Blog 29- Final Paper

The Connection of College Homework Assignments and Facebook

What is Facebook?

Facebook is one of the internet’s most popular websites to date. In less than ten years Facebook has accumulated over one billion users. People use Facebook for many different reasons. They can connect with old friends and family, meet new people, update their statuses, post pictures, and express themselves in ways that they are unable to do in person. In college and universities students also use Facebook to help them with class assignments/projects. This is something that you have not really seen being done in the past but it has become relatively common on the social media site of Facebook.

Throughout the years of my navigation on Facebook not only have I noticed pictures and status being posted about a person’s social life but I have also seen people post statuses asking their friends to answer surveys or they would post a question as a status asking for advice on a topic related to an assignment they had. I have also been invited to many "events" on Facebook asking me to fill out surveys to help college students in their classes. I have used this method myself to help me on class assignments. I needed opinions on a certain topic I was writing a paper about and posted it as a status on my Facebook page. I received an ample amount of opinions and used what people told me on Facebook in my essay.

In this paper I plan on looking at other people who have used Facebook to help them with class assignments and whether it has been helpful or not. I plan on analyzing the writing techniques that they used to get people to help them, which aspect of Facebook seemed to be the most helpful (statuses or events), and whether or not the group feature on Facebook has proven successful. The use of language has changed over many years and I plan on discussing which aspect of writing and language were most affective when asking your Facebook friends for help on a particular assignment.

Teacher Mandated Facebook Groups

            I could not find many articles that pertained to my topic. Most of the articles I came across were about social media sites in general and how college students use them socially. After a long search I finally found an article that was very similar to my research question. The article I looked at in regards to how individuals use Facebook is Academic Use of a Group on Facebook written by Ruth de Villiers. This articles main focus is how post grade students use the groups on Facebook in “discussions on academic, content related topics” (de Villiers, 173), whether is appeared to be helpful or not, and if contact between students was easier using the group feature on Facebook. 

Selwyn (2009) conducted a study on Facebook and “how students communicate on Facebook in relation to their studies” (de Villiers, 175). He talks about how the electronic use of Facebook can be beneficial in communication but also mentions how using Facebook can be controversial when using it for academic purposes.

His study points out how SNS can be used educationally to support communication between students in the same learning situations and also for educator-learner dialogue. In particular, SNSs provide channels for informal and unstructured forms of learning.

Selwyn observed 600 students who did this by continuously logging onto Facebook and monitoring their use. He found that some of the conversation was centered around specific assignments and academic talk but he also observed general discussion about scheduling and criticizing university seminars and academic staff.

            Selwyn also found that students liked to talk about aspects of their school that are easily assessable on the school website. Students in the group also gave peer-to-peer guidance that was “based on the students’ personal interpretations, not on official guidance” (de Villiers, 175) and some of the information given was inaccurate. But the students in the group did receive some positive feedback when looking for journals and resources for certain assignments. Selwyn found that most of the comments in the Facebook group were complaints and the students were not as focused on their studies as they should have been. This was not all the students, however. The students that took the assignments seriously did not engage in the unrelated conversation and only participated in the group when the discussion was about the school work.

            Mazer, Murphy and Simonds (2009) investigated the credibility of teachers who participate in social media websites

Self-disclosure is defined according to the extent of personal information made public on an SNS by a teacher, for example, high self-disclosure involves showing pictures of one’s social situations, and communicating personal preferences and relationships

Students who found teachers on Facebook found them to be more credible and easier to get contact. “The study suggests that when personal information is publicised, students induce similarities between themselves and the teacher” (de Villiers, 175). This can be constructed in many views and is controversial because some researchers believe that by being able to obtain personal information on your teacher can cause students to not take the teacher seriously and make the teacher out to be something he/she is not.

            In conclusion this article discusses how students interact with one another over Facebook. Some of the findings in the experiments were positive such as, being able to connect to your classmates and teacher and gain ideas from your peers, but others were negative. For example; the students were found discussing unrelated topics and some of the information obtained from their peers were inaccurate. Facebook groups can have its ups and downs when regarding school work so I believe that what is author is trying to convey to the readers is to stay off Facebook when trying to complete school work.

Method of Research

            To receive my data I decided to conduct one interview with someone who can relate to my literature source and has used Facebook groups to communicate with her classmates to get assignments done. The interview took a different approach then my literature source because the Facebook group worked for her group and I thought it would be interesting to compare the two situations. I conducted my interview in a quiet setting in front of a laptop. That way she could look back at the group and I could physically see the progress that her group was making compared to my literature source.

            I also did an observation of different statuses and an event. In doing this I hoped to gather different information on what approaches work and what approaches do not. I found these statuses on my timeline over the last couple of months. I was unable to get permission from the individuals who statuses and event I observed so when I discuss I will be referring them as simply “individual” and “him/her”. Although I was unable to get their names I feel that analyzing their style of writing and their use of mechanics is important to what type of approach works and what does not.

