The Social Space Station

The Bebo kids are alright

In early October I discussed an idea to engage my first-year students on their turf. My suggestion was to use the social networking sites that they inhabit (frequently during class time) such as Facebook and Bebo to discuss the course and most importantly, the final exam.I suggest reading the post Territorial Pissings to see how the students responded to the idea - in person anyway.

The exam is scheduled for tomorrow and at least one of the social networking sites has gone nuts with last minute questions.Which one?

Well, I originally suggested the big three to students: MySpace, Facebook and Bebo. Now I didn’t seriously expect MySpace to be well used because the features for controlled interactive dialogue are simply not present and as everyone knows, the interface has issues. So I figured that Facebook would come out on top as I had dismissed Bebo early on as being a little too lightweight (but what do I know?).I was wrong.

Bebo is the only service (other than a couple of friend requests and a virtual gift of buzz cola at Facebook) that students used. Man I was surprised but the more I used Bebo, the more I understood why.Bebo, despite it’s lack of relative functionality and gravitas (i.e., cheesyness) is very easy to use and kinda fun. From non-onerous profile creation, to finding friends, to uploading images and video, the usual profile commenting and mail, and the ability to share the “luv” [sic] - the appeal is pretty obvious.

Bebo is simple to use and fun - end of story.As a pseudo social experiment, I was pleasantly surprised to see that students (seemingly) embraced the idea of using their personal online spaces to converse with me about serious stuff. Consequently, I’ll try to incorporate this approach right from the start next year.

As an aside, Tumblr version 3 is great and I’m trying some new features out. On of these is comments (whether or not this kind of activity is acceptable on a tumblelog is an ongoing debate) so feel free to comment on this or any other post but you know only if you want to.Another great feature is the archive option to see the entire recent history of a tumblelog. If you have time, browse the Station.