Social Media

There are many drawbacks as well as benefits to adult learning with social networking.  When most of us think of social networking, programs such as Facebook (www.facebook.com ) come to mind. 

Facebook is a difficult social networking site to utilize simply because it is so vast and open; it is difficult to contain a class, group, or idea within its space.  Facebook is however a great way to disseminate information especially if classes have their own page; an instructor will get a message to many more students if it is shared on Facebook versus waiting for the students to possibly check their school email which very seldom occurs.  There are other social networking sites available for educational use where an instructor or group leader can control the environment and permit or excuse participants and guide their learning.  Ning (www.ning.com ) is one such interface, where belonging surrounds an interest or in our case a class or subject area.  The drawback to Ning is that there really is no in-between with privacy; though not all learners would consider this a disadvantage.  One strategy that I may incorporate is the idea of utilizing a Facebook page (not my own as that is too personal) to disseminate information to my students since most of them have cell phones now with the application loaded and ready.  Incorporating Ning into a classroom experience is somewhat self-explanatory as an entire class can be based in Ning and is a great communication tool.   (Richardson, 2010)

 

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Chapter 9