Different Views of Facebook Use Regarding School Assignments

In regards to my data I have interviewed one person. The interviewee will be referred to as "M" and I; the interviewer, will be referred to as "R". In this interview I will focus on her group use of Facebook to help with class assignments. I also looked at pieces of information I collected from Facebook's actual site. I have gathered four status updates and one event invite and will focus on the different reactions from their Facebook friends and how particular aspects of how the individual presented the status/event impacted the type of/number of answers they received. The names of these individuals will not be given in this presentation of the data.

            In my interview with M we talked about how she used Facebook to help her with class assignments. She told me that she has used it before and one of the first times she used Facebook for a schools assignment was when she had to work on a group project and they made a Facebook group to communicate.

R: What do you typically use Facebook for?

M: For social networking with my friends, my family, my coworkers and my classmates.

R: Oh so you connect with classmates? What do you usually talk to them about?

M: Well for one of my classes we were working on a group project, and we made up a Facebook group with our class name in it and sent each other power-points and communicated through the Facebook group to get the project done

R: Oh okay, yeah I know a lot of college students do things like that.

M: Yeah it's very helpful because we all know we're going to be on Facebook at some point during the day (laughs)

R: That's cool.

She told me that it was very helpful because she was able to communicate with her classmate knowing they were right there and they would stay on the Facebook group interacting with each other until they were finished with what they intended to do. She also told me that because of the Facebook group she did not have to worry about meeting up with her group in person.

            The language in this section of the interview was very positive. The part of the interview where she laughs after saying “we all know we're going to be on Facebook at some point during the day” shows that Facebook is a positive experience in a college students life and although many people use it solely for social purposes it is a good place to connect with classmates who are working on the same/a related school topic. Her enthusiasm shows no matter which aspect of Facebook you use it can be a good and helpful experience.

This reminded me of James Paul Gee’s example of a discourse community because I believe that Facebook has two different discourse communities, one for social use and one for groups. The way Facebook groups communicate about school projects or other situations are completely different than from what the public eye sees on their home timeline. On the discourse community of the Facebook timeline you see social events of your friends, pictures and statuses. When they post statuses about school assignments the status is usually very direct and does not require much effort but when you are involved in a Facebook group regarding a big assignment, such as the group M participated in, the information discussed within that group is confined in one the space of that group. If anyone from outside of that group were to join in they would not know the content that was being discussed and why, which makes this a discourse community.   

I also found this interesting in regards to my literature source because they say that Facebook groups are not very helpful. The difference however, between my source and my interview subject was that the students were asked to create a Facebook group to connect with each other and my interview subject and her group chose to do the Facebook group themselves. While analyzing the interview and the literature source I came to the conclusion that when students are asked to do something, regardless of what it is, they are reluctant to listen because they want to do the project their way. When my interviewee did the Facebook group all of the students in the group agreed to this and were willing to take time out of their day to focus on their assignment through the Facebook group.

While conducting my research I also analyzed different ways people worded their statuses/events while asking for their friends help. Some people used formal language and some people used “social media language” meaning it was informal and they used emoticons in their statuses. Out of the five statuses/events that I analyzed only two of the statuses were formally used. The other three used social media language to try to get people to help them out. Another aspect that I found interesting was out of the five statues/events three of them were surveys and two of them were just questions stated as a status. There was also only one event as opposed to four statuses.

In one particular status the individual wrote something very simple that did not give much detail about what needed to be done when referring to a link for her friends to take a survey, this only received one comment. Another individual posted a more formal status explaining to his/her friends what the survey entailed and about how long it was going to take. This individual used a little bit of social media language with two emoticons but most of her grammar was accurate and she had capitalizations in the right places. This individual received four comments on the status. While comparing each of the statuses I realized that people are not going to want to be bothered on social media sites with other peoples school work if it is not well explained. People assume that this discourse community is mainly for social use and if you post the school work you are doing without the proper punctuations and capitalizations people will be more likely to overlook it because it was not seriously presented. Unless the person puts a detailed description of what needs to be done people are not going to take the time to look at it.

                Out of the five statuses/events I analyzed three of them were surveys and two were just questions. While looking at the four statuses (I will talk about the event later) I noticed that more people are willing to comment on a status that is just asking a simple question rather than directing you to an external link to take a survey. In the two Facebook statuses asking to take a survey they only received a total of five comments together. When I analyzed the two questions that were posted they had a lot more comments and people willing to give their input. The formal/informal writing did not seem to come into effect here because both statuses had a lot of good answers.

