A study on the use of facebook in informal learning contexts: What are the prospects for formal contexts?

The main objective of this paper is to examine the results of an observational study on the use of Facebook by adolescents in an informal context. The authors describe the preliminary results of the research and analyze the significant variables that contribute to improve the current, important debate about the social network as a source of information and knowledge in the matching of learning in informal and formal contexts. The above analysis is the premise for the illustration of the potential and advantages that could follow from the use of social networking in everyday teaching. The core problem of the renewal of teaching today is in fact the centre of the debate on an integrated use of ICT in teaching-learning process as re-structuring factor of the action learning systems in formal settings with respect to the cognitive, affective, socio-relational and psycho-motor taxonomic components and implications.