook, this allows you to have access to their Profile Page and in turn, they have access to yours as well. As an educator, you may not be comfortable with your students to having access to your Profile Page.

Why? Because your Profile Page 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.

Here’s what you need to know: You don’t need to “friend” students or accept friend requests from them to interact with them on Facebook.

Instead, we encourage you as an educator to set a Facebook Page and/or a Facebook Group for these interactions, which we will explain below. You may find that you have the need for multiple Pages and/or Groups.

This approach is a good way to respect student privacy—and to have students respect your privacy.

Facebook For Educators: Using Facebook Pages

There are many ways that you can incorporate Facebook Pages to support and compliment what you teach in the traditional classroom.

Here are a few suggestions how you can use Facebook Pages:

• Post instructions, classroom standards and guidelines
• Post assignments, due dates and updated information
• Use Facebook Events to remind students about due dates, upcoming tests
• Use Facebook Questions to initiate and foster student discussions
• Use Discussions to continue a conversation begun in the classroom
• Encourage the community the help each other solve problems
• Poll a class for feedback and opinions
• Allow students to host their own discussion on a topic of interest
• Use the Notes feature to publish additional information, rubrics or links to supplemental materials that students can use to complete their homework

Features on Facebook Pages

Facebook Pages provide educators with an easy way for teachers and students to share relevant links; like newspaper articles, online videos, or even RSS feeds from your class blog or school website.These features of Pages allow you to extend teaching beyond the classroom.

When you create a Facebook Page, you can customize it by choosing which features you want to implement. Here we discuss some of the most useful Facebook Pages features and outline how you can use them to engage your students in an active online educational experience.

Facebook Pages Status Updates

Research shows that teens are moving away from the use of email. Instead they are using social networking sites like, Facebook to communicate. When you create a Status Update on your Facebook Page it will show up on your students’ Facebook News Feed. This is a convenient way to remind them of upcoming assignments, tests or other important news.

You can also post a status update to encourage your students. An example of this is writing something like, “I know the reading assignment in Romeo and Juliet was a long one, but I think you will enjoy this section of the play. We will have a great discussion in class if all of you complete the reading!”

Facebook Events

Facebook Events are an easy and convenient way to keep students and parents informed of school events, fundraisers, upcoming tests, project due dates and other important deadlines. Facebook Event notifications that are sent to members of your group are private and secure.

Just like Facebook Status updates, your Facebook Events will also feed onto your students’ News Feed. Since the average student checks Facebook multiple times a day, this is an effective way to communicate with them.

Facebook Messaging

This is a feature that can save you time and help you organize communication with students and parents. Facebook Messaging is designed to be the central hub for all email (Gmail, Yahoo! Mail), Facebook private messages, texts and chats. It is a “one stop shop” of sorts for your online communication.

This can be beneficial both in and out of your school communication system. Note: Check with your school policy to ensure that you are communicating appropriately with your students through approved methods.

Facebook Video

Video making is a fun way to engage the digital learning styles of your students. Facebook provides an easy and secure platform to showcase student films and videos and then share them with teachers, parents and other students.

A good example of a student video is Isaac Haney-Owen’s documentary short, My Life with Aspergers, that he shared on Facebook to raise awareness of an issue that is important to him.

You can also share videos from school events, field trips, guest speakers and other community events on Facebook. However, before you post any videos, be sure you check with your school regarding their policy about sharing images of students.

Facebook Discussions

The discussions tab in Facebook Pages provides students with an opportunity to start or continue classroom conversations and debates outside the classroom. Students or teachers can start new conversation threads related to topics covered in a course.

Teachers can also use these Facebook Pages discussions as an assessment tool to determine what students are learning and what concepts or ideas may need to be reviewed in class.

Students can use their mobile phone to access Facebook Pages. This makes it easy for them to jump in on a discussion thread, contribute their viewpoint or share resources related to the topic.

Docs.com

Facebook has partnered with Microsoft Office to provide educators with web-based versions of Word, PowerPoint and Excel that can easily be used to create and share projects, reports or other information with students, colleagues and parents.

When you create new files or upload existing Office files into the Docs.com Facebook App (http://docs.com/) your document will have an unique URL that, depending on your privacy settings, allows you to easily share the document with anyone you want.

You can quickly share Docs.com files in Facebook Groups and Facebook Pages. Since you don’t have to recreate your learning materials from Office in another format, this is a great time saving trick!

Docs.com can be used as a web-based document repository where you store your files for quick access and safekeeping. The Docs.com Facebook App can provide students with several templates for reports, essays and even a resume.

• Docs Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/Docs
• Docs Guide: http://docs.com/42Q
• Free Teacher Resources on Docs: http://bit.ly/f8cYHX

A Note About Facebook Apps

There are many Facebook Apps available that you may be able to use in your classroom or recommend to students, however, you should be aware that by using these applications some of your information will be accessible to the third-party application developer.

Facebook has developed an interface they call Granular Data Permissions (or GDP) that allows you to see exactly which pieces of information an app is asking to access before you approve the app.

You can delete apps from your account by going to your Privacy Settings to edit the Apps, Games and Websites section.

We also encourage you to watch this short video from Facebook that explains how the new dashboard in your Facebook privacy settings that gives you visibility into how applications use your data to personalize your experience.

Safety, Privacy & Facebook Pages

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.

To learn more about privacy and safety on Facebook, take a look at the resources available in the Facebook Safety Center (http://www.facebook.com/safety)

Share Your Facebook Pages Story

We want to hear how you and your students are using Facebook Pages!

Do you have a student video you want to share? Is there a teacher or school Facebook Page that you think we should know about? Have your students used a Facebook Page in a creative or interesting way?

You can share your Facebook for Educators story with other educators by emailing them to share@facebookforeducators.org and then watch for it to be shared in the resources section on this website.