The Teacher's Guide to Facebook

It’s like Mashable knew we were doing a talk on Facebook Groups and Pages for faculty today. This article presents various ways educators deal with interacting with students on Facebook, but unfortunately doesn’t go too much into using Groups or Pages with classes. Even so - it’s a helpful read for inspiring you to solidify your own policy regarding how you interact with students on Facebook. 

If you’re an educator looking to start using social media with your students, I also recommend the book Social Media for Educators: Strategies and Best Practices. I went to a workshop given by the author and found her tips and case studies very insightful.

(via How To Make Your Facebook Account More Secure [Video]) - check out this screencast on improving the security of your Facebook account. I logged in and followed their tips along with the video just to make confirm everything was set up like I wanted, and I recommend anyone unfamiliar with these tips (or procrastinating) to do the same!

I like Kaspersky Lab’s emphasis on a strong password and their tips on what to include and not to include; “If you’re afraid you’ll forget it, then you’re probably on the right track.” 

One cool thing Facebook does is that it tells you on your Account Settings page the last time your changed your password. This, coupled with a lame password, encouraged me to change mine again!

Source: readwriteweb.com

(via What to Do if Facebook Changed Your Email Address Without Your Permission)

A must-watch video if you’ve missed this whole hullabaloo about Facebook changing your email address story, or if don’t understand the problem and how it affects you. Watch and follow along to make sure your Facebook email displays the way you want and that you haven’t lost any messages. 

I love you, RWW!

Source: readwriteweb.com

Even as Facebook has embedded itself into modern life, it hasn’t done that much with what it knows about us. Its stash of data looms like an oversize shadow. Everyone has a feeling that this resource will yield something big, but nobody knows quite what.

What Facebook Knows - Technology Review

Meet the social scientists at Facebook who mine and make meaning from Facebook’s user data.

Source: technologyreview.com

“Facebook is just not the big fad anymore,” said Kim Franklin, a 15-year-old from Gaithersburg, Md., who does not have a Facebook account and prefers social media site Tumblr.

“It was like everybody was constantly on there, but now not so much.” Franklin said her 13-year-old sister Nicole hasn’t signed up for a Facebook account either.

Meanwhile, Laura Franklin, the girls’ 37-year-old mother, always has Facebook open on her computer while working on her parenting blog, Better in Bulk. That, she said, has led her teen daughters to dub Facebook a “mom thing.”

Some teens aren’t liking Facebook as much as older users - latimes.com

In related news, I’ve been told by two college students that their young siblings/nieces/nephews think that Skype “is for old people” and the kids like services like ooVoo. One of the kids in this article even uses Google+ (!!!) likely because it’s the best/only free group video chat service.

Personally, I’m glad my old teenage escapades on DA, LJ, Gaia Online, etc. are safely hidden behind various pseudonyms! 

Source: Los Angeles Times

What are the different kinds of Page admins and what can they do?

Facebook finally unveils their new tiered method of determining roles for Page admins. This is great for Page admins on campus who want to add student admins but don’t want to hand over complete control of the Page. 

By default, everyone is set as Manager (the most privileges), so you’ll need to manually go in to specify other roles for admins if necessary.