Facebook or Faceblock: Cautionary Tales Exploring the Rise of Social Networking within Tertiary Education

Abstract

This chapter presents an introduction to an overview of the rise of social networking platforms, systems, and tools within tertiary education, through an analysis and exploration of one such platform, namely the popular social networking website Facebook. Social networking sites, like other Web 2.0 services, emphasize online socialization, collaboration, user-driven content generation, and sharing among users. They enable different forms of pedagogy equally as they disable and challenge more traditional teaching and learning approaches within tertiary education. In this chapter, various criticisms, challenges, and concerns in relation to the incorporation of the new tools within the student learning experience are explored. The chapter seeks to illuminate some of the educational possibilities of incorporating Web 2.0 social network structures provided by websites such as Facebook into academic courses, and to offer suggestions for effectively leveraging these emergent social networks to enhance the student learning experience.