File-sharing for facebook groups is here. For some folks anyway.

According to Mashable, the file-sharing feature was rolled out to members starting yesterday, and will continue over the next several days.

“We started to roll out file sharing for all groups,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement reported by zdnet.com. “We previously launched it to Groups for Schools and now we’re making that feature more widely available. It’s only out to a small percentage right now, but we’ll be rolling it out to all groups soon.”

How to use it

I’m going to be honest here–it’s simpler than an email attachment. If you’re logged into your facebook account and on a group page, click “Upload a File,” and browse for the file you’d like to share.

Scoring guides, rubric, project instructions, syllabuses (syllabi?)–most traditional classroom media. And while documents and presentation files (ppt) are among the shareable media, music isn’t among them due to, ahem, copyright concerns.

• Size limit is 25MB–plenty for most documents, presentations, and image files. (You want more? Use SugarSync.)
• Files can be made viewable only by members, or for full public access.
• Insidefacebook.com reminds us that facebook acquired Drop.io in 2010, though they had no involvement in this development.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Should you use it?

Facebook launched Groups for Schools in April, allowing file-sharing and group communication and planning. However, requiring a .edu address clearly gears it towards higher-ed applications rather than K-12.

Edmodo has long-provided file sharing. If you want facebook-like functionality without dealing with facebook itself, it’s an excellent alternative.

But if your goal is to share a simple media file with a facebook group you use anyway, then you should definitely give it a shot.

Otherwise, this development really isn’t huge news. (But almost a billion people use facebook, and educators share files so we had to report it.)