Theorizing the Facebook-Style Classroom

by Mark Fullmer
Note: There is an ongoing discussion about this topic in this Facebook group

1. Instant communication.

Facebook makes it easy to contact people (in addition to an email function, there is a built in instant messenger and a “wall” where users can post cyber notes to each other). The most important distinction here between Facebook and most teaching portals is the instant notification. Facebook emails you that “someone wrote on your wall,” and human nature makes you want to log on to read what’s been said. On most class websites students must be self-motivated to log on and access comments or feedback from the teacher or fellow students. Email notification is a simple capability for websites and something I’ve begun using in class. The result? According to my website statistics, students now spend much more time on the class website. Note: most websites can integrate instant messaging widgets nowadays, too.

2. Public communication.

In education, we care about respecting privacy, and that’s a very good thing. But on Facebook most people seem to care more about publicity. I think it’s because we’re profoundly social beings. And because we have egos. On Facebook, students post notes on their friends’ walls that are visible to everyone, they post status updates which all their friends can follow, and they post images and videos of themselves willy-nilly. This actually provides a very important component of the writing experience: a sense of audience. Because of our sensitivity to privacy, we teachers tend to keep private students’ essays, our feedback, and even peer feedback. But maybe we should rethink this. What would it look like if students could post and read through every single classmates’ first and final drafts? If they could listen to

the teacher’s feedback for every student? If they could read the feedback any peer gives to another? I do it on my class website, after establishing some important ground rules for respect.

3. Personalization.

Facebook is all about the social network. Users provide information about themselves—favorite music, political affiliation, photos, videos, hometown, personal website, and just about everything else. They each have a personal homepage that presents all they’ve added about themselves. Personal homepages are just as doable on class websites. Encourage students to add a photo of themselves, write a bio, and provide other information they want others to know.

4. User-driven content.

Facebook doesn’t create any content. They don’t tell people what to read. They don’t assign things to write. They simply facilitate content dissemination. And yet, users spend hours reading what others have written and spend hours writing (and sometimes writing long and involved notes). What would a writing class look like where students could choose 1 out of 10 essays to read to fulfill reading homework? What would a writing class look like where students decided what to write? Admittedly, there are limitations and challenges for this (if students write whatever they want, how can they equally meet our course objectives?). But I think the theory is good. Give students more choice (or at least the perception of choice) in what they read and what they write. Give them a chance to talk back to the course about what they like and what they don’t.

 

 

5. Kibitzing

The vast majority of writing on Facebook is of the smalltalk variety:

awww! thanks for hangin out today babe

dude wtf, my bulb just burnt out so i put in another one only to realize that it's the lamp that's broken

i hope all is well with you! AND I LOVE EVERLONG! that's totally our song! :)

We might conclude that the communication that happens on social networking sites and in text messaging is 90% useless. But it actually serves a very important social bonding function (linguists call these "phatic" expressions).

So even in academia (and in online teaching portals specifically) we might not want to marginalize or discourage smalltalk, even if our teacherly instincts tell us discussions should be focused, on-topic, meaningful, and otherwise "academic." Experts suggest using phatic communication as a means to move toward more substantive talk.

Bibliography

Goffman, E (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Doubleday.

Zhao, Grasmuck, and Martin (2008). Identity Construction on Facebook: Digital Empowerment in Anchored Relationships. Computers in Human Behavior (Vol. 24).

Suler, J.R (2002). Identity Management in Cyberspace. Journal of Applied Psychoanaytic Studies (4/4).

Whitlock, Gillian and Anna Polett. "Self-Regarding Art." Biography. Volume 31, Number 1, Winter 2008.