Going Where the Young People are Already – Facebook as an Ongoing Community of Learners

This paper will explore how one tertiary enabling course for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students is engaging with existing social media and going to where young people are already – on Facebook. We will argue that Facebook is helping to meet a very important need that has been challenging to solve in the past – that of continuing student engagement with the course, the lecturers and each other between the face to face learning sessions. We maintain that Facebook has facilitated a genuine community of connected Indigenous learners. Our research found that Facebook was used by students and staff in geographically dispersed locations as a place of: 1) teaching and learning; 2) Information sharing, 3)relationship building and celebration and 4) a place of student voices and affirmation. This presentation will present the findings of our research and lead a discussion about how social media technologies such as Facebook can be used to facilitate involvement of younger people in language projects.