This paper reports on the use of Facebook for educational purposes in two different university communication courses. It discusses the decision-making processes concerning what type of Facebook page to use, the design, form and content of the Facebook pages, guidelines for lecturer and student use, as well as the means by which lecturers can encourage students to increase participation in courses using Facebook as an educational tool. Detailed survey feedback from a pilot study of students who used the two courses’ Facebook pages is also discussed. Finally, it demonstrates how using the Facebook pages facilitated greater student engagement and understanding of concepts, and encouraged what Adhihari (2011) calls “conversations,” which were often carried back and forth between cyberspace and the classroom.
According to the social media statistics portal Socialbakers.com, Facebook has a market penetration of almost 70% with Singapore’s online population. Given that Facebook was designed for college students, it is not surprising that 27% of the Singaporean market is made up of college-age users aged between 18 and 24 years old. This near ubiquitous use of the social networking site by users in this age group has led to educators and students using Facebook in a number of ways. Indeed, Barseghian (2011) cites 50 reasons for using Facebook in the classroom, including increased collaboration, knowledge sharing and feedback to name just three.
In January 2011, the authors of this paper decided to introduce Facebook pages to two National University of Singapore (NUS) communication courses – Business Communication (ES2002) for business students, and Professional Communication (ES2007S) for science and engineering students – focusing on skills such as effective presentation techniques, interpersonal communication and business writing. We understood the principles and learning theories that support the use of social media in education (see Vygotsky, 1978, Wenger, 1998, Siemens, 2004), and had had success using blogs to extend the classroom and facilitate learning in students’ digital lives (see Blackstone & Harwood, 2011). The Facebook pages were introduced in both ES2002 and ES2007S as a means of encouraging student interaction, further content exploration, and motivation for learning, in and out of the classroom.
This paper reports on a pilot study of the use of Facebook for educational purposes in these two different communication courses. It discusses the decision-making processes concerning what type of Facebook page to use, the design, form and content of the Facebook pages, guidelines for lecturer and student use, as well as the means by which lecturers can encourage students to increase participation in courses using Facebook as an educational tool. Detailed survey feedback from 39 ES2002 and 40 ES2007S students is also discussed.
Setting up a class Facebook page
A major concern for many educators who are considering using Facebook in the classroom is the thought of having to ‘friend’ every student that they teach. Fortunately, this is not the case. When a class Facebook page is set up, one can create a separate course identity, which does not connect to a personal account. Setting up a basic class Facebook page is straightforward: this slideshare presentation explains the process. Another decision is whether to set up a Facebook “page” or “group”. Burt (2011) uses a “Groups vs. Pages” chart to clarify the differences between the two (Figure 1):
Figure 1: Functionality of Groups versus Pages
Although these formats are similar in many ways, as educators piloting Facebook in the classroom, we decided on Facebook pages because as the page administrators we would be able to maintain control over what was posted. Previous experience using blogs with students taught us that some students, using social media in an educational context for the first time, needed time to adjust to the subject matter of the course as well as the degree of language formality preferred. Most students use Facebook for purely social reasons, and some tran