A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

In ancient Rome, ambulance some emperors decided to try to enforce their authority by building a new forum, under their control, with their own statues, and temples dedicated to the gods of their ancestry. Imagine how hard it must have been to get people to stop going to the ancient forum—the one they were used to—and start going to the new one.

Now, when the emperors of the classroom (the professors) want to create an online space where meaningful interaction and discussion will happen, what do they do? They build a new forum, in Moodle or Blackboard, and then try to get their students to go there. But to do that, students have to be required to go there, and required to post a certain number of times and interact with each other. As you probably know, it’s very cumbersome and unnatural.

Fora, Fora, Fora?

Rather than trying to build a new forum, how about having the students gather at the one that already exists—the one that they already go to? That would be Facebook. In other words, rather than create fora in Moodle (and by the way, the plural of forum is fora, NOT “forums”), I use Facebook groups to facilitate student interaction and discussion.

Facebook groups are better than Moodle fora because most of the students are already on Facebook, probably have it open in their browsers at all times, and are already used to how it works. In addition, the built-in thread format is more intuitive and user-friendly than an artificial forum, so it’s easier to see the organization and follow the threads.

Now, I have to admit, I resisted getting into Facebook for the longest time, and I still have reservations about it for reasons of privacy. And as far as using it as part of a course, I worried that it might be wrong to require students to be on Facebook to participate in the class. However, I’ve found that very few students are not already on Facebook, and even those few who are not have little or no objection to creating an account for a class. If a student is genuinely concerned about privacy, he or she can create an account under a pseudonym.

Words of Caution

Just a couple words of caution, from my experience, for instructors who might be willing to try using a Facebook group in a class. Make sure it’s a closed group, so the students feel like it’s a safe place to “think out loud,” and so no one who is not taking the course chimes in and creates a distraction. Much to my surprise, I found that you will get requests from people outside the class to join the group. Of course you will need to deny these requests.

The first time I created a Facebook group to use in an online section of a course, I would not have believed that someone from outside of a Church History class would want to join the closed group. So when I saw the first request, I assumed it was a student who got missed when all the other students were added to the group. It turns out it was someone from the UK (we’re in Chicago), who somehow saw the group and thought it might be interesting. In the end, I didn’t kick him out, and he contributed a bit to the discussion, and it turned out okay, but in the future I would not allow it, since there’s too great a risk of someone from the outside disrupting the discussion, or sidetracking it with tangents brought about by the fact that they’re not taking the class.

 Downs and Ups

The down side of Facebook is that you cannot force your students to turn on the notifications so they get an email when someone posts. But in my experience, most of the students will join in on the conversation voluntarily. In my class, I don’t have any mandatory posting requirements, I just make it as easy as possible and see what happens naturally with regard to discussion. Of course it’s still possible to require a minimum number of posts and/or responses, depending on the class.

The up side is that your students already feel comfortable with Facebook, and to them, contributing to online discussion will seem as natural as talking with friends, because you’re asking them to gather in the forum they know, rather than trying to get them to come to an unfamiliar forum. It’s also easier for you, since the set-up is minimal.

Add to favorites