Towards an Information Sharing Pedagogy: A Case of Using Facebook in a Large First Year Class

One of the challenges of using multiple dialogues from a transdisciplinary-informing network of heterogeneous collective of Informers and Clients is appropriating the channel to cognitively shift agents. The role of Facebook as an Informing Network and how both Informers and Clients transform in the process of use has not been exploited. The convergence of agents’ cognitive shift and transformative effect during use, paves a way for Information Sharing Pedagogy of heterogeneous informing networks. The paper reports on a study of 850 first year students, over 400 Facebook postings, and employs a Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) to uncover tensions between the informality and identities of learners in Facebook environments, and the educators’ conceptions of academic uses of Facebook. The paper concludes that an Information Sharing Pedagogy of an informing network balances demands for academic networking, protection of identity of agents, and safeguards learning interests and expectations of less confident, academically challenged learners.