                I personally posted up a Facebook status asking “Should junk food be allowed in public schools? Why?” While analyzing the answers I received on the status some were helpful while other people who posted answers were taking it as a joke. One person posted a silly comment on my status that he/she knew would not help me in my paper, but other people posted very useful information. One person posted a very detailed reason answering my question that I found to be extremely useful and used this in my paper. There are friends that are willing to help if the question is strait forward and does not require too much time. I received other very insightful responses and I was pleasantly surprised at how many people were willing to help me.

                The one event I analyzed however got the most responses of any of the statuses. I believe that it is because you can explain a lot more that people will be willing to read, in an event then on a status. This individual gave an extremely detailed description of exactly what needed to be done, told us how long it was going to take, and gave the time frame we had to complete it. This person received around twenty responses and each response was short and but gave exactly what the individual was looking for, which is all this person wanted. I also believe this person received so many responses because the answers to the question did not require a lot of thinking so people were very willing to help out.

While looking through Facebook I noticed that the people that have done this again were people that received an ample amount of responses the first time around. The individuals that did not receive good feedback seemed to be reluctant to do it again although; I did come across one person who attempted it again. This person changed their wording and although, they still did not use proper punctuation or capitalization they did receive a few more responses then they previously had and I believe it was because they gave a more detailed description of what needed to be done.

In regards to my interview subject the way you communicate with the other people in your group is important. If you are willingly joining a Facebook group with students in your class without being asked to, you will have the freedom to write and discuss the content in any way that is comfortable for you and your group to understand. When students are asked to join a Facebook group they are less willing to do work and will more likely go off topic because they are in the presents of a social media site and it is easy to get distracted if you are not focused or do not care enough to focus.. The way you use language with your group members is different because the participation was forced and you will be less likely to complete the task that was asked of you.

Facebook Can Be Helpful Depending..

            This is important in writing studies because language is changing. The way we look at writing now as opposed to the way it was looked at many years ago has changed drastically. Social media sites have invented this new language that we as users often write with when we are trying to receive opinions from friends, for example; emoticons, the way of describing, and the language we use to show how eager we are to receive information. Depending on the specific language used on the Facebook status depended on the responses it received. While very simple directions did not receive much input more detailed statues received greater responses. These detailed statuses exhibited content of social media language in addition to formal writing in a way that drew the reader’s attention.

            In conclusion I found through my finding that Facebook can be a helpful source for college students if you word your directions and descriptions of what needs to be done carefully and detailed. Mildly detailed status/events will not give you the results you are looking for unless the question you posted is straight forward and directly asked. In regards to Facebook groups they can be very helpful if everyone in the group is willing to compromise with one another and get work done without going off topic. When students are asked to be a part of a Facebook group to work on an assignment they are more likely to discuss off topic situations and not focus solely on the material needed to be worked on.

            The use of Facebook for help in class assignments have proven to be effective when used correctly. I personally believe that college students will continue to use Facebook to their advantage and keep asking their friends for help on assignment. I still believe that the main focus on Facebook is the social aspect of it but its use for academic purposes will continue to be used and I feel that in the future students will come up with more creative ways to gain information from their friends.

Work Cited

 Villiers, M.R. (Ruth) de. "Academic Use of a Group on Facebook: Initial Findings and Perceptions." Proceedings of Informing Science & IT Education Conference (InSITE) (2010): 173-190.

Blog 28

Evaluating Final Draft

Focus (45 points)
I clearly state my research question and the importance of the research in the last paragraph of my introduction. I also concluded its importance in my conclusion and used the information from my introduction in my conclusion. I present clear statements of my data throughout my essay and many times refer back to my literature review when making comparisons. I set up background information in my introduction about what Facebook initially is and what many people use it for while also introducing the idea of using it to help you with class assignments. The data presented in my connected to my focus and I refer back to a lot of it throughout my paper. Earned: 42
Audience/genre (40 points)
I feel that my opening statement in the introductions draws the readers attention. I also gave each section a catchy title to engage the reader. The language I used was formal yet relaxed and I feel that the reader will have an easy time understanding my paper. I also referred back to the two sample research papers on the blog to ensure that my presentation of the writing was acceptable. Earned: 40
Organization (30 points)
I feel that my overall organization was written well. My data was presented in the right places and given explicit detail. One idea always leads to the next one Each opening to my sections are clear and gives the reader an idea of what will be discussed in that section. I used code words throughout my paper when referring to aspects of Facebook language. I made clear headings to let the reader know what to expect in that section. Earned: 25
Development (30 points)
The details from the data I feel support what I am trying to prove. The examples used show how different forms of using Facebook for class assignments work and people need to do in order for it to be effective or not. I feel that my discussion is connected to my research throughout my paper based on my findings and how it related.My discussion was in-depth and gave good insight to different views. Earned: 28
Correctness (5 points)
My writing is clear and all periods, punctuation and quotations are in the correct places. Earned: 5

Total points: 140/150

Criteria: Data and Analysis (200 points)

Blog 24 and 26
I feel that my analysis of my data was clear and fit in with my research question. I believe that between my interview and my observation of direct data I had enough to prove the point that I was trying to make. While looking at my data I discovered new ideas and ways to prove how your interaction on Facebook affects the result that you are looking for. Most of my data connected to my research question. The only thing I had to change was the excerpt of the interview I wanted to use. After writing out my literature review I felt that it would have been most useful to use the excerpt of my interview that talked about what my literature review talked about because my other data did not look into that aspect of Facebook. The three blogs listed give the most in depth look into my process of analysis.

