Profs reach out to students on Facebook

As students spend more time on the web, professors are reaching out to them online.

But while some professors are using Facebook to facilitate class participation and discussion, many students and professors say they think Facebook should be kept separate from academics.

In Stewart Friedman’s Management 240 course, students are asked to friend their TAs on Facebook in order to facilitate group discussion and coordinate assignments.

And PennDesign architecture lecturer Andrew Phillips has used Facebook to provide an online discussion group for his Visualization II class, where students can view assignments and collaborate with images, ideas and live chat.

Phillips called Facebook a “dynamic interface,” saying that the site is “going to be like electricity; it’s just like a utility.”

The trend toward Facebook as a teaching tool extends beyond Penn.

Illinois State University professor Peter Juvinall requires students to friend him for a business technology course. Students post questions on his Facebook wall, submit assignments on their profiles, and can chat with him whenever he is online.

Students’ reactions, Juvinall told The Chronicle of Higher Education, have been “99.9999 percent positive.”

For many professors, though, Facebook remains a social tool.

Esther Alarcon-Arana, who teaches beginning Spanish at Penn, used Facebook to communicate with friends and peers and would accept students’ friend requests only if they were not currently in her class.

Alarcon-Arana said this preserves a professional relationship during class and allows students to keep in touch with her after the semester’s end. She recently stopped using Facebook, however, citing privacy concerns.

But not all students are excited to share their personal information with professors.

“It’s a nice way to interact with professors,” said College senior Jessica Wolfe, “but it might be a little uncomfortable.”

Ultimately, Alarcon-Arana said Facebook is “just for friends,” noting that she occasionally turned down students who sent friend requests “just to have more [friends].”

While the site can provide a powerful platform for discussion, most professors prefer to stick with traditional methods.

According to Alarcon-Arana, for example, Penn’s Blackboard site provides all the necessary tools for communication.

“I think Facebook is a personal web site, and while it has recently been used for networking, the main purpose is socialization,” said College junior Jane Shim. “I’m not sure it’s conducive to getting academic work done.”

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