Had this chapter been at the beginning of the book I would have told you that I don’t even know how to use Facebook. I would have said that it is a waste of time and a way for people to try and know everything about everyone. I would have said all these things because I was not on Facebook and didn’t like the idea of everyone in the world having access to me. Now I have a Facebook page and enjoy being able to be a click away from communicating with friends and family that I don’t get to see very often. I’m not sure how I feel about using Facebook in the classroom because I think it will create distraction in the classroom instead of promoting learning. I like the idea of being able to collaborate with just about anyone and having anyone post ideas, but I think there are other less distracting ways to do this. From what I read it sounds like you can make a site as private or public as you want and as a teacher you can decide who has access to what your students are posting. I know that Facebook can be addicting and I don’t think students need another reason to be on Facebook whether they are at school or at home. There may be some parents who don’t want their children on Facebook for whatever reason. This could cause problems because it wouldn’t allow all students to participate. I know this can happen no matter what technology you use, but I feel parents would be more willing to allow their children to use a wiki or blog instead of Facebook. I think that you could get the same results from using blogs and wikis in you classroom as you can get from using Facebook. You have just as much control over who gets to look at students work and comment on it by using a wiki or blog as you do if you are using Facebook. I think because there are so many other ways for students to collaborate that using Facebook isn’t needed. I find it weird to think about using Facebook as a tool in the classroom; I’m not exactly sure why, but I do. I do think if used correctly Facebook could be used as a great tool in the classroom, but I don’t see myself using it in my classroom with all the other technology that is out there. I would rather introduce my students to technology that they haven’t seen before or might not know as much about. It would benefit my students more to use a blog or wiki because these may be tools that they haven’t used before. In most cases, using Facebook wouldn’t teach them anything new about technology because most students are on Facebook and already know how to use it.
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