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In this study, we investigated the effect of using the social network site Facebook for discussions in an online course. Data were collected from concurrent offerings of an introductory educational psychology course, one using Facebook discussion boards and the other Moodle forums. We measured student perceptions of social presence and the frequency and length of their discussion interactions. Evaluation of this data indicated that there were no differences in our measures. We discuss why the potential benefits of Facebook for online teaching may not have emerged in this study and provide suggestions for further research in this area.

I agree with Lucas. It is still kind of difficult to deal with it, but it will become natural. However it does not sound odd to me. Not at all. It is simply a question of time. The same happened with the Email taking over the traditional "sending letters ritual". It is the natural course of technology! :) As far as I am concerned it can work out pretty well. We have the example of moodle within our master and I also have already the experience with facebook for school discussions (within my german course). One of my friends, who is TOTALLY addicted to facebook, was telling us the other day that she spends so much time on facebook that she gets now the feeling that she is "outdated" when it comes to news. And we told her to join/add one newspaper (or so), which has a facebook page. Like this she would get the information anyway. It is a good point also valid for education. Why not to "combine business with pleasure"? It is not only usefull, but it can also be a motivator for the students.

one year later... :) it is interesting to see how facebook and its use actually changed during this year. For our Media class with Charles Max we made a little research on whether the students from the Master program use the Socializing Forum of the Moodle platform or not and why. While one year ago the Moodle platform was the main space where students shared and discussed ideas about academic topics and issues, this year it turned out that the students prefer to communicate and discuss things through facebook rather than on Moodle. Facebook seems to become an easy and handy way to communicate and exchange ideas not only on a personal level but also for academic reasons.

I think this a very interesting approach to get a clearer picture how convivial Facebook really is - and also a good example of a small study on a test group, methodologically speaking. Even though this is not representative, I can confirm, that these numbers do in fact mirror my own networking habits with my 'friends'… but I think you also have to pay further attention to other factors like context of the FB user - as a college student is bound to communicate more than a 50 year old housewife for example… or a couple which gets engaged or the birth of a baby might create a false result, if you do not analyse it as a longitudinal study… never mind the size of the network. So yeay fir a test study, but for the real study they need to clarify some details and pay further attention to some critical variables!

I would like to share with you this new project that gives light a new dimension to education using the social media as tool to increase the interaction between teacher and students. The Flat Classroom Project is an innovative approach where educators have built social-networking sites specifically for use in class and home assignments. This project allows communication for students in the classroom, but for them to interact with students in far away classrooms all around the world can reach and learn from each other. A recent survey (http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Social-Media-and-Young-Adults.aspx) from the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that 73 percent of online teens use social-networking sites. Updating their Facebook or MySpace page has become a regular activity for teens as is using these services to catch up on what their peers are doing. Using similar tools will encourage students to interact with each other, using many of the same techniques they do when away from school but focused on their educational goals. Hope for someone will be useful

Its is very interesting to see that new technologies are more and more taking part of the class as being a tool like any other ones. It is very important to let them get in the class and not leave them out as new media and new technologies are used on a everyday basis by most of the students. One of the most important point of this article to make sure that the use of tools should be customized depending on the students. It is also in my opinion that the more customized the process of learning is, the better will be the learning. Customizing a class lead to a better motivation for the students and so lead to a better learning and more important remembering of what is done during the class. Moreover, I agree with the authors when saying that new technologies should be used and learned from the very beginning of school. As I said, new technologies should not be let outside of the school as it takes a great part of our lifes nowadays. And the earliest it is learnt, the better the students will know how to use them to make them as most efficient in their lifes (private ones, during their studies, careers...) as possible. It is said in the article that this project is used in different countries. However, besides Spain, the rest of them are english speaking countries. How could this project be developed in order to touch more and more countries? Or could it be used during english classes in other countries than the one mentionned?