Walden 6177 Week 3 Blog Post

This week for our blog posts our class was asked to investigate social networking technology and comment on its potential to enhance adult learning.  I chose to examine Facebook and Twitter.  I have a Facebook account, so I am familiar with it, but I have never tweeted!

Since I work in adult education, I found it interesting to learn that the fastest growing demographic of users on Facebook is the 55 and over crowd (Richardson, 2010).  It’s been my personal experience that most of my peers, (I’m 51) use Facebook like me, but many do not.  I think we are in the “in between” crowd.  A lot of older folks will never be computer literate and most younger folks were computer literate before they could ride a bike.  Folks my age, the last of the baby boomers and first of the generation Xers, are learning about digital technology mostly on an “as required” basis.  Those of us who need it to perform our vocations have become computer literate.  Those of us who do not use a computer on the job may not wish to use one off the job either.

So as an adult educator I need to be prepared for both.  I recall from one of my graduate courses a situation where a lot of us had to help an older classmate with some of the assignments that required the use of advanced computer and internet skills.  I know that gentleman did not use Facebook.  So if we had been given an assignment that required a Facebook account, we probably would have had to help him with that too.

Having said that, one of the reasons I would choose these two social networking technologies to use in my classes is that they are so popular.  I would rather help them use technology they are familiar with in a new way than have to teach them new technology they have never used at all.  Another reason I would use these two is that they are similar but different.  Twitter was originally designed for quick updates, limited to 140 characters per post (Richardson, 2010).  I know from experience that Facebook has no such limitation.  Instead the reader can see the beginning of a longer post and needs to click a link to read the entire post.  Finally, I feel that having my students participate is social networking based on professional and educational interests will benefit them in the learning process by strengthening their connections to an outstanding learning resource, their classmates (Bonk, 2009).

I plan to start private groups on Facebook and Twitter for my classes.  My vision for using Twitter in my classroom is for the students to use it to complete simple and quick assignments.  For example, find an article on blah blah blah and post the link on your Twitter page, then review at least one article found by a classmate and post one takeaway from that article.  I will also use Twitter for any short notice notifications about the class and to send the students reminders shortly before the class, if it’s a seated class.  For example, “class is cancelled today due to weather” or “don’t forget tonight is Group A’s turn to present.”  My strategy for incorporating Facebook is to use it for more in-depth postings, such as imbedded video and photographs.  While Twitter also has this functionality, the user is still limited to 140 characters per tweet.  I will also use Facebook to have my students follow other academic groups from our group Facebook page.

Cheers!

References: 

Bonk, C. J. (2009). The world is open: How web technology is revolutionizing

education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for

            classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.