Do you often have trouble mixing Facebook and studying? The pilot web−based program Mixable was designed to help students at Purdue University do just that. Created by the Information Technology department, Mixable is a free application that Purdue students can add to their Facebook profiles, providing them with a variety of ways to integrate their academic and social lives.
"[Mixable] looks at the people that are in their classes versus who they are friends with across their entire course schedule," Kyle Bowen, director of informatics at Purdue and one of the creators of Mixable, told the Daily.
Once students are connected with members of their classes through Mixable, they can share documents and assignments with them online, as well as post to discussion boards and ask questions of their fellow students.
Professors sometimes choose to get in on the action as well, although Bowen emphasized that, unlike on a site like Blackboard.com, students are in control of Mixable.
"Some instructors choose to have students have conversations without them, but some professors go into conversation and play an active role, initiating dialogue, but it is not driven or owned by the faculty," Bowen said. "Mixable is intended to be more of a collaborative environment. … Students use Facebook as a fundamental part of their own learning process. [We] wanted to help students use Facebook as an effective self−learning management tool."
Bowen and his team are not the first to use online social networking as a study tool for students. OpenStudy.com, a website co−founded by faculty members at Emory and Georgia Tech Universities, went live in 2007 and has more than 11,000 users, according to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education published in November.
"Our mission is to make the world one large study group, regardless of school, location or background," the OpenStudy executive team writes on its website.
Andrew Magliozzi, a 2005 Harvard graduate who cofounded the website TheFinalClub.org, had a similar idea.
"I'm asking to change the default setting on education from private to public," Magliozzi told the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Some, however, have doubts about the utility and appeal of social−network style study. GradeGuru.com, a website created by the company McGraw−Hill, actually gives students "points" that can be used in the GradeGuru rewards store as an incentive to make their class notes available online. The network employed Jonathan Becker, an assistant professor of educational leadership at Virginia Commonwealth University, to help them gather information about the way that students study and learn online. Becker told the Daily that he surveyed people who use GradeGuru and followed up the survey results with four focus groups.
His results indicated some problems for sites that assume that students prefer to study together, he said.
"[Studying is] still largely an individual effort. GradeGuru is premised on the fact that students are interested in sharing their notes and collaborating, so one of the things I concluded is that GradeGuru has a bit of work to do to overcome whatever issues students have with studying with peers," Becker said.
Laura Rogers, a lecturer in the Department of Education at Tufts, said that students' attitudes toward group study really depend on the type of material they are studying.
"A lot of students think that studying involves reading material, and if they just read it over and over, they'll learn it. Most of the cognitive research on learning indicates that for some purposes, that's adequate, and most students do that sort of studying right before an exam. That's successful depending on the nature of the exam. If you mean by ‘studying' really practicing concepts and learning how to apply them … that form of studying is easier to do in a group or in some sort of interactive format — with a computer for example," she said.
Rogers added that there are other advantages to group study, including aiding students to sustain a study period for long stretches of time.
David Hammer, a professor of education at Tufts, believes that sites that allow students to share class notes and read other students' notes online could cause professors to rethink the way they allocate their class time.
"I know of students who have done a trade — Tuesday class for Thursday class — and if it's just somebody talking at them, then why not? Then you just have to hope that the person taking notes is doing a good job," Hammer said. "I try in my classes to have things happen in the class that involve thinking during class … so there is this other kind of onus to get to class."
Rogers agreed that sites like Mixable nudge professors to reconsider some of their teaching methods.
"It certainly behooves faculty members to think about what the value of class time is because if it's just to present information, there are a lot of other ways to do that that students find much more pleasant. There are any number of things that could be going on in [the] classroom other than presenting information," Rogers said.
Rogers emphasized, however, the importance of relationships between students and professors, which can be undermined by students replacing class attendance with reading notes online.
"Emotion mobilizes learning. If the professor is in the classroom interacting with students, then he can see how the learning is going and be responsive to that. There are a lot of opportunities to enhance learning through a relationship," she said.
Still, sophomore Justin LaTorraca said he would certainly be interested in using a website that would combine social elements, like Facebook, with academic elements, like Blackboard.
"I would use it maybe to meet with people about homework and stuff, either to arrange a meeting or talk online," he said.
Freshman Sonya Bakshi was not as enthusiastic about the idea of merging the two.
"I feel like Facebook is a more personal thing and Blackboard is a more academic thing, and when you mix the two, they might come into conflict," she said.
Sophomore Joshua Pearl agreed, explaining that he prefers to maintain a boundary between his social and academic lives.
"I think especially with Facebook, people don't understand where the line is between their personal online presence, their academic online presence and their professional online presence, and mixing those is counterproductive," he said.
Rogers expressed similar concern with replacing academic and social interactions with online media.
"You guys spend so much time on the computer typing. For someone of my generation, it doesn't necessarily seem like a good idea to give you more opportunities to do that. Maybe we should just offer you a coffee pot and chairs."
