{"id":66,"date":"2007-10-09T12:49:36","date_gmt":"2007-10-09T10:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.didactalab.de\/wp-main\/?p=66"},"modified":"2007-10-09T12:49:36","modified_gmt":"2007-10-09T10:49:36","slug":"facebook-as-an-e-learning-tool-how-to-support-classroom-teaching-with-facebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-bremen.de\/wolf\/2007\/10\/09\/facebook-as-an-e-learning-tool-how-to-support-classroom-teaching-with-facebook\/","title":{"rendered":"FaceBook as an E-learning tool: How to support classroom teaching with FaceBook?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Facebook Educational Apps directory<\/a>
\nI am just sampling some apps in FaceBook to see, if they could be used to support classes as a CSCW tool or a mini Learning Environment. Here are my observations so far:<\/p>\n

Notes (a FaceBook app)<\/h3>\n

Description:<\/strong> This is an obvious app because it is a Facebook app. You can post and tag notes, you can import RSS feeds (but it is not meant as an aggregator) and you can share your notes with friends. You cannot attach other documents than photos, but today with online office apps this may not a big problem.
\nThe Good:<\/strong> Tightly integrated into Facebook, fast, easy.
\nThe Bad:<\/strong> No support for teaching, groupwork or course structure. No support to structure lots of notes besides tags. Users have to micromanage tool if they want to subscribe to the other users tools (only friends). Very basic tool.
\nBottom line:<\/strong> This tools is usable for sharing some notes between friends.<\/p>\n

Wikimono<\/a><\/h3>\n

Description:<\/strong> A Wiki inside your FaceBook account. Create private, shared (to friends) and public wikis.
\nThe Good:<\/strong> It’s a Wiki. You can create pages by will, the access rights can be switched on and off by Facebook user groups (friends and networks).
\nThe Bad:<\/strong> It’s a Wiki. Can be technically daunting to “normal” users. No upload of documents, only links.
\nBottom line:<\/strong> That’s a very nice integration of the Wiki technology into FaceBook. If you are looking for a Wiki within FaceBook, don’t look further.<\/p>\n

Study Groups<\/a><\/h3>\n

Description:<\/strong> a complete mini groupware app: share Files, have Discussions, online scheduler, define tasks, and create and admin study groups.
\nThe Good:<\/strong> This is basically what all bread and butter Learning Content Management environments have provided from the start: asynchronous groupware. Fairly complete for organizing a study group.
\nThe Bad:<\/strong> some group shoutbox is missing, but you can always use skype for that. No support for peer assessments or E-Portfolios, though. No workflows. No course authoring for students or teachers (but you could use WikiMono for that).
\nBottom line:<\/strong> As you can see, to find bad I really needed to expect a full blown Learning Content Management System. Together with FaceBook this app can do what yesteryears Blackboard could do from a student perspective.<\/p>\n

Zoho Online Office<\/a><\/h3>\n

Description:<\/strong> Zoho is one of the better online office webapps with a full array of tools (basically, they have anything you could think of plus one). In their facebook app, they give you only access to text documents, presentations, spreadsheets and database apps.
\nThe Good:<\/strong> Very feature rich set of four web apps.
\nThe Bad:<\/strong> You can only share with friends, no networks or groups. No integration of the editor into FaceBook, editing opens up a new tab with the Zoho app.
\nBottom line:<\/strong> Zoho has the potential to become<\/em> a very important contender for , because they have this unbelievable swiss army knife collection of tools. Right now the integration is not tight enough. Nevertheless, You can just use Zoho as your Web Office Suite and then use some other FaceBook apps to share their links.<\/p>\n

Notecentric Courses and Notes<\/a><\/h3>\n

Description:<\/strong> A Notes application built around courses, notes, rosters and discussions.
\nThe Good:<\/strong> Flexible setup of courses for note taking. Easy to use, discussions thrown in.
\nThe Bad:<\/strong> No attachments, rosters are tedious to build up because no tight integration into FaceBook. Just Notes and Discussions.
\nBottom line:<\/strong> Study Groups (see above) seems more complete.<\/p>\n

Share Homework<\/a> (Scribd)<\/h3>\n

Description:<\/strong> Share Homework is the Scribd FaceBook app (Scribd is a PDF-Document sharing community). Users can upload their PDF-documents for others to read and download.
\nThe Good:<\/strong> Very well integrated into FaceBook (no extra login etc.). Nice browsing and searching experience. Works great with a lot of different formats (it is also a good tool to convert documents you are getting, if you don’t have the right programm, btw). Very easy to use.
\nThe Bad:<\/strong> No tagging, no group management of access rights, no annotations, most users don’t use the classification scheme, app shameless adverties its use as a way to save time and homework.
\nBottom line:<\/strong> Very nice app to publish your documents (for presentations I stilll like SlideShare more (see below). It is very interesting and a good lesson for FaceBook App marketing, that Scribd has chosen to name the app “Share Homework” and not “Scribd”. While Scribd is a perfectly valid Web 2.0 name, Share Homework just plainly describes the main use of it in FaceBook. And because it is nicely open, also the Plagiarism-detection systems can access it \ud83d\ude42 Still, there is no real support of annotations, so it is just a distribution app.<\/p>\n

Courses<\/a> (MyCourseList)<\/h3>\n

Description:<\/strong> App to create a timetable and a workplace for your courses. You can setup your own courses. Within the course you have class notes, discussion boards, advices from former students and a course wall. The notes are given a date for the lecture, so this makes it easier to find relevant stuff.
\nThe Good:<\/strong> Quick and easy way to share coursecentric notes and do discussions. Nice timetable.
\nThe Bad:<\/strong> No file attachments. No wiki.
\nBottom line:<\/strong> It’s a solid app, but I still like “Study Groups” more. Probably we need to use it for a longer time to see which is better.<\/p>\n

Courses<\/a> (CourseList)<\/h3>\n

Description:<\/strong>Uh, another app with the same name? Nope, it is another one, and it slightly different. So this is another app to create a timetable and a workplace for your courses.
\nThe Good:<\/strong> Has Discussion view for all courses you are enrolled in (no need to switch back and forth). Upload of files, too.
\nThe Bad:<\/strong> No graphical timetable. No wiki. No notes.
\nBottom line:<\/strong>Tough decision which to take (MyCourseList vs. CourseList)<\/p>\n

Courses<\/a> (FaceBook App)<\/h3>\n

Description:<\/strong> Maybe the decision is not so tough. Just use this one \ud83d\ude42 This is the real deal from FaceBook themselves (makes you wonder as an application developer if it is wise to compete in the core centre of FaceBook usage with FaceBook itself). This app has all of the above, much slicker experience and support for the instructor role!
\nThe Good:<\/strong> This app has everything as the two other Courses app (see above) + Videochat and support for instructor (announcements, instructor files).
\nThe Bad:<\/strong> Still no Wiki or other editor for course materials. No way to integrate outside material by RSS feeds. No student portfolios and no self- or peer-assessments. No way to do evaluations or tests.
\nBottom line:<\/strong> As you can see, this app is very good for supporting document-centric courses. Start with this app if you are new to teaching with FaceBook.<\/p>\n

Other apps to mention<\/h3>\n