So students- how do you 'use' Facebook for learning?

facebook business by Sean McEntee

I've been listening to a discussion about whether we need to get more social in learning in higher education. Cardiff University currently uses Blackboard as its VLE (virtual learning environment- we brand it as Learning Central- which is rather aspirational) and like every other VLE there is the potential to be social there. Staff and students can form their own groups and set up their own forums and blogs and wikis. But these social dimensions are not often used.

For staff the university is rolling out the use of an IBM product Connections to encourage us to work in more social ways. And there are some people wondering if there is a place for this to be rolled out to students as well to give them another place to collaborate.

In the past I have tried to integrate the use of web 2 tools into Blackboard- using screencasts social bookmarking - to enhance the functionality of the social tools in Blackboard. You can see a presentation I have about this here. Now, I no longer lead that part of the course and have moved on to thinking about how we can best use technology in the course in general.

But one thing we keep hearing is that students do most of their collaboration in Facebook. So I was wondering if you could tell me about how you use Facebook for learning? Does this really happen? Or is Facebook a place that you organise nights out, and then share the photos afterwards?

Do you feel pressure to participate in Facebook as a student? Or is it just something that is a natural part of your life- you don't even think about it.

Please do comment and share- it would help us all to learn from you.

EDIT: Initial comments are that the social aspects of Facebook, and the fact that it is somewhere that you are already, that make it a clear winner against the VLE. I know this is hypothetical but if the VLE could be like Facebook do you think that might catch on? Or is the fact that Facebook is 'your' space, and that your lecturers are not there, one of the big attractors?

EDIT 2: How would you feel if your lecturers set up a private Facebook group to support an aspect of your course? Would you think that was creepy? That your lecturers were trying to keep an eye on you? Or would you think it was useful?

EDIT 3: I've found this blog post by Cristina Costa saying that Facebook should not be used for teaching. One reason she gives is that we don't know how Facebook uses information so we should be very cautious about encouraging students to use it. She includes this YouTube in her post.

Location and Learning

Image: SP Nurse on the Job by dharder9475
In the last few weeks I've been thinking about how we can support the learning that takes place when medical students are on placement. We know that entering wards can be a daunting experience for students. They don't feel part of a team. They don't know who everyone is. They don't understand what is happening. They don't want to interrupt nurses attending to patients or junior doctors catching up with paperwork at desks.They see other members of the team wandering in and out of the ward but they don't know what their role is. They don't recognose the social worker or the pharmacist or the OT.   They might not even know what their own role is. They miss out on opportunities to attend meetings and teaching sessions because they don't know they are happening. In fact they spend too long waiting around for someone else to turn up to teach them, and on activities that have little educational value. They generally have a haphazard learning experience.

But placements are very rich environments with many unique opportunities to learn.

So what can we do?

Imagine instead that before coming to the ward the students had access to a network which let them find the profiles of all the staff who worked on that ward. They could see the timetables for teaching. They could even see what the last students who had been on this placement had seen and learnt. They can select what they would they would particularly like to gain from the placement, and this will become part of their profile which will also be available to all the staff on the ward. The network will also contain links to information about initiatives that are happening in the ward to address patient safety and quality improvement. They students can see if there are opportunities for them to get involved in this work and learn about the input their colleagues have had in the past.

When they turn up on the ward the students check in. They can see the profiles of the staff who are working there and when they should be finishing, when they will be on call and what clinics or theatre sessions they will be doing that week. Their calendar updates with activities that are happening that day that they should know about.

The network that they are tapping into is the same one that all the staff in the hospital use to keep themselves up to date. The students can record their learning and their thoughts about how the ward works. Their input is valued by the staff on the ward and their fellow students from other disciplines.

Do you think this will happen soon? Why hasn't it happened already? And how could patients use this network?