Learning with Facebook

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Incorporating social media into the teaching and learning process is a new experience for me. Especially, the use of Facebook which is a very popular social media site.

Before using Facebook, I began with blogs and then Twitter. Students were asked to read an article related to the topic covered in the unit on the PNG Attitude blog and then share their comment. I went through their comments to grade their understanding of the topic and article.  

This year (2016), in the second semester, I made the decision to create Facebook groups and name them after my units. I created 6 groups, 3 for semester 1 units and 3 for semester 2 units.

I asked via the instructions in the learning guides for students to open a Facebook account using their real name or the name on their certificates. I made it clear that I did not want them to use any nick names or pseudonym.

After creating an account, I asked them to add me as a friend on Facebook. After accepting their friend request, I added them to the group IR431 International and Regional Security and the other groups.

IR431 FB

Instructions on how to complete the assessment task on Facebook was given in the learning guide. Also a set of step-by-step instructions was shared in the Facebook group to help students.

facebook BY

Apart from those enrolled in the semester 2 units, I also enrolled all other students in the program from the different year levels. It was a time consuming process as I went through the list and added each one. I also asked other students in the group to add their peers.

The reason why I added all to the various groups was to keep them up-to-date with what I did in the various units and engaged them in the conversation. I wanted those in year one, two and three to follow what I did with the fourth years and vice versa.

One observation that I made was that student culture is hierarchical. Year 1 students operated in their own space and avoided academic engagement with the third and the fourth year students. 

A first year student could not challenge a fourth year student in a Facebook discussion because what they might have said whether negative or positive would be seen as undermining the senior student. 

Also, he or she would be classed as a person who thinks they know everything, that according to the general student belief is a negative thing. Thus, junior students became mere observers to the discussion.

I am trying to break down this culture and establish a new culture of collegiality between all students regardless of their year level. Learning happens when different individuals interact with each other because we all have different experiences with different levels of understanding.

We had a few senior students or members of the alumni working for the Department of Foreign Affairs who involved themselves in the discussion. Their input and insight was helpful and educational.

I decided to add members of the alumni after seeking their consent. The objective was to get them to share their practical experience and analysis to make the teaching and learning experience in the particular unit more interesting.

I am aware of the issue of employee confidentiality in the private and public sector. Hence, I have advised them to share what is public knowledge and their analysis of national or international politics and not sensitive information related to their jobs.

The reason why I included the alumni using Facebook is because the program does not have any industrial or stakeholder input. We do not know where most of our graduates are working in order to get feedback from the organizations to improve the content of our program.

For example, we  now have a good number of students working in the Department of Foreign Affairs. What we need is stakeholder feedback from the Department’s human resource division advising whether or not the students meet their expectation, or what we need to include in our program to meet their expectation.   

Furthermore, Moodle has an uploading capacity of 20MB. It is difficult if you have self-made video lectures and other videos that are over 20MB. In a Facebook group, the maximum capacity is 100MB. Thus, a Facebook group, apart from YouTube, is the next best option for sharing videos with students.

I made sure all the groups I created were closed groups. I went through the membership of the groups on a weekly basis to check and monitor who the other group members added into the group.

In addition, I made sure I shared content which was relevant to the unit. Articles from websites and post from other Facebook users that were related to the discussion for that week were shared to help expand the knowledge of students.

IR431 FB2

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