Facebook or Fakebook? By Jodi Shorma, Director of VCSU Learning Center
This fall, while observing Wendy Eszlinger, a VCSU English Education student teacher, I witnessed one of her Senior English students proudly present to the class a character analysis of the Wife of Bath, a character from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. However, the analysis was not in a typical academic paper format; instead, Wendy required her students to use Fakebook to represent their contemporary interpretation of Chaucer’s characters from his 15th century work.
Fakebook is a web-based, free and easy teaching tool from ClassTools.net. Yes, Fakebook is a close imitation of the currently popular social media tool Facebook. With Fakebook, students and teachers can create imaginary profiles of literary, historical, and fictional characters, as well as authors, scientists, historical and political figures, and the list goes on and on. Fakebook gives teachers an alternative format to the traditionally printed essay on 8.5x11 paper, in order for students to demonstrate their learning.
Wendy’s project requirements for her students’ character analyses included:
· An imaginary profile using Fakebook
· General information about the character in the About section
· A series of comments that conversationally represent the character
· Pictures
· Required Favorites/Interests sections with 6 references per section: Pages liked, Heroes, Books, Movies and Shows, Bands and Music, Hobbies, and Friends
Wendy also required her students to present their Fakebook profiles to the class via their classroom’s interactive white board. For 15 minutes, the student who created the Wife of Bath profile shared her analysis of Chaucer’s character moving from section to section of her Fakebook profile page while connecting her choice of content to specific lines in Chaucer’s work. The experience was engaging for the students, the teacher, and me!
So, what would the Wife of Bath’s Facebook profile look like? Click to view. http://www.classtools.net/FB/1608-NVpPNX
Creating a Fakebook Profile
Go to the Fakebook homepage http://www.classtools.net/FB/home-page
Your Fakebook profile page will allow you to save after text entries in a number of fields have been posted. This includes the name of the character, at least one field in the “About” section in the upper left menu bar, and a minimum of five conversation posts.
1. To name your character, click “Name here” and enter text in the text box. After creating a few posts and saving your template, you will be able to upload pictures directly from your computer via a Browse prompt.
2. To add details in the “About” section in the upper left menu bar, click “Born” and enter text in the text box. Note that any number of lines and different sets of information can be added here, such as “Hometown,” or “Favorite (object/food/etc.).”
3. The Favorites/Interests section is below the “About” section. The “Friends” block is a default, which can be renamed to match project requirements and can be duplicated by clicking the “Add New Block” button. Suggestions for block content are dependent upon project requirements. For Wendy’s project, she required her students to include contemporary Favorites/Interests in their character profiles to include: “Movies,” “Music/Bands,” “Books,” etc. Other block options could include “Conference Presentations” for scientist profiles, “Debatable Issues” for political figure profiles, “Friends of the Time” for historical figure profiles, and other options pending project requirements.
4. After completing the Favorites/Interests section, start creating your character’s conversation or comment posts. Add text in the “Name” and “Date” text boxes to construct your post. After five posts are created, you will be able to save the profile and upload images to create a visual representation of your character.
Save your Fakebook profile often. After saving, you will receive an http address to access your profile for editing and sharing with others.
Fakebook is free, easy to access, and easy to use. Its value resides in the student’s use the concepts of a popular social media tool to create a character or figure profile, his rationale for his profile choices, and his oral presentation of his profile to his class.