First and foremost, I was stunned to discover 70% of Facebook users are based outside the United States. I've been living in my own little bubble, haven't I?
I have to admit: I took a short break from the article to sign up for Facebook Connect, and after the better part of four hours, I'm still running in circles. As far as I can determine there are Groups, Pages, and Applications. Facebook Connect is the application part of it. That's what I don't want. I want a place for my current and former students to Connect and possibly collaborate, but I don't need the API for that. I can't be bothered with a FBML test console. I'm not building apps!
Soooooo, I created a Group. Groups are great! As an admin I get to approve members, filter wall posts and other user-generated content, and message all members. However, I simply cannot find the one little thing I want: A badge to put on my web site which A)Invites people to join the group and B)Displays thumbnails of other members.
Basically, I want the badge that's available with Connect. Lo and behold, the same thing is available with Pages!
Sooooo, I created a Page. The Page schema seems to be really wide open. For instance, anyone can "become a fan." But I don't want fans: I want a Group, with members.... and a badge on my web site.
So I have a Connect App, A Group, and a Page. The Connect is going just as soon as I finish typing this post. I'm going to kick around the Page and the Group just a bit more before I quit this thing. Hey Facebook, it should be much easier than this.
Update: What's the point, anyway? Facebook is, and will be for the distant future, completely and utterly inaccessible from our school site. Why am I bothering with this? I'm just gonna throw up a Google Friend Connect option, since all my students are on Gmail anyway.
Update: What's the point, anyway? Facebook is, and will be for the distant future, completely and utterly inaccessible from our school site. Why am I bothering with this? I'm just gonna throw up a Google Friend Connect option, since all my students are on Gmail anyway.
Hey James,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your adventures in online community building. I noticed your MyITEC badge on your blog and am surprised there isn't an easy way to setup one of those for a Facebook Group. With more than 400 million users, Facebook is likely the first online social network to reach a worldwide critical mass of users. Have you see the Facebook statics page?
http://www.facebook.com/pres/info.php?statistics
Average User Figures
--------------------
# Average user has 130 friends on the site
# Average user sends 8 friend requests per month
# Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook
# Average user clicks the Like button on 9 pieces of content each month
# Average user writes 25 comments on Facebook content each month
# Average user becomes a fan of 4 Pages each month
# Average user is invited to 3 events per month
# Average user is a member of 13 groups
It will be up to us to figure out a way to harness this platform for instructional purposes.
Cheers,
Ethan
Hi james, along with Ethan I also found it interesting that there is no easy way to organize a group in FB. I am rallying a group of friends to participate in an organized long distance bike ride. I think that I will see what I can find out and share with the class. I am sure there are easier ways to gather your students into a social group than inviting them in FB anyway. I really appreciate how focused you are on your students. It seems to be a constant subject of discussion when you participate in group dialogue. I think that it is wonderful that you put so much positive energy towards them.
ReplyDeleteDustin
James - it sounds like what you are trying to do, you will not want to use Facebook Connect. Connect needs to be programmed into your site, it works as a way for the user to login, the group thing may be the best way to go as you can make it a private group so that random users can not see it and join the group.
ReplyDeleteDustin - you might be better to create an event as opposed to a group for what you are trying to do, this will allow you to post information about the event and invite others who can then reply to the invite. You can make the event private or public and you can make it so only you can invite people or anyone can invite others.