I often mention Oprah and people probably think I'm an Oprah groupie. That's not the case; it's just that Oprah happens to be on when I'm on the treadmill after work. Now that spring has sprung, I'll be seeing much less of Oprah.
However, last week Oprah had Mark Zuckerberg on as a guest. He is a 24 year old billionaire. He is the Harvard student credited for creating Facebook. He talked about how originally Facebook was created as a way to stay in touch with his family and friends while he went away to college. It started off as a bunch of friends talking about how great it would be to a have a way to do this and viola--the origination of Facebook.
I also finally read my Feb. 23rd issue of Time. On page 94 is "Facebook Is for Old People." I'm getting hit with Facebook all over the place!
The article talks about how, now that old people have found FB, it is no longer cool. It also talks about how it isn't a social network anymore, but rather a business network. So, I polled my class. Many more of my students had MySpace accounts rather than Facebook accounts, but didn't articulate a reason why. Interesting. They also mentioned something called Tag. Two students had Tag accounts.
So, if Facebook isn't cool anymore, or is making its way into the business world, I'm wondering how I could explore this as an option in classwork. I'm beginning to work on my global literature masters and this could be a real effective way to get in touch with people from other continents. Anyone have ideas??
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I know a lot of my friends have posted on Facebook that they are frustrated with Facebook and how much it changes. Usually the changes tick off the users because they have to get used to a new format all the time.
ReplyDeleteI also know that Facebook was a way for university students to network and stay in contact with each other. Then high schools came in, then anybody with an email address could become a member. Now, older and older people are connecting with friends from the past, or joining to be able to see their kids and their family's photos.
I don't know if I have an answer on whether or not to use it in class, but technology changes a lot - what was cool yesterday might bomb today, I guess that's the way the world works.