Facebook for Educators - A guide from the source

A guide for using Facebook for educators FROM Facebook. Looks like a good primer to explain all of the lingo and the differences between the Home, Profile, Groups and Pages in FB so that teachers can use it effectively.

Remember, you can create your own Facebook Fan Page here. Check out an example educator fan page at my SEDC Tech Training Fan Page.

Filed under  //  Facebook   Web 2.0  
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New South Wales, Australia, opens Facebook to teachers - and Twitter, Flickr & YouTube

'I am strongly supportive of teachers having access to social networking so they can use worthwhile educational sites such as Facebook and particularly YouTube,'' he said. ''Teachers will be able to teach their students about digital citizenship so that students will be responsible users themselves of social networking sites at home.'

Teach them to be responsible Digital Citizens where there is some guidance and supervision instead of blocking and filtering.

Great to see that the tide of blocking and filtering is slowly turning.

Filed under  //  Facebook   Twitter   Web 2.0   YouTube  
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Facebook Friending 101 for Schools from the Cool Cat Teacher Blog

It's a lengthy article, but well worth a read - especially if you are friending students in Facebook or are considering it...

I would agree that educators should never friend their students on Facebook. The best approach and the best way to harness the power of Facebook for your classroom is to set up a Facebook Fan Page for your classroom AND for your school. Fans and Friends of the same person will never see what's on the other's pages.

If you are a teacher, choose the 'Public Figure' option and as soon as you have at least 25 fans, you can create a simple, custom URL for your Facebook Fan Page to make further distribution easier.

Great article.

Filed under  //  Facebook   Web 2.0  
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Speaking Web 2.0 - Presentation, Links & Resources

Here's the presentation for the session today:

The Topics of Discussion:

Other links & resources:

Poll Everywhere Questions:

Question 1

Question 2

Filed under  //  Facebook   Poll Everywhere   Qik   Twitter   UCET   URSA   Web 2.0   posterous  
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100 Ways You Should Be Using Facebook in Your Classroom

  • Create groups. You can create groups for entire classes or for study groups with smaller subsets of students that allow for easy sharing of information and communication, without students even having to friend each other.
  • Schedule events. From beginning of semester mixers to after-finals celebrations, easily schedule events for the entire class using Facebook.
  • Send messages. From unexpected absences to rescheduling exams, it’s easy to send messages through Facebook.
  • Share multimedia. With the ability to post videos, photos, and more, you can share multimedia content easily with the entire class.
  • Post class notes. Post notes after each class period for students to have access for review or in case they were absent.

Although this list is aimed at college students and professors, there are MANY great ideas here to utilize Facebook for more than just keeping up with friends.

View all 100 tips here.

Filed under  //  Facebook   Web 2.0  
Posted