Note: Kerrie Smith asked me to share some info about how use Facebook via a Tweet, and adding a comment with URLs on her blog got all too hard, so im posting it here! You can view the posts it relates to on Kerrie’s Blog here and here.

Hi! My name’s Jo Kay and I’m a Facebook addict! You can view my FB profile here. hehehe!

Joking aside, I use Facebook from both a personal and a professional perspective, and despite the random apps (quizzes, mafia wars, superpokes etc) I do find it a very useful tool.

From the professional perspective, I use Facebook as a communication channel for the community of practice I facilitate on the Islands of jokaydia in Second Life. We have created a Facebook Group for jokaydia and it has been very effective for promotion of events and activities, but also gives people a space to connect with us and find out more. This is particularly important for us, as it allows those who cant or arent in Second Life to connect with our activities via the 2D web. The jokaydia Facebook Group has about 300 members and growing – check it out here.

We also use Facebook to promote the jokaydia Blog via the Networked Blogs Facebook App and have an Islands of jokaydia Product Page which provides info and pathways to our various spaces/presence online.

For my own professional development:

• Via FB Status updates I engage in lots of incidental learning about various personal and professional areas of interest. My FB friends are a clever bunch and share all sorts of useful information via Status Updates on their Facebook pages.
• FB is a professional development calendar. Via the several hundred groups I have joined on Facebook I get daily updates on both online and f2f conferences, workshops, resources and events. These connections are an important part of ongoing professional development for me.

From a personal perspective:

• FB connects me with family and friends, and allows me to keep up with what everyone is doing quickly and easily – I certainly have much more dialogue with some of my aunts, cousins, old school friends because of FB.
• FB is a virtual watercooler and debriefing space – i think many freelance/home based workers use tools like FB and Twitter to gather and share with their peers informally about the days frustrations, successes and events.

Ultimately, Facebook has both good and bad qualities and its important to understand how to use it properly. For example some see it as spam city – but this can be mitigated by setting up your account alerts properly and blocking spammy apps.

A few other things to note:

• Be choosey about who you add as friends, as their contributions will appear in updates on your page!
• Be choosey about the applications you add to your profile – these can add content to your profile page, spam your  friends or include your information on application pages.
• Remember that the Facebook Terms of Service suck and they have the right to use your the data. Be thoughtful about what you publish from a copyright and IP perspective.
• Facebook pages include advertising – this can sometimes be a problem if you are using the space to communicate with students.
• Think carefully about your privacy settings. Be open and share where appropriate, but protect your privacy using Facebook settings if you are concerned.
• Check out your workplace/employer’s policies on use of social media. What do you need to disclose? Is it ok to talk about work on Facebook?
• Dont publish stuff you wouldnt like your Nana to see – she probably knows how to use Google, and so does your future employer and their HR department!

But what about actually answering Kerrie’s Question – should teachers have a Facebook presence?

In my opinion, all teachers need to have an online presence and an understanding of how to manage their digital identity. They also need to develop a personal online learning network to access fantastic professional development opportunities.

Facebook is one of a huge list of useful tools that can help teachers and students to do this and is a good option for some users. BUT there are many other tools out there, and its important to choose something which suits you!

Anyway, I will be very interested to hear what others share about their own Facebook experiences. Thanks Kerry!

And I promise I’ll update my blog with all the other things I’ve been doing very soon!