Students Using Facebook for Good Instead of Evil

        Facebook isn't blocked at my school and it can be a huge pain in the butt, but at other times it is a really easy way to get information out to students quickly.  If I want a student to check out a link I can post it to my facebook page.  Its a fan page AKA like page, so students don't have to worry about me seeing what they post about the past weekend and I don't have to worry about my students seeing what I posted about last weekend.  You can post homework, important messages, jokes relating to your subject area and I like to slip in some articles relating to my classes once in a while too.  Facebook is the new e-mail and teaching students to use it appropriately and for legitimate reasons will be beneficial to them in many aspects of  their  future.
       More than just using Facebook to communicate with students, students can use it to communicate information about a topic.  If students create a fan page for the topic they can easily add images, videos, likes and  information relating to the topic.   It can also be a lot of fun to make up posts for the fungi kingdom.  "My chitin is chafing". Using Facebook would be especially great for historical figures or other biography type assignments.
       Another wonderful use of Facebook is to give students contact with professionals on topics.  Once again I wouldn't recommend a student befriend a random stranger but I think its OK for a student to join a Facebook group or like a page for a professional group or interest.  An example is a student a couple of years back was studying radiology and was able to like a page and ask 20,000 other people interested in radiology (most of them radiologists) all sorts of questions. 
     Facebook can be a pain to monitor but if the students are using their "powers for good instead of evil" it can be a wonderful learning tool.  Hey, like my Facebook page "Quick and Easy Teacher Tech".