Why a course blog and not a Facebook group? #eng112

Having fielded a couple individual emails posing this question already, I thought an actual blog entry might provide a better answer. This is a quick-and-dirty answer, though, so I encourage further discussion in the comments and in class tomorrow and/or Thursday.

1. I don't have a Facebook account. There are a host of reasons why (disillusionment, privacy, security, Zuckerberg).

2. Class Facebook groups have been tried (and failed) in the past. Again, a host of reasons why (bad implementation, creepy treehouse, student disengagement). 

3. In my view, college-level courses should involve some level of new challenges. If everyone's already on Facebook, where's the challenge and learning?

This need not be the last word on it, though. I welcome any/all comments here and, if need be, we can discuss it in even more detail face-to-face.

8 responses
How can you be too disillusioned for Facebook when you use Twitter? Twitter's a whole level deeper in the Inferno! #eng112
Not disagreeing with your main point btw, but being the Devil's Advocate is so much fun! #eng112
I had way too many high hopes for Facebook. I envisioned all manner of conversation about issues trivial and important. I anticipated Instead, I had a news feed full of inane updates from people I hardly knew anymore (or wished I didn't know in the first place) and no engagement with the stuff I posted there. And the very concept of "friends" on Facebook was something I just never accepted. Plus, the ever-changing Terms of Service just got to be too much for me.
That said, I don't forbid anybody from creating an #eng112 Facebook group. I just can't be part of it. Nothing can pull me back to that manipulative social network.
I tried it for almost two semesters, roughly a year ago. I had already tried MySpace, back in the day.
1. I also no longer have a FB account. Reasons in line with yours.
2. The biggest failure beyond creepy treehouse syndrome was really the students who were NOT already on FB. They felt pressured to do what the "cool kids" were doing, and it complicated what was supposed to be easy-ish.
3. I used FB b/c I wanted to be where students already were (yes, no new challenge, but also no new tech I had to teach them). (Bad idea, but I and trainable and did learn.)
Lessons learned: the college is there for many reasons, but above all, maybe, as structure and buffer, as the sort of facade FB cannot provide. FB collapses what the college holds in place. Hierarchy is a good thing. The millenial student is a myth.
And last lesson: I'm (and you, James, too,I guess, are) too cool for FB.
The reason I brought it up was because I thought it would be easier to communicate as a class, while outside of class. Not as a replacement for posterous or twitter but to be more comparable to blackboard. Maybe twitter will prove to be similar to facebook and provide an outlet for us as a class.
Amen to that, Erik
The Blogging seems like it will work but its hard learning a new system