Using online social networking for teaching and learning: Facebook use at the University of Cape Town

Web-based learning has made learning content much more freely and instantaneously available to students who can download course notes and readings with a single mouse click. Facebook is one of many Web 2.0 tools -wikis, delicious, YouTube, podcasts -that are listed as having potential applications for teaching and learning. Moreover, it has been argued that the current generation of youth, often described as Net Geners or Digital Natives, may be resistant to traditional methods of teaching and learning. This article explores student use of Facebook at the University of Cape Town, as well as lecturer engagement with students via the new social media. Drawing on a virtual ethnography and qualitative interviews, this article shows that while there are potential positive benefits to using Facebook in teaching and learning, particularly for the development of educational micro-communities, certain challenges, including ICT literacy and uneven access, remain pertinent.