Using FB in the classroom

Besides leaving comments and "like-ing" photos and witty statuses my friends in FB post, I am yet to figure out how to get the best out of Facebook. It is replete with features both helpful and odd, sometimes even bordering to ludicrous. One can find so many areas for research on anthropology and human psychology simply by studying the applications that get added to it almost regularly.

It's too distracting a medium I find it hard to imagine FB being useful in teaching my students, much less teaching them something meaningful and useful in life. Often times, we stretch the limit of what we can do with technology too much we forget to see that its apparent limitlessness actually sets the limits of what it can do and achieve.

As a medium for social networking, its primary purpose is to connect people, as in a coffee shop where people sit for a couple of hours, sip coffee leisurely, and establish that very human connection with another human being. It is built for a specific purpose.

I do not agree that technology has demolished the idea behind the law of comparative advantage. As in countries, economies, persons, one needs to figure out what he's good at and work hard to be so good at this something he becomes the best at it.

Facebook, as a social networking site, should focus on what it is good at. Teaching, however, is hardly its forte. It is impossible to learn directly from it if one gets distracted every ten seconds by a friend's chat notification, by a "like" from friend's friend, or by a tagged photo of him.

It takes a little creativity, they say, to make use of social networking sites in teaching students. I also think it takes a little humility and a lot of sense to accept the fact that some sites are made for a specific purpose, and doing tasks it is not made for is, for me, outright arrogance.

John (061412)