12/03/08 A recent article on Facebook, http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2008/11/digital-youth/.
Facebook, http://www.facebook.com, is an online social networking website that was launched in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg.
Robin Ladouceur, Instructional Design Specialist, introduced Facebook. Robin began by polling the audience about their use of Facebook. Results linked here. She also shared the 7 things you need to know about Facebook document. Facebook, was originally only available at Harvard, Stanford, Columbia and Yale and then expanded to everyone. It is the 4th largest trafficked site on internet. There are over 100 million users worldwide and available in many languages. Robin showed campaign pages in Facebook for each candidate.
Barack Obama Facebook Page
John McCain Facebook Page
Facebook Politics?
Robin took users through the registration process. Users can have multiple accounts in Facebook if they have multiple email accounts. Registering with your Yale email will automatically include you in the Yale Facebook network. She took us on a tour of the anatomy of the Facebook page including the newsfeed, the profile, photos, the wall, virtual bookshelf and groups.
She suggests creating a separate account for teaching and telling students to give access to a limited profile, i.e. not having access to the student’s wall and photos. Also, creating a group for students is a good idea to keep the teaching aspect of Facebook separate.
Highlighted education sites for teaching uses for Facebook:
Educause Review: Facebook 2.0 by Tracy Mitrano
Teaching and Learning with Facebook
Course Connector
My Courses
Blackboard Sync for Facebook
No Sakai (i.e. Classesv2) sync for Facebook as of yet, so we are not able utilize
Brave New World of Digital Intimacy
Yes, even college English teachers fall for Facebook
Robin will be available Wednesday and Thursday, September 17 & 18, 2:00 – 3:00 pm at the Collaborative Learning Center service desk.
Michael Farina of the Italian Department has been teaching with Facebook for four years. He uses it to teach a language and he admits that language study is about developing relationships and therefore Facebook is a great tool to connect personally with students.
He started by having students write on their wall in Italian and now sees students updating their status in Italian. He recently arranged an entire conference on his wall in Facebook and now has people attending the conference based on seeing that information on his Facebook page.
He uses Facebook groups for students to embed images and video. Students would post assignments to Facebook so both the instructor and students can see the assignments. He wants to break down the barrier between in-class and out of class. 
He never friends students, he has students join groups instead. He also creates events to highlight department films, lectures, scrabble night in Italian. It is a great way to broadcast events to students where they spend a lot of time.
Facebook applications
Issuu application in Facebook allows you to upload documents within Facebook to share documents with students.
widgetbox.com helps you create an application and embed it in Facebook, such as a blog or other online application.
Facebook Connect will take over the login service for every site you use. Verifies identity and then connects all the sites. Video can be commented on via newsfeed in Facebook to get conversations around the content going among your students.
Geoffrey Little, Communications Coordinator in the Library, announced a YDN article that was written today about the new look of Facebook. University Library created a fan site in Facebook 6 weeks ago. 
Less formal and more extroverted presence for the University Library. Just search for Yale University Library within Facebook. Use events application for upcoming events such as Teaching w/ Technology Tuesdays. Created Library site as a fan site which means users have to become fans, rather than the Library entering their social space. Applications on the fan site include a JSTOR search, a Worldcat Search, and CiteMe, an application that creates citations for users in style format they choose. Thinking about using Facebook for Banned Books week to engage users around issues of censorship and other issues.
Copyright issues arose in the questions and answer period. The library can help sort out the issues of copyright and fair use.
When working with a class, is it better to create a group or fan site? African American Studies professor would like use in a class. Facebook becomes a bucket for posting assignments, documents, videos, etc.