Social Networking Sites and their use in Education

Question about using Myspace and Facebook for Academic Work

"We are currently teaching an instructional technology and pedagogy seminar for a group of Biology Post-Docs and the question came up regarding "why not use MySpace for course web pages?"
-- Wayne Morse Jr. - Emory University

Responses from NMC Tab Subscribers

Eric Lee Likness - Rochester
" ...students and faculty may not be familiar with is the use of copyrighted materials within the Myspace/Facebook context. Restricting access is one thing you wouldn't have to the same degree with a Course Management System Internet cul-de-sac."

Christopher Watts - Newell Center for Arts Technology
" I know that several of my colleagues here have met with a negative student reaction to using FaceBook and MySpace (these sites specifically): they find it "creepy" that their professors are on these sites."

John Stafford - Winona State Univ.
" After wading through the tome of lawyers'
language, look to near the bottom of each policy statement for the
simple, sweeping disclaimer of any responsibility whatsoever by
Facebook. "

Further research has many examples of data mining for personal information to participate in the social utility site. " Facebook's enticements to voluntarily
submit personal information are relentless. " Attempts to gain personal information are clearly seen when searching for individuals or groups. " We would not require our students to disclose information to marketing enterprises so that the students could use course material. "

Shawn Miller - Center for Instructional Technology
"Anecdotal data seems to suggest that some students really resist the idea of faculty using a social networking tool, one that they've come to love and use personally, for coursework. "
http://cit.duke.edu/help/consult/web20tips.html - resource for faculty interested in using Web 2.0 tools in general

Otto Khera - USC
" We did also examine the possibility of a social network site for teaching and learning, and met with the folks of MySpace a year ago. For all of the reasons mentioned in this thread (privacy issues, copyright infringement risks, and faculty reticence) all contributed to quickly abandoning this strategy. "

William Allen - A State
"Unlike the experience of others, my students were happy to have FB as a class tool. This may have something to do with the fact that our students have near universal disdain for the 20th-Century Bb."

Andy Gruhn - Capella Univ.
" If you're looking for tools to better aggregate content, and update duplicated content across multiple applications, our friend Beth Granter from the University of Sussex sums up options fairly well:

http://bethgranter.wordpress.com/2008/04/09/feed-aggregators/ "

Richard Holeton - Stanford
" BJ Fogg here at Stanford has been using Facebook extensively in his courses related to Facebook "

Teaching & Learning with Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2408370557

Psychology of Facebook
(course by BJ Fogg)
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=22841903424

Creating apps for Facebook
(previous course by BJ Fogg and Dave McClure)
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5378622985

Examples of implementation of alternate resources:
Microsoft Windows Live - http://www.stlcc.edu/Studentemail/index.html
Ning - http://otiscomarts.ning.com/
Elgg - http://www.elgg.org/