Using Social Networks
for Non-Trad Participation and
Retention
Theory and Research
Alexander Astin’s Theory of Student Involvement
 Involvement Requires Physical and Psychological
Energy
 Involvement Occurs Along a Continuum
 Involvement Has Both Qualitative & Quantitative
Features
 Development is Proportional to Quantity and Quality
of Involvement
 Educational Effectiveness Is Related to Capacity to
Increase Involvement
Facebook
http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/02/02/fastestgrowing-demographic-on-facebook-women-over-55/
Key Highlights
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Facebook reporting nearly 45.3 million active US
users in the last 30 days
Facebook growing in every age/gender
demographic. Fastest growing segment: Women
over 55, up 175.3% in the last 120 days.
Facebook growing faster with women than men in
almost every age group. Women comprise 56.2% of
Facebook’s audience, up from 54.3% late last year.
45% of Facebook’s US audience is now 26 years
old or older.
What is a Facebook Page?
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Pages are for organizations, businesses, celebrities, and
bands to broadcast great information to fans in an official,
public manner.
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Like profiles, they can be enhanced with applications that help
the entity communicate with and engage their fans, and
capture new audiences virally through their fans'
recommendations to their friends.
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You can create and manage a Facebook Page for your
organization from your personal account. Only the official
representative of an organization, business, celebrity, or band
is permitted to create a Page.
How are Pages different
from personal profiles?
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Profiles represent individuals and must be
held under an individual name, while Pages
allow an organization, business, celebrity, or
band to maintain a professional presence on
Facebook.
Fans of your Page won't be able to see that
you are the Page admin or have any access
to your personal account.
How are Pages different
from groups?
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Pages can only be created to represent a real organization,
business, celebrity, or band, and may only be created by an
official representative of that entity.
Groups can be created by any user and about any topic, as a
space for users to share their opinions and interest in that
subject. Groups can be kept closed or secret, whereas Pages
are intended to help an entity communicate publicly.
Pages also allow people to maintain a personal-professional
distinction on Facebook. If you're a group admin, your name
will appear on that group, while Pages will never display their
admins' names. Additionally, when you take actions on your
group, such as posting on your group's wall, these actions will
appear to come from you as an individual. However, if you
post or take other actions on a Page you own, it will appear to
come from the Page.
Blogger
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A free Google tool
Easy to set up
Can be stored on your college domain
if desired
Google Groups
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Groups can be used to communicate,
share calendar events, files, etc.
Yahoo also has a popular group
service
LinkedIn
Ning…an alternative to
Facebook
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"Ning, a social networking site offers teachers K-12 free and
secure (no ads!) social networking for their classrooms. Much
more user friendly and yet high tech than other networking
sites, it can be used by students to share and make a learning
community. Great discussion features, embedding, videos,
flexible and personal design. This is the future of learning!
FREE" David Deubelbeiss
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"simple and you can define the rules you need !" Florence
Meichel
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"We achieved more with Ning in 3 months than we could
achieve in 2 years with Moodle. It has helped us bring about a
genuine learning community among our students and has
enriched their experience considerably. Jonathan Lecun
Twitter… a microblogging tool
http://cooper-taylor.com/blog/2008/08/50-ideas-on-usingtwitter-for-education/
Discussion
“These are just technologies. Using them does not
make you
modern, smart, moral, wise, fair, or decent. It just makes
you able
to communicate, compete, and collaborate farther and
faster.”
— Thomas L. Friedman, Pulitzer Prize-winning
journalist