Facebook Reflection

How do you see a Facebook page as adding value to the learning environment that you are creating?  

            Creating a Facebook page will definitely be yet another resource/tool to help increase the value of the learning environment I am creating. For starters, it gives my learners (digital natives AND digital immigrants) a platform they are already familiar with- most likely.  My digital native learners may have a Facebook to keep in touch with friends and post pictures etc where as my digital immigrant learners may have a Facebook to keep in touch with family members far away, old friends or they may just simply heard about it from their students, grandkids, nieces, nephews etc.  Because of the familiarity, they may feel less anxious when I create a Facebook page simply for the teacher workshop in creating learning how to create a safe teacher website. This page will be an organized resource so that all of my learners have just one place to go when they need to find relevant You tube videos I have posted, helpful links, as well as be able to ask questions, engage in discussion and comment and share on their peers progress. Such social media networks allow opportunities to incorporate video, photos, audio files, blogs etc (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2009.)

Given that you would use private pages for internal postings, are there ways that you would try to encourage an ongoing community or commitment through the Facebook venue? 

           

            There are definitely ways I would try to encourage an ongoing community or commitment through the Facebook venue. I actually think I have already begun to do so unintentionally. For example, keeping every post relevant and keeping up with ongoing discussion. In addition, I have stuck to the focus of the issue at hand on my page in terms of being a resource for creating a teacher website (for teachers) however I have extended my page to also post any interesting, helpful, funny, etc links relating to teachers. By doing so, this can give my members an outlet for the project at hand and simply take a break by finding humor in teacher pictures posted, or finding inspiration in the teacher quotes uploaded, etc.

How would you plan on maintaining such an outward-facing social presence?   Would you maintain this yourself or share the responsibilities with the learners in your environment?  

            I would definitely share the responsibilities with the learners in my environment- because we ALL (myself as the teacher included) can learn from one another.  My page isn’t intended to simply spit out information at my learners, the goal is to be a support for my learners and an outlet- a means for getting advice, having questions asked and answered, giving advice, etc.  I would still take on the responsibility of posting, updating, adding to the Facebook page but I would also have the learners receive the opportunity to contribute whenever they may like.