If the idea of being Facebook friends with your psychology professor makes you nervous, you’re not alone. That photo album from last weekend titled “Party in the USA” is probably not the image you want your professor to have in mind when grading your midterm.

Now, we at The State Press subscribe to the “Mom rule” of Facebook postings — don’t post anything you wouldn’t be embarrassed for your mom to see … on a billboard. But for those of you who appreciate separation of school and social life might be surprised to know that integrating Facebook and the classroom could actually help your grades, not hurt them.

Michael Staton, CEO of Inigral Inc., described his company’s ASU Facebook application as a social network inside of a social network. The “ASU on Facebook” application is designed for students and professors to network and interact in a way that’s beneficial for students — discussion boards, class polls and classmate lists are all new resources available through the application.

We love the idea of our professors meeting us where we’re most comfortable — today’s ASU students are Internet natives, and rather than trying to use a poorly-organized Web platform like Blackboard, Facebook is second nature for us. The positives are obvious, and if used correctly, the ASU Facebook application could become an invaluable resource for students.

But the problem with a start-up social network, even within a strong existing network, is spreading the word and getting people to join. Although ASU administrators have been marketing the application on e-mail and MyASU log-in screens, the program has been around since last summer and hasn’t yet caught on. Most ASU students either aren’t aware of the service or don’t know how to use it effectively. While the more than 10,000 users signed up is a good first step, the key to any successful social network is getting people actively involved, and the main page hasn’t been updated since October. Within the application itself, the class pages have almost no conversation happening, even though developers maintaining the site have encouraged feedback through class polls.

One of the more successful features of the application is its discussion board, where topics range from how to find a good burrito around the ASU campuses (Chipotle, of course), to questions about housing and which major will fit incoming students. These posts can be “liked” and voted on, allowing readers to choose a “best answer,” like on other Web-answer sites.

As with any revolutionary move in keeping education modern and making it accessible, this application will take time to perfect. But as we’ve seen with sites like LiveJournal and others you haven’t even heard of, if the application doesn’t take off, it will remain permanently grounded. Internet fads come and go and if the University wants the “ASU on Facebook” application to become a resource for students, it needs to get the ball rolling. And that’s something we would all “like.”