Total points: 180/200
I gave myself this grade because although I feel that I did have enough data to prove my point it was presented rather jumpy on paper. I would have liked it to flow better but I could not think of any other way for it to flow as smooth as I wanted to. However, I feel that each section of my data gives a clear analysis and that is what I intended I wish there was a way that I could have made it flow better without jumping from one topic to another.

Criteria: Writing Process (150 points)

Blog 25 and 27
The blogs above are the only blogs I used to promote my writing process in the last 2 weeks. Throughout the writing process in class however, I found that I was writing many different draft until the very end when I finally put everything together. When you look through my blog dating back from within the last month you see the progress I made throughout time. The quality of my writing definitely increased as I got a better understanding of what was expected of this essay. Another aspect that increased my writing was working on one section at a time. I feel that by doing this decreased my anxiety of having to get more than one section completed by the due date.

Total points: 140/150
I gave myself this grade because I believe that throughout my writing process of this project I grew as a writer. I deducted 10 points because I feel that I could have written more blogs that demonstrated my writing process but overall I feel that my writing process proved to work and made an effective paper.

460/500: I gave myself this grade because I believe I gave a clear and informative analysis and answered the question posed in the introductions in more ways than one. I worked really hard to make this paper flow and make sense to the reader and tried to make it interesting and attention grabbing. I proved my point based on my data and did a good job at referring back to my literature review when needed. Although it was not perfect I believe I did the best that I could do and wrote an effective paper.

Blog 27

I changed my titles, added an ending to my analysis and added a conclusion

Additions in my data analysis

This is important in writing studies because language is changing. The way we look at writing now as opposed to the way it was looked at many years ago has changed drastically. Facebook, along with other social media sites, have invented this new language that we as users often use and the way we present this language on our Facebook page can determine the responses we get from our friends. Depending on the specific language used on the Facebook status depended on the responses it received. While very simple directions did not receive much input more detailed statues received a greater input. Both statuses had a friendly language and used emoticons but a more detailed description with the emoticons received a bigger response.

In regards to my interview subject the way you communicate with the other people in your group is important. If you are willingly joining a Facebook group with students in your class without the teacher forcing it on you, you will have the freedom to write and discuss the content in any way that is comfortable for you and your group to understand. When a teacher forces joining Facebook groups you do not feel the freedom. The way you use language with your group members is different because the participation was forced and you will be less likely to complete the task that was asked of you.

Facebook Can Be Helpful Depending.. (Conclusion)

            Based on my many forms of research I have come to the conclusion that Facebook can be helpful regarding classroom assignments depending on how you approach it. The language used in statuses and events can greatly impact whether or not people are willing to help you. Based on my research I found that deeper descriptions and step by step instruction got the greatest responses from your friends, this includes events. When the content description seems tacky people will be more likely to ignore it or treat it like a normal status. Another aspect I concluded was that general questions receive a greater amount of comments when compared to surveys. People are more willing to give their opinion on a topic then to take time out of their day and do a survey.

            When comparing my literature piece and interview working on an assignment in a Facebook group is more likely to be effective when the group is willing to create it, has a mutual agreement, and is not forced. The forced group in my literature review did not have the successful experience that my interviewee had. Willing to use Facebook as a ground for academics is something that will only be effective if the members in the groups are willing to compromise.

Revisions on data analysis

Analysis of Data

In regards to my data I have interviewed one person. The interviewee will be referred to as "M" and I; the interviewer will be referred to as "R". In this interview I will focus on her group use of Facebook to help with class assignments. I also looked at pieces of information I collected from Facebook's actual site. I have gathered four status updates and one event invite and will focus on the different reactions from their Facebook friends and how particular aspects of how the individual presented the status/event impacted the type of/number of answers they received. The names of these individuals will not be given in this presentation of the data.

            In my interview with M we talked about how she used Facebook to help her with class assignments. She told me that she has used it before and one of the first times she used Facebook for a schools assignment was when she had to work on a group project and they made a Facebook group to communicate.

R: What do you typically use Facebook for?

M: For social networking with my friends, my family, my coworkers and my classmates.

R: Oh so you connect with classmates? What do you usually talk you them about?

