Social Networking - Can we keep our kids focused?

In my opinion, using social networking site such as Facebook is a great idea but how do we focus our students in these environments?  We also have a dilemma as to the proper way to interact with our students on these sites.  I believe it is imperative that we keep our teacher life and personal life separate where teachers create a classroom site and require students to interact with the classroom site.  Not only does this protect everyone, it shows students the importance of keeping school and personal life separate.

I know there are different options available for social networking sites but to be perfectly honest, Facebook is it!  Almost every student and child I talk to over the age of 12 has a Facebook account and uses it everyday so why not incorporate its use into the classroom.  I really liked Chad’s idea of giving students 5 minutes at the end of class to view their personal profile if all students stay focused on their school work.

I have researched several ways to setup Facebook sites, groups and pages.  If a teacher creates a classroom site and “friends” students to work on classroom assignments, the classroom site is not immune to personal status updates from "friends". Each time a student sends out a status update to all friends, personal information is sent to the classroom site for everyone to view.

After much research and testing, my personal thought is to setup a page for each classroom or each project.   These pages can be managed from a teacher’s personal account or teacher Facebook site without interference from student sites.  Students must “like” the page from their profile and each student will receive messages from these pages to their profile.  Students can comment on the page wall and participate in class discussions.  Pages may be public or private.  Private pages require invites.   Facebook groups require students to be friends with your site before friends can be added to groups. 

The school I am working at is testing the use of Facebook in the classroom.  If students do not follow the class rules, there are consequences.  These sites are also used to post homework discussions. An improvement in homework completion has been noticed.