Groups

Hi, my name is Vikki Vaughan. And today, we'll discuss a really fun part of Facebook, connecting with others through groups. Groups are a part of Facebook that allows us to communicate about shared interest with other people. In this workshop, we'll explore how to join or leave an existing group.

This series is designed for people with low vision. If you use a screen reader, be sure to check out Hadley's screen reading version of this series.

You know, we can create a group for anything, our family reunion, our book club, or our favorite hobby. But we don't have to create a group to enjoy this part of Facebook. There are loads of fun groups that would love to have us as members. Let's start off by joining an existing group.

Hadley has many wonderful discussion groups, and one of my favorites is Tech It Out. We'll search Facebook groups and see if this great discussion group has its own page. We're already logged in and we're on our homepage. In the left pane, we find a list of various pages. We'll use our mouse pointer to select groups.

In the search bar at the top, we'll enter the name of the group we're looking for. Let's type Hadley Tech It Out in the search field, and then press Enter.

In the middle of our page, we see our search results. At the top of the list, we see the Tech It Out group we wish to join. Let's use our pointer to select the Join button. The button changes from Join to Visit. We can then select the Visit button or just select the group name to explore the group's Facebook page.

Here we can catch up on any group rules, the most current topics of conversation, and upcoming discussions. If we can't join a group on their Facebook page, it might be because the group administration doesn't allow outside accounts to join their group. A good example might be a family reunion group.

Facebook provides a handy tool for those times when we want to search for a particular topic in a group. Let's use Hadley's Tech It Out group to learn more about this tool.

Just below the name of our group, we will use our mouse pointer to select the search tool that looks like a magnifying glass. This opens a new window and our cursor lands in the search edit field. Let's type in digital assistance and then press the Enter key to try it out.

Our search results show us multiple posts about our topic. This search tool helps us find just what we're looking for within our group's post.

Facebook also provides a tool to notify us when a topic of interest is posted. Let's say we're particularly interested in post about updates to our phones. We find Tech It Out has posted about an upcoming discussion on this topic. In the top right corner of the post, we find three dots. These dots indicate there's a menu with more options to explore. Let's select it with our mouse pointer.

In the dropdown menu that opens, we find the option to turn on notifications for this post. Let's select it.

In the bottom left corner, a quick notification tells us that the notification for this post has been turned on. Now whenever someone comments about this post, we will be notified in our notification menu in the top right corner of our newsfeed.

You know, there might be times when we no longer wish to be a member of a group. Our final task today is to explore how to leave a group. We'll start out on our homepage by selecting the home button at the top of our page.

In our left pane, we find a list of various parts of Facebook. Let's select groups with our pointer. Toward the bottom of the left pane, we find a heading entitled Groups you've joined. We scroll down the list by selecting and dragging this small gray bar on the right side of the pane. We select the group we wish to leave to bring up their page.

To the right of the group name, we find a button entitled Joined. When we select it with our pointer, it opens a dropdown menu with several options. We use either our down arrow key or pointer to move down to the Leave group option. When we select it with our pointer, it opens a dialogue box. We are asked, do you want to leave Hadley Tech It Out? It also tells us that we have the option to either turn off notifications for new post or report this group. Let's select the Leave Group button.

We're taken back to the group's page that we visited when we initially joined the group. In today's workshop, we explored one of Facebook's most popular features, groups. We learned how to join a group and leave a group. I'm Vikki Vaughan, and I thank you for joining me.