Facebook in recent years has been seen as a method of communication between friends and family. However, Facebook is taking on a new role as professors use it to take learning to a new level.
"Facebook has developed into something far more than pictures, friends and a means to communicate," said sophomore Kristen Dickman. "It's starting to become a networking thing."
Professor Mark Tatge, Eugene S. Pulliam Distinguished Visiting Professor, is one of several professors using Facebook as an educational tool here at DePauw for his Multimedia Storytelling class. He created a closed group and added the students to the group, where they exchange tips, techniques and ideas.
"I think that in today's classroom, you need to engage students," Tatge said. "You need to basically approach them on a lot of different levels. You have to communicate with them in more than one venue. I wanted to offer a venue where they would participate."
Despite Tatge's assertion that "everyone's on it all the time, I'm not a heavy Facebook user," junior Christine Webster said.
Dickman also points to the fact that Facebook is a distraction from school work a lot of the time. She uses the Macbook application Self Control to temporarily block social media sites, so she can be more productive.
"I don't see how it's much different than a Moodle forum," Webster said. "I feel that Facebook and school are two different things...I find it more productive if a professor emails from Moodle or their personal email. It's a definite thing. If it's Facebook it's more optional because it's a fun thing."
Facebook still has other drawbacks when it comes to educational purposes, according to Dickman.
"I ignore my newsfeed because it's a newsfeed of everybody," said Dickman. In addition, one of the many drawbacks is the excessive notifications, which Dickman related to annoying 'reply all' emails.
Even Tatge acknowledged the shortcomings of Facebook. He points to the excessive ads, invasiveness and difficulty in finding someone with a common name. He even admits that there are other networks that would work better than Facebook.
"Google+ is easier to use than Facebook," Tatge said. "It's not as cumbersome."
Facebook has not yet crossed completely into the education threshold, though. It still lacks the general acceptance of it as an educational tool.
"If teachers move to Facebook for classes, I think Facebook will be less and less used," Dickman said.
While Dickman and Webster did not personally have any issues with being Facebook friends with their professor, they did both recognize that some students could be worried about it being an invasion of privacy.
Webster offers the following advice to those with this concern and as a general rule for all.
"If there's something on your Facebook that you don't want a professor to see, then you probably shouldn't have it there for everyone to see," Webster said.
Finally, Webster addressed the issue of some students not having a Facebook.
"There needs to be another means of being able to communicate [the] information [from the class], and I think my professor realizes that," she said.