Facebook Groups, what a disappointment

It's about time I owned up to something that hasn't worked in my classes.  A couple of weeks ago participation in my hybrid English 102 section started flagging, and so we spent some time in class discussing ways that we might re-energize ourselves.  One idea that came out of it was the creation of a Facebook Group page dedicated to the course. We're all addicted to Facebook, so I thought, why not?


That weekend I created a Group page, my first-ever experience in doing so.  It wasn't complicated: I just added a photo, built a couple of initial posts, and then sent out invitations to my students using their TCC email addresses.  I set the group as "private by invitation only" so the world didn't have to spy on us.


My goals were to have a forum outside of Angel that members of the class could interact, ask me questions, and be reminded (okay, nagged) towards completing upcoming assignments.  I didn't want to make anything available in Facebook that wasn't also available in Angel.  In other words, I didn't want to require anyone to participate in the Facebook experiment.


Hilarity ensued.  I immediately had two members of the class submit a request to join.  By the end of the weekend, another member of the class had somehow added himself to the group without my allowing it.  And I received several more emails saying folks were trying to join, but didn't know how to request a membership.


In class the next week, we happened to be in the computer lab for other reasons, so I spent a few minutes trying to figure it all out together.  It was true--some users simply didn't have the option on the group page, if they found it, to request a membership.  (The link that was included in the email invitations I sent everyone simply sent them to Facebook's home page, not the group page.)  Others couldn't find the group page at all, even using the exact wording I had created it under.  The ones who had successfully joined then didn't see the group status updates in their live feed, nor could they go back to the group page.  It was just gone.


I can't find a lot of other specific posts out in the world about how Facebook group pages are working for other groups, though I do see a lot of generalized angst and frustration that indicate our experience is not isolated.  Any feedback from others attempting to use the groups?


In the meantime, I'm taking another tack, and have just created a Page for "Alexis the TCC English Teacher."  You all are welcome to become fans!  This option may not allow for as much single-class interaction as I was hoping for, but at this point, if people can simply see the updates in their feeds, I'll be content.