Facebook in My Future Classroom

Example #1:  In my future classroom, I would love to utilize Facebook for fun, creative assignments.  One way in which I'd like to take advantage of Facebook would be to assign each student in my class from a particular novel.  Naturally, we would read the story as a class over a series of days, and the children would be instructed to take extensive notes on their particular character.  Then, I would announce to the class that they were to create a Facebook profile for their character, complete with friends, wall posts, interests, events, groups, etc.  Also, I would make sure that the assignment was completed in the classroom over a series of days, so as to monitor the children's use of Facebook, as well as to protect them from anything harmful or against privacy regulations.  Finally, I'd have the class get together and present their character profiles one at a time, in order to work on public speaking and socialization skills.

Example #2:  As stated previously, I'd love to utilize Facebook in a creative way in my future classroom.  On Facebook, there is an app that allows students to post their personal book reviews for their classmates and instructor to read and evaluate.  In my own classroom, this app would be useful if I were to assign book reports on a series of books with similar topics, such as books centered around the Civil War, abolition, the Bubonic Plague, animals and their environments, etc.  I would have my students hand in a rough draft that I would correct and pre-approve, before allowing them to post their review to Facebook.  Once everyone has a review posted, I would take some class periods to go over each review with the class, so that everyone could learn various aspects of the subject topic in depth.  This way, the students would have a fun, alternative method for reading, reviewing, and learning about a particular subject.