Ask any high school student if they want an easy convenient way to access assignments and communicate. Of course they do. But, going to a teacher’s website is too much hassle. Students are always checking on their social media accounts to see what others are doing. So put homework assignment and other communications from teacher there. Problem solved. 

Not exactly. Overwhelmingly, I find that student do not want the schools or teachers to have any type of access to their social media. And they tend to use a wide range of social media apps. One solution is to create a Facebook group – but exactly how does that work?

A Facebook Group page is for interaction between specific members. It is controlled by the admin (the person who creates it). Before creating a group find out how many in the proposed group already have Facebook accounts (it’s rarely 100%). Everyone in the group needs to have a profile on Facebook for this to work. However, you cannot force any student (or employee) to create an account. You must decide if this approach will be beneficial if everyone is not included.

Of course, there are social networking sites designed to accommodate groups (Edmodo, LinkedIn). Also, there is no guarantee that students (or work group) will be any more involved because you communicate through Facebook. Think of it like product placement–you are connecting what you want to say with a well-known social network just like Heineken beer was connected with James Bond. Your group may buy the idea or think it kind of weird.

1) First, create a new group leader profile that is completely separate from your personal profile.

2) Obtain everyone’s e-mail address and invite them to friend your new profile. Or you can give the group your profile link and ask them to request to friend you.

3) Members of the group can make sure that their name or profile is not paired with advertisements by selecting Account Settings and Facebook Ads to adjust privacy settings. I recommend that all members do this.

4) Create a Friends list for the group:

5) Now, group members can create a limited profile with controlled settings so that their personal information does not appear to everyone. Another option is for everyone to create a new limited profile specifically for that group.

6) Now you are ready to run your Facebook group. What exactly does that give you? As an admin you can edit the group settings, review and remove posts, remove or ban members (so they can’t even see the group page), and add other admins who can do the same thing. 

Will this work to keep students informed of their assignments and upcoming events? It’s hard to say but  you’ll want to claim it had a positive effect because of the time and effort you spent on creating and maintaining the group.