s with news realia from the local Singapore media, and the student processed the initial input then referenced it to the information source, adding depth and understanding to the discussion. The entire Facebook interaction was eventually transferred to the classroom when clarifying issues in the initial post was required. It is also worthwhile noting that this post generated 618 “impressions” (how many times a post has appeared on Facebook users’ feeds and on their page itself). This means that the post appeared on average 15 times for each of the 39 students in the course. This shows a high level of engagement by busy students on a (non-compulsory) social media platform being accessed outside of class time. It is clear that using Facebook with ES2002 increased student motivation and investment in their learning as well as facilitated informal learning by extending the classroom into their digital lives.
The use of Facebook in ES2007S
As was the case in ES2002, the main purpose of using Facebook in ES2007S was explained to students as being a way for them to share resources and interact with one another. A secondary, unspoken objective was for the instructor to provide yet another means of motivating students to be engaged with various communication topics related to the course content. Directions for the use of Facebook, similar to ES2002, specified that any links that were posted on the wall should be accompanied by a comment of two or three sentences about why the sharer thought the linked content was relevant, interesting or useful. Students were told that they should only indicate a “like” if indeed they had read a linked article or viewed a linked video. As with ES2002, the Facebook wall proved to be a well-used platform for extending classroom discussions beyond class. See the screenshots in the figures below for examples:
Figure 5: ES2007S student posting a relevant article link
In Figure 5, the student posted a link to an article that was relevant to one of the main content segments of ES2007S, the position search/application process. He also briefly explained the article’s usefulness. What is noteworthy in this post is that it has been “liked” by 13 other students (out of a total of 29 potential ES2007S student commentators from two tutorial groups for the same term) and by the instructor. Seven of these students were the student’s classmates, but six were members of the instructor’s other tutorial group. In fact, the three students who have posted follow-up comments were all from that other group. This demonstrates another appeal of using Facebook: the fact that interactions, or what Adhihari (2011) calls “a conversation,” might be facilitated not just with classmates, but with others – such as those in a parallel tutorial group – who share the same interests and values.
The same trend, with students in one tutorial group crossing cyberspace via the Facebook page to interact with students in another group of the same course, is apparent in the posted video link in Figure 6 as well.
Figure 6: ES2007S student posting a relevant video link
This post, a link to a video dramatizing another course topic, intercultural communication/the act of stereotyping, received “likes” from six students, four from the student’s own tutorial group and two from students in the other group. It also received comments from the instructor as well as from two members of each tutorial group. In one of those comments, the student commentator makes reference to Gladwell’s (2005) book Blink, stating that there was a reference made in the book to the notion of stereotypes and how African Americans were routinely charged more than whites when buying cars. Besides the fact that this student shared information related to the topic under discussion that he remembered from a previous reading experience, he carried the conversation into a direction not discussed in the class itself, but prompted by his classmate’s initial video posting. This again illustrates Siemens’ idea of “connecting specialized nodes or information sources.” Clearly, a value