M: Well for one of my classes we were working on a group project, and we made up a Facebook group with our class name in it and sent each other power-points and communicated through the Facebook group to get the project done

R: Oh okay, yeah I know a lot of college students do things like that.

M: Yeah it's very helpful because we all know we're going to be on Facebook at some point during the day (laughs)

R: That's cool.

She told me that it was very helpful because she was able to communicate with her classmate knowing they were right there and they would stay on the Facebook group interacting with each other until they were finished with what they intended to do. She also told me that because of the Facebook group she did not have to worry about meeting up with her group in person.

            The language in this section of the interview was very positive. The part of the interview where she laughs after saying “we all know we're going to be on Facebook at some point during the day” shows that Facebook is a positive experience in a college students life and although many people use it for solely for social purposes it is a good place to connect with classmates who are working on the same/a related school topic. Her enthusiasm shows no matter which aspect of Facebook you use it can be a good and helpful experience.

This reminded me of James Paul Gee’s example of a discourse community because I believe that Facebook has two different discourse communities, one for social use and one for groups. The way Facebook groups communicate about school projects or other situations are completely different than what the public eye sees on their home timeline. On the discourse community of the Facebook timeline you see social events of your friends, pictures and statuses. When they post statuses about school assignments the status is usually very direct and does not require much effort but when you are involved in a Facebook group regarding a big assignment, such as the group M participated in, the information discussed within that group is confined in one the space of that group. If anyone from outside of that group were to join in they would not know what was going on and that is what makes it a discourse community.  

I also found this interesting in regards to my literature source because they say that Facebook groups are not very helpful. The difference however, between my source and my interview subject was that in my source the professor asked them to create a Facebook group to connect with each other and my interview subject and her group chose to do the Facebook group themselves. While analyzing the interview and the literature source I came to the conclusion that when a professor orders students to do something, regardless of what it is, they are reluctant to listen because they want to do the project their way. When my interviewee did the Facebook group all of the students in the group agreed to this and were willing to take time out of their day to focus on their assignment through the Facebook group.

While conducting my research I also analyzed different ways people worded their statuses/events while asking for their friends help. Some people used formal language and some people used “social media language” meaning it was informal and they used emoticons in their statuses. Out of the five statuses that I analyzed only two of the statuses were formally used. The other three used social media language to try to get people to help them out. Another aspect that I found interesting was out of the five statues/events three of them were surveys and two of them were just questions stated as a status. There was also only one event as opposed to four statuses.

In one particular status all the individuals wrote was something very simple that did not give much detail about what needed to be done when referring to a link for her friends to take a survey, this only received one comment. Another individual posted a more formal status explaining to his/her friends what the survey entailed and about how long it was going to take. This individual used a little bit of social media language with two emoticons but most of her grammar was accurate and she had capitalizations in the right places. This individual received four comments on the status. While comparing each of the statuses I realized that people are not going to want to be bothered on social media sites with other peoples school work if it is not well explained. People assume that this discourse community is mainly for social use and if you post the school work you are doing without the proper punctuations and capitalizations people will be more likely to overlook it because it was not seriously presented. Unless the person puts a detailed description of what needs to be done people are not going to want to be bothered.

                Out of the five statuses/events I analyzed three of them were surveys and two were just questions. While looking at the four statuses (I will talk about the event later) I noticed that more people are willing to comment on a status that is just asking a simple question rather than directing you to an external link to take a survey. In the two Facebook statuses asking to take a survey they only received a total of five comments together. When I analyzed the two questions that were posted they had a lot more comments and people willing to give their input. The formal/informal writing did not seem to come into effect here because both statuses had a lot of good answers.

                I personally posted up a Facebook status asking “Should junk food be allowed in public schools? Why?” While analyzing the answers I received on the status some were helpful while other people who posted answers were taking it as a joke. One person posted a silly comment on my status that he/she knew would not help me in my paper, but other people posted very useful information. One person posted a very detailed reason answering my question that I found to be extremely useful and used this in my paper. It is answers like the one that this person posted that I used as a helpful resource in my paper. I received other very insightful responses and I was pleasantly surprised at how many people were willing to help me.

                The one event I analyzed however got the most responses of any of the statuses. I believe that it is because you can explain that people will be willing to read, in an event then on a status. This individual gave an extremely detailed description of exactly what needed to be done, told us how long it was going to take and gave the time period we had to do it. This person received around twenty responses and each response was short and but gave exactly what the individual was looking for, which is all this person wanted.

While looking through Facebook I noticed that the people that have done this again were people that received an ample amount of responses the first time around. The individuals that did not receive good feedback seemed to be reluctant to do it again although, I did come across one person who attempted to do it again. This person changed their wording and although, they still did not use proper punctuation or capitalization they did receive a few more responses then they previously had.

