The Importance of Keeping the Communication Flowing

After reading an insightful post by Vicky Loras in which she marvellously describes the significance Facebook has for professional development and making a comment on her post, I felt inspired to write about my experience in using facebook as a tool for communication with my students.

Since Vicky asked about how I deal with it, I told her that I had a similar view on Facebook as hers. I felt reluctant to open an account some years ago and just used Twitter.

I always create PBWORKS sites with my different classes as a way of sharing material with my students. My students are notified about these site updates via e-mail but they've complained about it stating they seldom check their e-mail accounts. Apparently teenagers are not using e-mail as a way of communication. Then, their suggestion was to create a Facebook group so as to receive my notifications whenever the PBWORKS sites are updated. So we did and I've got hooked on Facebook ever since.

In the case of my students I label them as 'students' and I restrict their access to my Facebook account. With my students we also use Facebook to write private messages when they can’t attend a class or if they have been absent, I send them a message asking them what happened to them and telling them about what they have missed. It’s a good way of keeping in touch. They can also ask me questions.

I believe keeping a fluent communication with students contributes to creating the necessary teacher-student rapport for the teaching-learning process to be successful.