There is a lot of buzz right now about inclusion of social networking features in online courses. In terms of building communities of practice and promoting a constructivist application in building greater understanding through the group, this does make sense. But is Facebook the place to build a program?
Here is an article about Boston U trying to work through the question:
http://dailyfreepress.com/2010/12/07/students-faculty-torn-over-idea-of-facebook-courses/
My own thoughts are that eventually schools will need to include social networking as part of the overall university experience. But does it make sense to farm this out to a private provider with very different goals, such as Facebook, or does it make sense to include some sort of in-house solution that is attached to the LMS? Either way, I believe that eventually this will be a feature of all higher education.
1 comment:
Lloyd, I got a kick out of reading the article. On the one hand, the London school is full speed ahead with its Facebook-based MBA program, and on the other BU has *no* DL program at all? No wonder the critics at BU stand behind the "classic" method.
But I agree with you, Facebook might be a good thing to include in a program but I'm not sure it can be the complete delivery system.
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