Group items tagged

Some of the most productive parts of the class were the weekly take-home assignments that asked the students to post comments on their social networking sites while using connected viewing technology

While the students learned a lot from the class assignments, they were initially anxious about letting an instructor into their social network. I felt it was necessary to preserve the anonymity of the students for the study so I wanted to keep their comments about the connected viewing private.

Unfortunately, the only way to ensure this anonymity was to create a “secret” Facebook group. “Secret” Facebook groups are one of three categories of groups that allow members of the social network to collaborate on a project. Though this setting allows all posts and members to remain confidential it also required me, as the creator of the “secret” Facebook group, to “friend” all of my students so that I could then add them to the group.

  38   SOCiaL-NetwOrKiNg SiteS 2001). This difference in ‘lifestyle’ gives educators reason to believe we shouldincorporate SNS usage into our class-related activities, to capture these students’imaginations and t their thought patterns and socializing habits (Godwin-Jones,2008; Winke & Goertler, 2008).However, although technology is an integral part of neomillennial students’lives, they often do not know how to use technology in ways that would benet them in computer-assisted language learning (CALL) (Dieu & Stevens, 2007;Kolaitis, Mahoney, Pomann, & Hubbard, 2006; Winke & Goertler, 2008). Suc - cessful CALL activities, then, often require a substantial training period at theoutset (Jones & Bissoonauth-Bedford, 2008; Kolaitis et al., 2006), and studentsmay be less enthusiastic about a class’s language and culture projects if the formof computer-mediated communication ( CMC) employed is not the type they areaccustomed to using (McBride & Wildner-Bassett, 2008; Thorne, 2003). A usefulresponse may be to craft CALL activities more to the practices that our studentsare familiar with (Winke & Goertler, 2008). SNSs are an obvious possibility to consider, given their tremendous popularity.If we can get our F

we can get our FL students to interact socially on SNSs, then they may beengaged in more authentic social and communicative behavior than typically hap-pens in classrooms, because “instead of merely simulating other modes of interac-tion, technology mediated communication is, in and of itself, the real thing

  40   SOCiaL-NetwOrKiNg SiteS and sites like it, knowing, socially and technically, how to re-use media in thisparticular way has become foundational for communication and creative expres- sion over the Web” (Perkel, 2008, p. 218). We can call this activity of writing/remixing the self through the manipulationof text and media ‘ self-authorship.’ Within the framework of CALL, this term refers to students authoring their own materials which can then serve as the basisfor learning and lessons. Using student-created materials as the center of a lesson ts with a student-centered pedagogy (Dieu, Campbell, & Ammann, 2006). Self-authorship activities can increase interest and time on task, and they put students in a more active role in their own learning process (Kramsch, A’Ness, & Lam,2000; Nikolova, 2002).Students must take an active role in their learning. They cannot simply be handed knowledge from an expert because understanding is the result of a cre- ative process one must work through over time with other people (Bereiter, 2002). Learning

. Curated by Evdokia Roka

my approach is much more topic based with as little grammar as possible

or at least, I’m more and more convinced that we should not rely solely on Twitter as the site for online PD or for online educator community. Both can and do exist online — PD and community — but I’d wager the best place to find both remain on educators’ blogs. I wonder if, in fact, “the future of professional development” might be a “return to blogging.”

ease-of-use

get a link to my recordings and then email it to students

Cell Phones Within the Classroom

Teachers and librarians are finding Twitter’s great for research, too. Karen Burns, a librarian at Gig Harbor High School in Washington state, created a Twitter search widget for current events in Africa to help ninth graders with their research projects.

Anderson is the author of a book about using social networking

Lara Anderson

extra workload

enhances reading comprehension, improves students’ writing skills and abilities [6].  develops writing and learning strategies [5].  has a positive impact on the content and increases the amount of writing of learners [7].  makes students pay close attention to the formal aspects of writing, both in terms of word choice, structure, and word spelling, attending to sentence and paragraph structure as well as adapting academic style, register and appropriate word [8].  Diminishes barriers to learning English by providing them the opportunity to write freely without being judged for their grammatical mistakes [9].  develops ideas and provide feedback for the authors [10].  enhances student analytical and critical thinking skills [11]  increases student motivation in reading and writing, promotes learner independence and autonomy, and enhances students’ analytical and critical thinking skills [12].

students with low English proficiency may experience difficulty in putting their ideas in order