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Smart Use Of Facebook By College Helps Students
from the it's-a-tool dept
Earlier this year, a study claiming that students who used Facebook had lower grades got a lot of attention, with the typical fear mongering and moral panics coming out of the woodwork. But, of course, correlation does not mean causation, and Facebook is just a tool. For schools that use it in a smart way, perhaps it could do good. Reader Ben Ketteridge points us to the news of how Gloucestershire College has embraced Facebook to help students do better. It's kept the staff and faculty better in touch with students and reduced drop out rates, so far. It's also helped students work together in virtual study groups, something that other colleges have complained was a form of cheating. It's nice to see at least some higher education institutions looking at ways to use tools to improve the overall experience, rather than just complaining about such online services.
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Facebook used to....
...have a section on their site where you used to be able to load your course codes. This was back when they first launched, it was really cool since group meeting were easily set up that way and you could find your classmates. Unfortunately they took away that feature long ago and added loads of other junk to distract students with :)
That's not to say that Facebook is bad, students just need to learn how to utilize it appropriately without going into A.D.D. land :) I know I'm guilty at times!
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so...
they used it as an email replacement?
so its nothing but a fad then? gotcha
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"
junk to distract students with :)
That's not to say that Facebook is bad, students just need to learn how to utilize it appropriately without going into A.D.D. land :) I know I'm guilty at times!
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Oct 15th, 2009 @ 4:34am
so...
by icon Misanthropist (profile)
they used it as an email replacement?
so its nothing but a fad
"
Junk in -- Junk out
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Facebook might have had a chance at being a "useful tool" for academics, back when it was exclusive to college students with valid college e-mail accounts. As someone said, it used to support your class schedule and make it easier to find people in your classes, and there was far less 'junk' on it, as it's been called. It was a much "cleaner" environment.
It used to be more of a social/school 'listing'. Now It's gone the way of MySpace with endless garbage. Can't log on now without 14 invitations to kill thugs in MAFIA WARS or take some stupid quiz about which Power Ranger you are.
The only way it could possibly get worse would be to allow the annoying "auto-play radio" on everyone's MySpace pages. I believe then I'd never go back.
Hell, right now all it's good for is seeing which of my college "friends" is getting married. Oh, and picking tomatoes on FarmVille.
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"a study claiming that students who used Facebook had lower grades "
Possibly because the smart kids read the TOS
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Cheating?
I applaud the use of FaceBook as a learning tool. I am appalled to learn some colleges consider study groups cheating. Those schools are obviously run by individuals with tiny minds and a huge Napoleon complex! In the works of many of the students: WTF?
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Facebook used as tool
not only should it be used by students, but it can be used by businesses as well.
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Facebook Status
Facebook is a networking tool at the end of the day. People have always networked, in one for or the other!
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Spoiked
Ever get Spoiked?, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2oGysxM-j4
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