The article I have chosen to review is
Schroeder, J., and T. Greenbowe. 2009. The Chemistry of Facebook: Using social networking to create an online community for the organic chemistry laboratory. Innovate 5 (4).
Available on-line at http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=625
(accessed April 24, 2009)
The article discusses how a group of chemistry undergraduates were asked to use FaceBook as a discussion tool for their course in place of WebCT (Blackboard) discussion forums. The latter having proved unsuccessful at promoting discussion in previous years.
They found that participation was limited as only 41% of students took part but numbers of posts increased by 400% and that posts raised more complex topics and got more detailed replies.
It is suggested that the familiarity with Facebook and the reception of replies to posts made students more likely to use the system. Though some authors ( Beetham 2007) suggest that student’s do not want to use their personal communication tools for learning.
However there is no direct evidence that student’s performance in assessments was improved by this discussion. However one might argue that time on task is a good proxy for learning and Facebook has encouraged students to spend more time discussing their work.
Reference
Beetham, H. 2007. Learners’ experiences of e-learning. A briefing for the PVC Network: e-learning Special Interest Group. July. London: JISC. http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearningpedagogy/briefingpaperjuly07.doc (accessed March 17, 2009). Archived at http://www.webcitation.org/5fLO3qtLY.
