Facebook Builds Student Confidence and Learning by Susan Angelis (February, 2019)

One of our San Juan Adult Ed teachers, Susan Angelis, uses Facebook as a technology tool for her students. Through using the Facebook app, the students learn job skills and preparation, available community resources, networking, confidence building, and collaboration. Susan uses her two private Facebook class groups as Distance Learning. Most of the listening, reading, and writing homework she assigns is done on Facebook. She and the students post the class lesson and board photos. The students can access the program using desktop computers, iPads, tablets, Chromebooks, and smart phones anywhere. The students make their posts in Facebook by navigating the Internet using multiple search engines, Google drive, and websites to research academic topics. They learn how to use the privacy settings. They use online dictionaries to do spell check and websites to do grammar checks and cameras on their smart phones to photograph important lessons that they can transfer to Facebook, to post photographs of class activities and family photos showing their assigned activity such as going to the Library. The also learn the concepts of timeliness, to follow the rules set up for the private group, how to post, edit, copy, paste and delete posts. They learn the basics about Internet scams, hackers and become more aware of internet safety. 

The Facebook curriculum teaches:

• keyboarding skills (capitalization, punctuation)
• research skills
• English skills (listening to videos, reading articles, writing sentences, asking questions, using new vocabulary)
• conversation skills
• social English (life events, jobs, successes)
• social interaction
• technology skills
• accountability (messages about why they were absent)
• independent learning (to learn about homework assignments, view the photos of the classroom board from the day before, read announcements, and study for tests)
• leadership skills (academic posts, correct one another's grammar and spelling mistakes, take on classroom jobs)
• team work and collaboration (students support one another and respond to each other's questions and posts)
• job interview and resume tips
• community resources available
• students to be more involved in their children's education, back to school nights, open house, library nights, field trips, etc.
• American laws, culture, and holiday information
• Networking amongst the class on Facebook (share job interview experiences, certification process for certain jobs, job openings, travel experiences

Using Facebook to build students' confidence

• learning English and practicing writing, reading, listening, and speaking
• students are encouraged, acknowledged and rewarded for their Facebook participation, performance, keyboarding skills, research skills, and language improvement
• compliments come from the teacher, classmates, even the Principal and Vice Principal
• and the students set examples for each other: for example, when a few students post photos of going to the library with their children, or read with their children, go to the park or museum with their children, many students follow and post the same with their families.

How could you use Facebook in your classroom? What surprises you about the success of this teacher in using Facebook as an instruction forum?