Facebook for Network Learning Communities Development

摘要

When institutions of higher education are promoting "one-stop services" for their distance education programs, they do not appear (at the moment) overly eager to bring a tool like Facebook in the neatly bundled services currently available through their course management systems (CMSs) such as Angel or Blackboard. Higher education is not yet ready to surrender the shackles of CMSs where students' minds are (theoretically) more attuned and receptive to learning. However, other social networking tools (e.g. blogs,wikis, and podcasts) appear to be more readily adopted in distance education than Facebook. Note thatintegration rather than replacement of CMSs is the only role that these tools are currently suited for.