My new e-friend Cammy, suggested to me that she wanted to find a way to use Facebook as a learning tool. Since then I have been thinking about her idea and wondering just how does one use Facebook for learning. So far for me and my friends it has only been, just as intended (I think), for fun. We share photos, news, messages, and miscellaneous nonsense. Mostly nonsense. As for learning from one another on it, so far I’ve learned several things perhaps I shouldn’t post on there and embarrassing photos of you will surface periodically.
I’m sure there could be some seriousness to the network. You certainly can create groups that truly are driven by a purpose and I belong to a couple. I’ve also come up with the idea that it could possibly be used for online class work by having students connect with one another and using it as an “offline” discussion area for class/group work. When that element of interaction is missing from an online many facilitators try to find a way to compensate for that with discussion boards within the learning platform. I have always found these to be very dry and I lose interest in my fellow classmates quickly. A Facebook network may be a way to get the class to interact more continuously in a fun manner outside of the elearning platform.
I’m open to any other ideas and suggestions for utilizing this particular social network tool.
My latest thought is that organizations could use FB as a marketing tool for their eLearning programs. Spread the noise. Share a link (to a password protected site if it’s corporate-specific). I’m not seeing examples of content — and think that most organizations would probably not want to post their content out there.
Oh that’s a good idea. I forgot about the shear advertising power of FB. I get invitations to various group activities, social outtings, theatre dates. FB in an organization network could be a wonderful ad platform.