Social Networking in Libraries

Using facebook in the classroom as a teaching tool has been presented as an idea by many people in recent months. Most college students are already on there and so instead of fighting against it and trying to get them to go elsewhere, why not just use facebook as a library literacy tool? If you have used facebook a lot then you may realize that this site offers a myriad of applications and tools many of which can be used for educational purposes. If however, you have not used facebook very much then this may be news to you. One tool that has great potential for teaching library literacy is the poll application. This application allows you to post a poll on your profile, in groups or on any facebook page for which you are an administrator. For example, you could post a poll on your library’s facebook fan page and ask students to choose the best answer regarding a basic definition of library literacy. You could do this either in general and see who responds or you could ask for answers during a classroom library literacy session. You could also take this a step further by posting a question as a note on your fan page or in a group and asking students to respond. You could then have the students vote on who wrote the best answer by using the poll application. This is just the tip of the iceberg as there are many ways to use this application for library literacy.

Are you using facebook for library literacy and if so, how is it working for you? If not, what do you think of this idea?