This is important in writing studies because based on my analysis and observation on the Facebook statuses/events depending on how you word your status can affect the amount/type of responses you receive. Like I stated before, the way the statuses were posted when only asking question did not necessarily make a difference but when regarding surveys the way each description is stated and the directions given affected the amount of responses the person received. In regards to my interview subject the way you communicate with the other people in your group is important because if you are willing to be in the group you will get your work done but if you do not want to be participating in the Facebook group you will not be as willing to complete your work while in the group.

Blog 25

I got some good ideas on how to revise my essay when I presented it on Thursday.

• Look at Gee's definition on language and figure out what the language in my interview and data is doing
• pick 3 sections
• characterize content
• list what the Facebook group provided
• characterize language
• state 1-2 sentences what sections shows in focus (evaluate)
• go back to data- see if "what's important" is in other places
• look around Facebook site and keep track of what I find

Content: states that she uses Facebook mainly for opinion based essays, she posted a status

• education classes
• opinion based
• psych classes
• fact based
• she is friends with a lot of people from her classes on Facebook
• her answers are short and to the point
• the example she gave me also involves advice with teaching
• expresses positively about feedback she got but strictly states opinion is the only way you could use Facebook

blog 24

Introduction

Facebook is one of the internet’s most popular websites to date. In less than ten years Facebook has accumulated over one billion users. Facebook was initially made for students who attended Harvard University to navigate and find each other but quickly escalated to other colleges in the area. It gradually started making its way to other colleges around the country and is now open to anyone who is the age of thirteen and older. Today people use Facebook for many different reasons. They can connect with old friends and family, meet new people, update their statues, post pictures, and express themselves in ways that you are unable to do in person. In college and university students also use Facebook to help them with class assignments/projects. This is something that you have not really seen being done in the past but it has become relatively common in the social media site of Facebook.

Throughout the years of my navigation on Facebook not only have I noticed pictures and status being posted about a person’s social life but I have also seen people post statuses asking their friends to answer surveys or they would post a question as a status asking for advice on a topic related to an assignment they had. I have also been invited to many "events" on Facebook asking me to fill out surveys to help college students in their classes. I have used this method myself to help me on class assignments. I needed opinions on a certain topic I was writing a paper about and posted it as a status on my Facebook page. I received an ample amount of opinions and used what people told me on Facebook in my essay.

In this paper I plan on looking at other people who have used Facebook to help them with class assignments and whether it has been helpful or not. I plan on analyzing their writing techniques to get people to help them, which aspect of Facebook seemed to be the most helpful (statuses or events), and what type of help they were looking to receive. For example; opinions of their friends, actual facts or resources their friends have used to get facts. In my experience using Facebook to help with class assignments I have found it extremely helpful. I feel that because most of my Facebook friends are my age they can relate to the assignments I have. Asking other students opinions can be beneficial because they may feel about a certain topic the same way as you do but at the same time open a door to different opinions and different points of view on a topic.

Literature Review

            I could not find many articles that pertained to my topic. Most of the articles I came across were about social media sites in general and how college students use them socially. After a long search I finally found an article that was very similar to my research question. The article I looked at in regards to how individuals use Facebook is Academic Use of a Group on Facebook written by Ruth de Villiers. This articles main focus is how post grade students use the groups on Facebook in “discussions on academic, content related topics” (de Villiers, 173), whether is appeared to be helpful or not, and if contact between students was easier using the group feature on Facebook. 

Selwyn (2009) conducted a study on Facebook and “how students communicate on Facebook in relation to their studies” (de Villiers, 175). He talks about how the electronic use of Facebook can be beneficial in communication but also mentions how using Facebook can be controversial when using it for academic purposes.

His study points out how SNS can be used educationally to support communication between students in the same learning situations and also for educator-learner dialogue. In particular, SNSs provide channels for informal and unstructured forms of learning

Selwyn observed 600 students who did this by continuously logging onto Facebook and monitoring their use. He found that some of the conversation was centered around specific assignments and academic talk but he also observed general discussion about scheduling and criticizing university seminars and academic staff.

            Selwyn also found that students liked to talk about aspects of their school that are easily assessable on the school website. Students in the group also gave peer-to-peer guidance that was “based on the students’ personal interpretations, not on official guidance” (de Villiers, 175) and some of the information given was inaccurate. But the students in the group did receive some positive feedback when looking for journals and resources for certain assignments. Selwyn found that most of the comments in the Facebook group were complaints and the students were not as focused on their studies as they should have been. This was not all the students, however. The students that took the assignments seriously did not engage in the unrelated conversation and only participated in the group when the discussion was about the school work.

            Mazer, Murphy and Simonds (2009) investigated the credibility of teachers who participate in social media websites

Self-disclosure is defined according to the extent of personal information made public on an SNS by a teacher, for example, high self-disclosure involves showing pictures of one’s social situations, and communicating personal preferences and relationships

Students who found teachers on Facebook found them to be more credible and easier to get contact. “The study suggests that when personal information is publicised, students induce similarities between themselves and the teacher” (de Villiers, 175). This can be constructed in many views and is controversial because some researchers believe that by being able to obtain personal information on your teacher can cause students to not take the teacher seriously and make the teacher out to be something he/she is not.

