Facebook and Distance Education

In my previous posts, I did not address the issue of Facebook use in distance education directly. It has become evident in my review of the limited literature currently available, that Facebook is not yet the technology of choice in (higher) education.

In considering the place of Facebook in distance education, a few questions come to mind:

1. Does Facebook fill a gap in terms of new features currently lacking in the delivery of content and communication with learners in distance education?

2. As a social playground for college students, would the use of Facebook enhance or diminish the image of a distance education program?

3. What would Facebook offer over and above the current technologies already in place for distance education?

4. Would the 'language of Facebook' naturally spill over into academic rhetoric?

When institutions of higher education are promoting "one-stop services" for their distance education programs, they do not appear (at the moment) overly eager to bring a tool like Facebook in the neatly bundled services currently available through their course management systems (CMSs) such as Angel or Blackboard. Higher education is not yet ready to surrender the shackles of CMSs where students' minds are (theoretically) more attuned and receptive to learning. However, other social networking tools (e.g. blogs, wikis, and podcasts) appear to be more readily adopted in distance education than Facebook. Note that integration rather than replacement of CMSs is the only role that these tools are currently suited for.

Facebook clearly provides a social outlet for college students, a fact backed by the large membership among this peer group. Socializing, however its unintended outcomes, is part and parcel of education of the whole person. Facebook has its place in that sense, but there seems to be a lack of any compelling reason to significantly integrate it into distance education. Students could use it as a secondary information exchange outlet in a cooperative learning mode with classmates that they have invited in their space, to complete group projects, for example. The services offered through Facebook (e.g. chatting, meeting new classmates, arranging for social/academic meetings) can well be attained using the current technologies in CMSs without the risk of security breaches and other legal matters pervasive in social networking websites.

It is possible that current perceptions about Facebook use in distance education could change overnight based on new developments in Facebook, technology integration, and a shift in thinking among distance education administrators about the role of this technology in promoting learning (e.g. time on task) within the envronment that some students spend a significant amount of time.

Social Networking - Facebook PPT

A narrated PowerPoint presentation and brief overview of Facebook is posted here. To hear the audio only without the slide presentation, click on the image to the left. Please note that the commentary is made in the context of higher education.

Social Networking - Facebook Podcast

I interviewed a college student about her experiences with Facebook, a social networking tool that is widely used by her peers. This is a brief snapshot of a personal account from the trenches. As an outsider into the world of social networking, I have learned a bit more about this growing phenomenon among the young and old alike in my readings while completing this project. A culminating product of this effort is this podcast.

Social Networking Tools - Facebook

The term 'social software' is fairly new and is used to describe an emerging genre of tools in many different contexts. The concept embraces a substantial number of technologies which are often integrated. In the context of distance education, Anderson (2005), defined 'educational social software' as :

"... networked tools that support and encourage individuals to learn together while retaining individual control over their time, space, presence, activity, identity and relationship."

Dalsgaard (2006), described social networks as:

"...connections or relations between people engaged in different kinds of communication. Communication can be one-way as well as two-way and synchronous as well as asynchronous."

Social networking technologies were not designed specifically to support academic activities, but some, such as wikis, blogs, and social bookmarking services are easily adaptable for that purpose. Others however, require effort to repurpose their functions for formal learning environments.

Facebook was launched in 2004 as a Harvard University-only site, but slowly expanded its service to include college students with active .edu email accounts. In 2005, it opened its doors to high school students, but they had to be inivited to join. Today, Facebook is open to anyone and its membership is growing at the expense of its closest rival, MySpace.

In the beginning, Facebook members regarded it more like a country club where college students could privately socialize. Today, there is a lot of discussion about online safety, but at the time, some students largely ignored safety measures and freely shared very personal information on the Web. As we now know, such a laissez-faire attitude only escalates certain vulnerabilities including stalking, and facilitates unethical behavior from ill-intentioned users of social networking websites. Now that Facebook is open to everyone, and attention about security is widely covered on campus as well as in the media, perhaps students are more cautious about the type of content they share, and the caliber of individuals they invite to share that content. Unethical behavior in social networking websites does occur, and individuals should be aware of it. An informative report on this issue is "Cleaning Up Their Online Acts" reported in the magazine Inside HigherEd. The author cites a case in which a 'social networker' reported a problem, but nothing was done about it. The article further describes incidents involving students and Web use at various institutions and how they were handled.
This video by the Office of the Privacy Commission of Canada is a fitting illustration of the realities of sharing information on the Web. The sheer number of students who use Facebook regularly begs for a need to raise awareness of real and potential problems, at least for the benefit of the cautious and the novice. Facebook has a number of privacy features, and members should learn to use them.

Today, it is not unusual to see students walking into the campus library, for example, without the usual 'tools of the trade' - book bag, pen and paper. The same students spend alarmingly many hours logged into some social networking website, chatting and sharing information with a select group of friends or even strangers. The popularity of Facebook perhaps can be explained by its capacity to fulfill very basic human needs - to socialize and satisfy our curiosity about fellow human beings.

Although extensively used by college students, Facebook is perhaps regarded as a personal space owned and controlled by the members, who probably want it to remain that way. In spite of its potential to enhance learning, its adoption for educational purposes does not yet appear to be widely reported. This is not say that Facebook has not been considered for use in higher education; in fact it has, as reported in this higher education institution's news release. Furthermore, some in-depth studies on Facebook have been conducted such the one found on this link.

Even though some students already use Facebook for academic pursuits, perhaps the need to invade spaces created for socialization among mutually-constructed social groups may seem unpallatable to some instructors. The majority of students, however, probably use it to escape the rigors of academic work, and would like to see it remain purely as a social outlet, free of any academic activities. It may also be accurate to state that instructor awareness of social networking tools is minimal at best. Those who are aware of such tools, may feel that other less controversial alternatives already in use are more suited for enhancing learning. Facebook is, at the moment, not one of them. The future might hold a different tune for the 'Facebook generation'. In addition, a fresh assessment of current core beliefs about the place of emerging social networking tools in education is imminent.


Further Related Reading:

Heer, R. (2007). My Space in College: Students Use of Virtual Communities to Define their Fit in Higher Education. In C. Crawford et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education International Conference 2007 (pp. 2357-2363). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.

Lorenzo, G. , Oblinger, D. , & Dziuban, C. (2006). How choice, co-creation, and culture are changing what it means to be Net savvy. Retrieved July 15 2007 from https://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eqm0711.pdf

Rishi, R. (2007). Always connected but hard to reach. Retrieved July 15, 2007 from http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eqm0721.pdf

Author unknown. (May, 2006). MySpace, Facebook, and other social networking tools: Here today, gone tomorrow? Retrieved July 26, 2007 from http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1463#