Summary
In module 4 of Learning
with Emerging Technologies: Theory and Practice, we studied the application,
uses, and benefits of social media in educational environments. We also studied
the teaching and learning characteristics of digital natives vs. digital
immigrants, and explored the educational theory of cognitive apprenticeship and
scaffolding. We had the opportunity to create a Facebook page that could be
used as an educational tool or resource as opposed to a personal connection
medium. This was a very enlightening week for me and a great experience. Below
are four questions that have been posed to me in conclusion of this module.
How do you see a Facebook page as adding
value to the learning environment that you are creating? 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?
I actually have
two thoughts about this with each one having a slightly different application
or interpretation of what my learning environment actually is. This is
primarily because I kind of have two different jobs, both in education, but
each with significant differences. First, as a college instructor and academic
advisor, I see a lot of benefit in the use of Facebook, and possibly other
social media tools. It is a great way to share content that is related to your
class or program that may be outside the design of the curriculum and in a
multimedia format. It’s also a great way to stay connected to students and get
important information out to them in a timely manner. This is especially true
considering that most students have smart phones that are linked and give
instant messages when they have an update to their Facebook accounts. I used to
try communicating in a similar means with e-mail and our LMS (Angel) but have
found recently that students simply do not log in and check those as much as
they check their FB account. Right or wrong, it is the trend. In addition, by
the way I set up the Facebook page in our class assignment, I created a
mechanism for current students to connect with former students and share
experiences and opportunities related to our industry.
Second, as a service
trainer for the Bobcat Equipment Company during my “vacation” time, I never
really thought of how FB could be used. I think this would be difficult because
while I do the training for the company, I am not really a Bobcat employee or
representative really. To them I am considered a third party vendor that they
contract with to provide a service, which happens to be training their dealers.
From that perspective I am not sure if I would ever really be allowed to create
a FB page that would be seen as a company initiative. Nevertheless, I think it
would be a great tool for service technicians and mechanics to connect with
each other on a daily basis to ask questions and get feedback about problems
they are encountering. This is actually done in the form of message boards, but
again, the task of logging in and remembering to check back on a post from the
past is not as well practiced today as it has been in the past, and a much
faster responding social media tool like FB that is almost instantaneous and
linked directly to smart phones would be much more valuable. At the end of
every Bobcat training course I teach, the technicians fill out an evaluation
form and one of the questions they have to answer is “what are the five most
valuable things you gained from the class?” In almost every case, one of the
five items refers to the ability to just informally chat (at coffee break time,
lunch, or even at the bar at the hotel during evenings) with other technicians
that struggle with the same issues, problems, and challenges every day. It
seems to me that a technician shouldn’t have to wait once a year, travel 300
miles, and spend thousands of dollars to have that opportunity. Great
application for a Facebook page I think.
How would you plan on maintaining such an
outward-facing social presence?
I think the key
here is to link the page first to an e-mail account that is work related. This
way you will have constant updates and reminders to manage updates. However, it
needs to be structured more than that, suggesting that it becomes more than
just a casual resource to manage when you feel like it or when you get a
chance. I think it needs to become part of a daily routine, or at least
something that you put on your weekly to do a list a couple times each week. No
matter which way you twist it, managing a resource like this is additional
work, period. For me it makes sense to incorporate it as part of my “office
hours” routine. Normally, if I do not have a student coming to see me face to
face during my office hours, I just work on other course preparation stuff
(grading, lesson plans, lab instructions, PowerPoint modifications, reading /
research, etc.). If I committed myself to updating the FB page during office
hours, it would ensure the usefulness of the tool. However, it would some of
the class prep work I normally do to another time (nights, weekends, etc.).
Again, regardless of how you look at it, it is extra work.
Would you maintain this yourself or share
the responsibilities with the learners in your environment?
The page that I created
for this class is something intended just for myself and the students that I
serve, or have served, as their academic advisor. Therefore, I will maintain
this myself. However, our department has discussed the possibility of having a
page that isn’t limited to a certain group of students, sort of a recruitment
page. This would make the question a little more difficult to answer. The first
thought is that since it is for the whole department, that all the faculty
would be able to contribute. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean they all
have administrative rights. It seems more logical to me, for the sake of
consistency and follow-through, that one person would be in charge of
maintaining the page and would work with all other parties to collaborate on
content. The challenge to this approach is that it creates even more work for
the person maintaining the page because not only do they need to set aside time
to update their own content, they have to set time aside to communicate and
work with all other faculty and staff to manage their content. At this point for
such an application I believe that it warrants discussion about course
reduction, stipend, or some other means of recognition for the amount of time
in somebody’s workload this would require.
Other thoughts?
Looking back at the way I did my page, I will probably close
it out at the end of this semester and start with a new one under a different
account that is not linked to my personal page. We were actually recommended to
do this initially but I ignored the recommendation primarily because my
personal FB page is tied to my work e-mail. That alone is probably not a good
idea. Nevertheless, when I went to create a group page for this assignment, I needed
to have it tied to my work e-mail so I wouldn’t miss any admin required tasks
like approving members and monitoring discussion posts. As a result, this page
is connected to my personal page. I do have the settings in a way that still
requires members of the group page to “friend” request me to access my personal
page, and my personal rule has always been to deny the request for active students
but accept for alumni. However, even though I have this safety measure in
place, whenever I update something on the group page it attaches the thumbnail
from my personal page which I do not like. In addition, one thing I have
learned about FB is that nothing is private. You can try to protect certain personal
content from being displayed to people outside of your close friends, but the
privacy settings in FB can be fairly complex and dynamic to the point it is
hard to manage and keep up with. In addition, it isn’t always what you post, it’s
what someone else may post about you, or tag you in a picture they post showing
you in an undesirable manner. For that reason I am going to try and change the
e-mail my personal page is linked to, or create a new personal page from
scratch, and then make the account tied to my work e-mail dedicated strictly
for use with my students.
