Facebook - I have a tutor FB page, ID nancyicttutor@hotmail.co.uk, but have not had much chance to use it effectively. Currently I use it to "like" the edtech blogs and other education-related FB pages that I follow anyway, on the assumption that any learners who followed me might find them interesting too. Rather too many posts from Lifehacker though... I could allow "Everyone" to follow me, so I can post & those following will see them. Saves having to agree to be friends then seeing all their posts... I am not currently confident about what I would post, however. The article mentioned below gives a hint - set a specific topic to be investigated/contributed to/commented on.
Facebook with learners has the advantage that if they are users already it is a familiar space to work in. Tutor can make private "secret" group pages with invited members only, to maintain privacy.
FB allows you to post links, share comments on something with the group, have individual chats or chat with everyone who is online in the group. You can't post your own content directly on the page though, except photos and videos. I've tried.
You could post a link to a quiz or similar, though, and invite comments afterwards. Other things you can do in a FB group:
Via the group, people can collaborate on a document, like a wiki ( I found this out from FB help pages).
You can also now add Dropbox files to a group too. "When someone adds a Dropbox file, a story is created and shared with the group. Click on the story to view the file."
Things to consider
Accessibility - Main drawback for me is the lack of IT confidence of learners - not all in my classes will already have it, and it would be the work of a couple of sessions to set them up with it, with proper security setting & notification changes. I won't have that time. They may not have internet access at home, or the confidence to post their opinions. Also to get the most out of this and see some real changes in confidence and understanding, it needs to be spread over several weeks or a few months. I seldom do courses that last that long these days.
These are all issues that affect learner use of a VLE too. I think it will be a better use of my time to persuade people to make use of our VLE and contribute to forums, complete assignments and so on than spending time setting up FB pages/groups etc. The Service wants us to use the VLE more so it in my interest to do so.
Should I come across a class where several people already have FB, that might be different.
Similarly, with colleagues, we are encouraged to use LinkedIn to share opinions, questions, best practice and useful links, rather than Facebook. So whilst I see some advantages, there are other services that it will benefit me more to use.
E-safety issues. The Tutor is potentially at risk of cyber-bullying. Learners? Possibly via comments on posts. Tutor needs to moderate and manage any undesirable posts.
"As group admin, you'll see a notification in your group when someone reports a post to you. This feature lets group members highlight posts for you to review for any reason (ex: inappropriate or offensive posts). To manage a reported post, click the notification and then choose to:
- Ignore it by removing it from the report queue
- Delete the post
- Delete the post and ban the member who created the post
To report the post to Facebook, find the post on your group's wall, click 
and then choose Report as Abuse. Keep in mind that reports are anonymous."
and then choose Report as Abuse. Keep in mind that reports are anonymous."
It would be a good chance to hold some discussions and activities about e-safety issues of self-disclosure online.
I should refer back to the presentation at eFactor 13 about digital professionalism, and reference all the good stuff in CEOP, GetSafeOnline and other sites.
I read an article about using Facebook and Tumblr in two American classrooms, with different teachers but a similar topic - design.
It seems the key to success is signposting it early on, so students get used to the idea that it will be part of the curriculum, and also offering some course credit or award points for using it. An incentive, in other words. Regular tutor feedback and reference to posts in class helps people see how much it is valued and showcases interesting work. The "design" topic was a careful choice too as it involved uploading photos of good design examples, among other things so was not that much effort to do, and could stimulate comments. And it did not seem that far away from what the students would do with each other on FB anyway and did not impinge on their privacy.
"Facebook groups offer several added benefits to teachers: You don’t have to friend your students for them to join a group; Facebook now tracks views so with any given post you can see how many students have looked at it; photos and links are previewed in a post so students don’t have to click on a link to see what it is; the link plus comments are visible to everyone in the group in one place." (from the article)
The Tumblr project was not so successful - it was late starting off, the students did not already have Tumblr accounts and there was no apparent incentive to post images and comment, except for the student's own interest in a subject.
These are useful observations that I should bear in mind if setting up to use a web 2.0 collaboration tool in the future!
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