I have found in the few years that I have offered to be friends with my students, that I build a much better student/teacher relationship. I get to know them much more, and they get to know me in the same way. It doesn't compromise my teaching or grading criteria, that remains the same. The biggest advantage is that we are able to communicate much more in and out of the classroom.
I'm thrilled when students who haven't been in my class for a year ask my advice on something, or even ask a question related to the class they took with me. If somehow I was able to touch a student's life just a little more because we were friends on Facebook, then I feel that it's worth it and that I've done my job.
(Plus, if they can put up with the crazy antics of my kids and my political comments every once in a while, they deserve to be my friends!)
Just a note, if my students decide to "unfriend" me after the course is over, I leave that up to them.
If you don't want to be friends, you can still use Facebook in your class in a lot of different ways. You would create a class Facebook Page instead. For your students to be involved with this page, they just have to "like" the page. The result is that any status update, link, photo, or video you post will automatically be pushed to their own Facebook page.SE 122 XHTML at NEIT Class Page
Steps to create a Facebook Page:
- Log in to your personal Facebook Account
- In the left column, click Ads and Pages, then find the button that says +Create Page
- Walk through the steps to create the page (adding any content, images, logo's etc.)
- View the page and copy the URL for your students.
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