An Education in Facebook?: Higher Education and the World's Largest Social Network

An Education in Facebook? examines and critiques the role of Facebook in the evolving landscape of higher education. At times a mandated part of classroom use, at others an informal network for students, Facebook has become an inevitable component of college life, acting alternately as an advertising, recruitment and learning tool. But what happens when educators use a corporate product, which exists outside of the control of universities, to educate students? An Education in Facebook? provides a broad discussion of the issues educators are already facing on college campuses worldwide, particularly in areas such as privacy, copyright and social media etiquette. By examining current uses of Facebook in university settings, this book offers both a thorough analytical critique as well as practical advice for educators and administrators looking to find ways to thoughtfully integrate Facebook and other digital communication tools into their classrooms and campuses.

Table of Contents:
Contents Acknowledgments Contributors Chapter 1 The Revolution That's Already Happening Dr Mike Kent & Dr Tama Leaver Part 1: Transitions Chapter 2 Challenges and Opportunities in Using Facebook to build a Community for Students at a UK University Dr Nick Pearce Chapter 3 "We use Facebook chat in Lectures of course!" Exploring the use of Facebook Group by first-year undergraduate students for social and academic support Eve Stirling Chapter 4 Facebook as a Student Development Tool Shane Tilton Part 2: Facebook in Learning and Teaching Chapter 5 Beyond Friending: Psychosocial Engagement on Facebook and Its Implications for Academic Success Catherine McLoughlin and Mark J. W. Lee Chapter 6 What's on your Mind? Facebook as a forum for teaching and learning in Higher Education Mike Kent Chapter 7 Academic Armour: Social Etiquette, Social Media and Higher Education. Collette Snowden and Leanne Glenny Chapter 8 Exploring Facebook Groups’ Potential as Teaching-Learning Environment for Supervision Purposes Mona Hajin Part 3: Facebook as a Learning Management System? Chapter 9 How Social Should Learning Be? Facebook as a Learning Management System Tauel Harper Chapter 10 Facebook and Blackboard as Learning Management Systems: case study João Mattar Chapter 11 Rethinking community? Facebook as a learning backchannel Kate Orton-Johnson Part 4: Facebook at College Chapter 12 Facebook at Uni: Mutual Surveillance and a Sense of Belonging A/Prof Marjorie D Kibby and Dr Janet Fulton, Chapter 13 Facebook, Student Engagement, and the 'Uni Coffee Shop' Group Dr Tama Leaver Chapter 14 ‘I think it's mad sometimes' - unveiling attitudes to identity-creation and network-building by Media Studies students on Facebook Dr Kerry Gough, David Harte and Vanessa Jackson. Chapter 15 Should We Be Friends? The Question of Facebook in Academic Libraries Zara T. Wilkinson Part 5: Boundaries and Privacy Chapter 16 Unfriending Facebook? Challenges From an Educator's Perspective Dr Kate Raynes-Goldie and Dr Clare Lloyd Chapter 17 Role confusion in Facebook groups Pernilla Josefsson and Fredrik Hanell Chapter 18 Varying Cultural Conceptions of the Private Sphere and their impact upon the use of social media networks as educational tools: A German and Chinese comparison Xun Luo and Fergal Lenehan Part 6: (Re)Configuring Facebook Chapter 19 Changing Facebook's architecture Sky Croeser Chapter 20 Facebook, Disability and Higher Education: Accessing the digital campus Katie Ellis and Mike Kent Part 7: Conclusions - Beyond Facebook Chapter 21 Facebook Fatigue? A University's Quest to Build Lifelong Relationships with Students and Alumni Maria L. Gallo and Kevin F. Adler Chapter 22 Understanding the Social Media Ecologies of Employees within Higher Education Institutions: A UK-Based Case Study Chris James Carter, Lee Martin and Claire O’Malley

About the Author :
Mike Kent is a senior lecturer in Internet Studies at Curtin University, where his research focuses on disability and the internet. Tama Leaver is a lecturer in the Department of Internet Studies at Curtin University. He is also a research fellow in the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre for Excellence in Creative Industries and Innovation working in Curtin’s Centre for Culture and Technology.

Review :
"Mike Kent and Tama Leaver have assembled a compelling array of studies of Facebook which range widely in their analytical preoccupations. They render significant insights for educators, students and policy-makers alike. At times intensely practical and at others more deeply theoretical, this intelligent collection generally eschews technological determinism and poses all the right questions. In their editing, Leaver and Kent have kept true to a sophisticated view which positions pedagogy, student and academic engagement and issues of identity at the core. The dynamic interaction between learners, teachers and technologies, and abiding issues including identity, privacy and copyright, assure the longevity of this work in relation to Facebook, and beyond. I read it thirstily and will benefit from its richness. In a word? ‘Like.’" -- Professor Jane Long, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic), La Trobe University, Australia "This excellent collection of critical work on the way Facebook influences and has become part of higher education is both timely and necessary. It brings together a series of diverse perspectives that reveal how online learning cannot be reduced to simplistic policies and standardised techniques but instead is the working out of the intricate patterns of desire, attention, information and identity that is, after all, the reality of all educational encounters. Kent and Lever and their contributors have produced a work of great value, that also tells us much about the way Facebook has changed human social interaction." --Professor Matthew Allen, Head of School and Professor of Internet Studies, School of Communication and Creative Arts, Deakin University, Australia