From Social Communication to Mathematical Discourse in Social Networking: The Case of Facebook

Introduction

Web 2.0 tools are being suggested for some years now for social life, communication, and work in various disciplines, especially in education (Alexander, 2006; Glogoff, 2005; Pempek, Yevdokiya, & Calvert, 2009). Some of these tools are the wiki, the blog, Facebook, Twitter, Second Life, Wiggio, etc. Among those who suggest these tools for education are researchers in various international conferences. For example, Ġorġ Mallia, Henk Eijkman, Asher Rospigliosi at the International Conference on Information Communication Technologies in Education 2010 suggested these tools for instruction, learning and student engagement. Being attendants at the conference, we were part of the discussions moderated by Ġorġ Mallia and Henk Eijkman in two workshops about the possibilities that Web 2.0 social networks and tools, especially Facebook, can afford to education. There our idea to use Facebook in mathematics education began.