Like a billion (or so) people I am a member of Facebook. It started as a fun thing to do. One day, my mum who lives in France and only uses the Internet has a encyclopedia joined Facebook. On that day,I found I could not delete my profile. Then a few other members of my family joined and now it is too late. As they are all hooked up on Facebook I am unable to leave "the community".
So until December, I used Facebook as a mean of seeing my cousin's wedding pictures (she got married in August and France is unfortunately very far away!!!) and/or telling people about my daughter's milestones (very interesting, NOT !!).
I know that Joel Dodd uses Facebook with his classes, but the school where I work is definitely not open about it =(
Anyhow !!!
When I was lying on my couch during the summer, I realised that Facebook was a lot more than my cousin's pictures (although she looked gorgeous). During my readings I have found "pages". I had already "liked" pages before but I had not realised the power behind those micro-communities.
As new hobbies came to my life (e.g. sewing), new pages were added to my wall. Facebook is actually a RSS feed and I also can put all those liked pages into groups. So when sitting on the sofa in front of a good old American sitcom, I can read about some new sewing projects that different women (sorry to be sexist here) are tackling; I can read how I could live one year rubbish free like a couple who is trying in the South Island.
I know I was the only one not knowing about the power of Facebook and I should be ashamed...but as they say it is better late than ever.
Instead of looking at Facebook like an evil creature (did you know that before Facebook bullying did not exist ??) we should use it in our advantage. Connecting with our students is one thing we could do, but actually there is SO much more
