My Fake Wall

My Fake Wall is a spin-off of Facebook but has educational purposes in mind. ...OK, maybe it wasn't exactly created FOR education, but we can use it for educational reasons!

 My Fake Wall allows users to create a fake facebook-look-alike account. This may sound like a play-only tool, but what if our students were to step into someone else's shoes and make a facebook account for them? ...Say, Albert Einstein? Michael Jordan? Thomas Edison? Queen Elizabeth? George from Of Mice and Men? William Shakespeare? The list goes on and on. This is a way for our students to really dig into someone else's life while utilizing the tool they love so much: Facebook.

If you're going to study a particular piece of literature, maybe you could have the students do research over the author and create a fake wall profile as part of the anticipatory set. Or, after the novel is over, you could have the students pick their favorite character and create a fake Facebook over that character.

History folks, what about impersonating a famous historical figure? Science people could ask students to research and write about a famous scientist. Math folks...you know where I'm going with this, right?


It's a biographical study that allows students to present their information in a way they enjoy: mock Facebook. Furthermore, the website says users can actually share their fake Facebook walls on their own personal Facebook accounts. So...what if you created a class Facebook page and allowed every student to post his/her fake account information onto the class Facebook wall?

Ben Franklin's fake wall. Source

...Just throwing out ideas.

I like this for a few reasons:

1. In order to create a Facebook account for another person, the creator has to know a LOT of information about that person! (Have you ever noticed how much stinkin' information Facebook wants from you?!) This encourages some research, but it probably won't FEEL like research to the students, since it's for something "fun," like Facebook. 
2. This is a more creative assignment than a regular ol' report over someone's life!
3. You could "go green" by asking students to post to the class Facebook wall, print copies of their fake accounts, or even take screen shots and e-mail them to you.

I think I'll try to use this next year!