Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Should Teachers and Professors have Facebook Profiles?


And should students be able to access them?


Facebook as a social network (including others like Linkedin etc) has incredible potential as an educational tool. This is why i feel that teachers should be at the forefront of using social networking in education.

Social networking is truly the buzz word at the moment. However despite the phenomenal growth of Linkedin, Orkut, Facebook and Myspace...social networks remain largely untapped.

Over the past few month all of the major social networking websites have launched developer platforms or have joined an industry standard platform like 'Open Social'. This basically allows anyone and everyone with some developer knowledge to create applications that make use of these networks.


There is no doubt that most of the people reading this have experienced the very many highly annoying applications on Facebook (Superpoke etc.)Unfortunately at the moment these tend to be the most widely used apps. But as the development continues we will see a lot more practical applications appearing. In fact this has already started. There are a number of applications that are already permitting things like ecommerce, classroom scheduling, colaborative documents etc. on these social networks.


As these social networks evolve from this primary stage, that they are currently in, to a stable platform we will see business, education and the like migrate here.

As these websites develop further, increased privacy controls, stability and a wider array of education based applications will become the norm. I foresee the ability to have multiple 'profiles' that you can share on a single social network. This way a teacher can share very specific information from his/her account with students...different information with fellow colleagues and different information with family and friends.


I envision, in the next few years, social networks will allow you to:
1) Sign in
2) Check your class schedule
3) Attend an online discussion
4) Discuss the class with your classmates within a closed discussion groups.
5) Receive your grades
6) Collaborate on papers
7) Share notes.
8) Watch a lecture
9) Communicate with your professors
10) Do your shopping
and much more...all through a single website.

Keeping in mind that the primary goal for most teachers is to provide their students with a relevant education that is accessible. It is now, and will be in the future, essential that teachers embrace the incredible potential that these networks have to disseminate interactive information and educate.

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