            In conclusion this article discusses how students interact with one another over Facebook. Some of the findings in the experiments were positive such as, being able to connect to your classmates and teacher and gain ideas from your peers, but others were negative. For example; the students were found discussing unrelated topics and some of the information obtained from their peers were inaccurate. Facebook groups can have its ups and downs when regarding school work so I believe that what is author is trying to convey to the readers is to stay off Facebook when trying to complete school work.

Data Analysis (not done)

            In regards to my data I have interviewed one person. The interviewee will be referred to as "M" and I, the interviewer will be referred to as "R". In this interview I will focus on her group use of Facebook to help with class assignments and the specific event where she used Facebook independently to help her in class assignments. I also looked at pieces of information I collected from Facebook's actual site. I have gathered four status updates and one event invite and will focus on the different reactions from their Facebook friends and how particular aspects of how the individual presented the status/event impacted the type of/number of answers they received. The names of these individuals will not be given in this presentation of the data.

            In my interview with M we talked about how she used Facebook to help her with class assignments. She told me that she has used it before and one of the first times she used Facebook for a schools assignment was when she had to work on a group project and they made a Facebook group to communicate.

R: What do you typically use Facebook for?

M: For social networking with my friends, my family, my coworkers and my classmates.

R: Oh so you connect with classmates? What do you usually talk you them about?

M: Well for one of my classes we were working on a group project, and we made up a Facebook group with our class name in it and sent each other power-points and communicated through the Facebook group to get the project done

R: Oh okay, yeah I know a lot of college students do things like that.

M: Yeah it's very helpful because we all know we're going to be on Facebook at some point during the day (laughs)

R: That's cool.

She told me that it was very helpful because she was able to communicate with her classmate knowing they were right there and they would stay on the Facebook group interacting with each other until they were finished with what they intended to do. She also told me that because of the Facebook group she did not have to worry about meeting up with her group in person.

While conducting my research I analyzed different ways people worded their statuses/events while asking for their friends help. Some people used formal language and some people used “social media language” meaning it was informal and they used emoticons in their status. Out of the five statuses that I analyzed only two of the statuses were formally used. The other three used social media language to try to get people to help them out. Another aspect that I found interesting was out of the five statues/events three of them were surveys and two of them were just questions stated as a status. There was also only one event as opposed to four statuses.

In one particular status all the individual wrote was something very simple that did not give much detail about what needed to be done when referring to a link for her friends to take a survey, this only received one comment. Another individual posted a more formal status explaining to his/her friends what the survey entails and about how long it was going to take. This individual used a little bit of social media language with two emoticons but most of her grammar was accurate and she had capitalizations in the right places. This individual received four comments on the status. While comparing each of the statuses I realized that people are not going to want to be bothered on social media sites with other peoples school work if it is not well explained. This discourse community is mainly for social use and if you post the school work you are doing without the proper punctuations and capitalizations people will be more likely to overlook it because it was not seriously presented. Unless the person puts a detailed description of what needs to be done people are not going to want to be bothered.

                Out of the five statuses/events I analyzed three of them were surveys and two were just questions. While looking at the four statuses (I will talk about the event later) I noticed that more people are willing to comment on a status that is just asking a simple question rather than directing you to an external link to take a survey. In the two Facebook statuses asking to take a survey they only received a total of five comments together. When I analyzed the two questions that were posted they had a lot more comments and people willing to give their input. The formal/informal writing did not seem to come into effect here because both statuses had a lot of good answers.

                I personally posted up a Facebook status asking “Should junk food be allowed in public schools? Why?” While analyzing the answers I received on the status some were helpful while other people who posted answers were taking it as a joke. One person posted a silly comment on my status that he/she knew would not help me in my paper, but other people posted very useful information. One person posted a very detailed reason answering my question that I found to be extremely useful and used this in my paper. It is answers like the one that this person posted that I used as a helpful resource in my paper. I received other very insightful responses and I was pleasantly surprised at how many people were willing to help me.

                The one event I analyzed however got the most responses of any of the statuses. I believe that it is because you can explain that people will be willing to read, in an event then on a status. This individual gave an extremely detailed description of exactly what needed to be done, told us how long it was going to take and gave the time period we had to do it. This person received around twenty responses and each response was short and but gave exactly what the individual was looking for, which is all this person wanted.

