What's All the Fuss About Facebook?
While the video above addresses a lot of advantages to using Facebook, are there disadvantages? Here's an interesting video regarding the "Terms of Agreement" for Facebook -- once you've agreed, what rights do the Terms entitle Facebook to? Should you be concerned about privacy? What can Facebook do with original works that you've posted?
Concerned About Facebook and Your Privacy?
You are not alone. It's funny that we should be talking Facebook today, because Facebook is unveiling its new privacy settings today in response to public concern. Check out this piece that ran on NPR yesterday afternoon: "Facebook's Dilemma: When Privacy hits the Fan."
One part of the article that I found particularly interesting (or disturbing, I suppose), was about a site called Your OpenBook, which allows users to browse through public postings on Facebook. You'd be amazed what information people post -- often assuming that no one but their network of friends can see it, sometimes not caring who sees it.
One part of the article that I found particularly interesting (or disturbing, I suppose), was about a site called Your OpenBook, which allows users to browse through public postings on Facebook. You'd be amazed what information people post -- often assuming that no one but their network of friends can see it, sometimes not caring who sees it.
CGCC now has its own Facebook page; you've probably noticed that a "facebook" button showed up on the homepage of the college website this year. To learn more about the CGCC Facebook page, click here.
Maricopa used 2009-2010 as a pilot year for the "Maricopa on Facebook" project. EMCC and SCC were the pilot participants. The project continues in pilot mode for the 2010-2011 academic year, with GCC, PC, and Rio possibly joining as second year participants.
Maricopa on Facebook is a customized Facebook application that runs inside a user's regular Facebook account. The information contained in the Maricopa on Facebook application remains segmented from the user's main Facebook page in order to segregate the FERPA protected information from the public. Students, faculty and staff are able to opt in to using Maricopa on Facebook and then have access to pages that may deal with their courses, student associations, academic departments, and a question and answer forum.
Student, faculty and staff accounts are fed into the Maricopa on Facebook application through the SIS system so that students currently enrolled in classes can have access to the application and their schedule information can be fed into the application enabling the creation of course pages. Students and faculty can not only view their schedules but also interact with each other, forming study groups, displaying how they feel about the class through emoticons, participating in polls and sharing ideas through wall posts. Student associations, athletic departments and academic areas can also create pages in which their members and/or fans can discuss the organization, share ideas, photos, status, etc.
Facebook Tasks for You:
- Post to your Facebook wall.
- Search for people.
- Friend request.
- Confirm request(s).
- Create friend lists. These instructions are from Facebook's Help Center:
To create and customize your own Friend Lists, please follow these steps:
- Click the "Create New List" that appears beneath the filters on the left side of your home page or your Friends page. Or, click the "Create New List" button from the "All Friends" tab of the Friends page.
- Type the title of your list and hit enter.
- Add friends to the list by typing their names into the "Add to List" field or selecting them from the list.
- Select "Create List" to store your changes.
Also from the Facebook Help Center are tips for using your Friends Lists to create varying privacy levels, to better control who can access different areas of your profile (for example, what your closest friends can see vs what your colleagues can see):
You can use Friend Lists to create different privacy levels for different groups of your friends. This allows you to selectively open more of your profile to the people closest to you. From the Profile Information section of your Privacy Settings page, clicking "Customize" will open a field for "Hide this from these people." Adding a friend or Friend List name here will hide the information in question from these people when they view your profile.
If you add a user to more than one Friend List, and those Friend Lists have conflicting privacy settings, the more restrictive of the privacy settings will always be respected.
If you enter three or more friends as an exception, you’ll have the option to create a new Friend List to group these people. You can create, edit and delete Friend Lists from your Friends page.
Now it's your turn . . .
Write a brief description of an idea that you have for using Facebook for your classes, and add that write-up to your Weebly webpage (if you don't think Facebook would be useful for your and your students, write about that on your Weebly page).
Resources for learning to use Facebook:
- Facebook Groups vs Pages: The Definitive Guide Nick O'Neill, February 2, 2010. Site: All Facebook - The Unofficial Facebook Resource.
- How to Create a Group in Facebook reference sheet (or click here for a video demo)
- How to Join a Group in Facebook reference sheet (or click here for a video demo)
- How to Add an Event in Facebook reference sheet (or click here for a video demo)
- How to RSVP to an Event in Facebook reference sheet (or click here for a video demo)
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