Emerging use of social media for educational purposes has been observed. Due to the popularity of the media, some schools use Facebook in their day-to-day educational practice. This report presents an analysis of this practice in terms of Information Architecture design, revealing a system with extended features such as personaliza- tion, interaction and user generated tagging options. Persuasive Technology analysis furthermore illuminates processes that enhance communicative practices between pupils and teachers. This includes simulations of physical environments and different levels of private and public spaces. Pedagogical and psychological aspects of using the social media of Facebook are being presented and discussed in relation to persua- sive technologies.
To investigate the applicability of the analytical findings to compulsory education, qualitative workshops involving teachers and pupils has been conducted. The work- shops were intended to reveal the users’ tacit knowledge and find relationships be- tween pupils’ and teachers’ perceptions of key features of the social media. Work- shop results and analytical findings have been compared to existing research focused on social media in different educational levels.
The outcomes of the analysis and workshops are used to make ten concrete sugges- tions for the design of online future educational platforms.