                Referring back to my interview, my subject stated that using Facebook to help you in school assignments is good when asking for opinions on the specific topic but not when you are trying to gather specific research. Based on the five statuses/events that I analyzed I feel that most people would agree with her statement because each status/event that I looked at was either based on a survey or an opinion question where people would give the individual their input. In my opinion, I believe that people do not want to ask questions to their friends that are too in depth or require too much detail because they are aware that most people go on social networking sites to connect with friends, not to do homework. Although I have come to the conclusion that Facebook can be helpful in many ways regarding receiving help in class assignments I believe that people will only go so far when asking their friends for help.

Blog 23

Introduction

Facebook is one of the internet’s most popular websites to date. In less than ten years Facebook has accumulated over one billion users. Facebook was initially made for students who attended Harvard University to navigate and find each other but quickly escalated to other colleges in the area. It gradually started making its way to other colleges around the country and is now open to anyone who is the age of thirteen and older. Today people use Facebook for many different reasons. They can connect with old friends and family, meet new people, update their statues, post pictures, and express themselves in ways that you are unable to do in person. In college and university students also use Facebook to help them with class assignments/projects. This is something that you have not really seen being done in the past but it has become relatively common in the social media site of Facebook.

Throughout the years of my navigation on Facebook not only have I noticed pictures and status being posted about a person’s social life but I have also seen people post statuses asking their friends to answer surveys or they would post a question as a status asking for advice on a topic related to an assignment they had. I have also been invited to many "events" on Facebook asking me to fill out surveys to help college students in their classes. I have used this method myself to help me on class assignments. I needed opinions on a certain topic I was writing a paper about and posted it as a status on my Facebook page. I received an ample amount of opinions and used what people told me on Facebook in my essay.

In this paper I plan on looking at other people who have used Facebook to help them with class assignments and whether it has been helpful or not. I plan on analyzing their writing techniques to get people to help them, which aspect of Facebook seemed to be the most helpful (statuses or events), and what type of help they were looking to receive. For example; opinions of their friends, actual facts or resources their friends have used to get facts. In my experience using Facebook to help with class assignments I have found it extremely helpful. I feel that because most of my Facebook friends are my age they can relate to the assignments I have. Asking other students opinions can be beneficial because they may feel about a certain topic the same way as you do but at the same time open a door to different opinions and different points of view on a topic.

Literature Review

            I could not find many articles that pertained to my topic. Most of the articles I came across were about social media sites in general and how college students use them socially. After a long search I finally found an article that was very similar to my research question. The article I looked at in regards to how individuals use Facebook is Academic Use of a Group on Facebook written by Ruth de Villiers. This articles main focus is how post grade students use the groups on Facebook in “discussions on academic, content related topics” (de Villiers, 173), whether is appeared to be helpful or not, and if contact between students was easier using the group feature on Facebook.  

Selwyn (2009) conducted a study on Facebook and “how students communicate on Facebook in relation to their studies” (de Villiers, 175). He talks about how the electronic use of Facebook can be beneficial in communication but also mentions how using Facebook can be controversial when using it for academic purposes.

His study points out how SNS can be used educationally to support communication between students in the same learning situations and also for educator-learner dialogue. In particular, SNSs provide channels for informal and unstructured forms of learning

Selwyn observed 600 students who did this by continuously logging onto Facebook and monitoring their use. He found that some of the conversation was centered around specific assignments and academic talk but he also observed general discussion about scheduling and criticizing university seminars and academic staff.

            Selwyn also found that students liked to talk about aspects of their school that are easily assessable on the school website. Students in the group also gave peer-to-peer guidance that was “based on the students’ personal interpretations, not on official guidance” (de Villiers, 175) and some of the information given was inaccurate. But the students in the group did receive some positive feedback when looking for journals and resources for certain assignments. Selwyn found that most of the comments in the Facebook group were complaints and the students were not as focused on their studies as they should have been. This was not all the students, however. The students that took the assignments seriously did not engage in the unrelated conversation and only participated in the group when the discussion was about the school work.

            Mazer, Murphy and Simonds (2009) investigated the credibility of teachers who participate in social media websites

Self-disclosure is defined according to the extent of personal information made public on an SNS by a teacher, for example, high self-disclosure involves showing pictures of one’s social situations, and communicating personal preferences and relationships

Students who found teachers on Facebook found them to be more credible and easier to get contact. “The study suggests that when personal information is publicised, students induce similarities between themselves and the teacher” (de Villiers, 175). This can be constructed in many views and is controversial because some researchers believe that by being able to obtain personal information on your teacher can cause students to not take the teacher seriously and make the teacher out to be something he/she is not.

            In conclusion this article discusses how students interact with one another over Facebook. Some of the findings in the experiments were positive such as, being able to connect to your classmates and teacher and gain ideas from your peers, but others were negative. For example; the students were found discussing unrelated topics and some of the information obtained from their peers were inaccurate. Facebook groups can have its ups and downs when regarding school work so I believe that what is author is trying to convey to the readers is to stay off Facebook when trying to complete school work.