Herbert SHIUJoseph FONG

Jeanne Lam

Introduction Facebook features Facebook as an education platform Case study Conclusion

a feasibility study of using social networking websites, in particular Facebook, for conducting courses as a replacement of expensive traditional electronic learning platforms

Internet has become a necessity of modern people for communication and information sharing purposes

Facebook ◦ was introduced in 2006◦ A social networking website◦ ¼ Internet users are active Facebook users◦ Can be accessed via all web browers and devices

Free – free of charge Group – users can be divided into groups Page – create Facebook pages for particular

organizations Privacy – it is possible to set control

privileges of individual items Notifications – supports user notifications of

all updates to items Photo albums – supports user level and

group level photo albums

Discussions – supports discussions with respect to a message, a photo, a photo album

Emails – supports internal emails between any two Facebook users

Events – supports event managements User main page – shows all updates Chatting – supports real time chatting User defined software – software developers

can develop Activity log – all operations are logged

User creations◦ registration with Facebook with preferably university email accounts

Course preparations◦ create a Facebook page for each course

Teaching materials preparation◦ Convert PowerPoint files into Facebook photo albums which can be

accessed with various devices◦ Post links of videos or other course materials to the course Facebook page

Conducting lectures and tutorials◦ Can present the original PowerPoint files or Facebook photo albums◦ Use the discussions for Facebook albums as a discussion platform

Discussions◦ Facebook notifies users for all changes related to the course◦ Users can add comments to any materials posted on the course Facebook

page for discussions Assessments

◦ Software developers can develop Facebook applications with Facebook API for assessments and there are Facebook applications for creating quizzes

the use of Facebook for education have the following advantages:◦ true cross platforms and cross devices, as almost

all computers and mobile devices support Facebook,

◦ easy distributions of course teaching materials,◦ supporting blog-like discussion on individual

items,◦ supporting online quizzes as assessments, and◦ user friendliness as no training is required

Q & A