Here is information about the education side of Diigo - special accounts - and benefits - for teachers!

I thought this was an interesting way to look at what students can research/read on their own and what class time should be used for - something to keep in mind as we're planning class!

Particularly appropriate for the CARLA Summer Institute on Social Networks!

Tudini's new book takes a Conversation Analysis approach, which is new to online Second Language Acquisition. It provides observable, previously undocumented insights into how native speakers and learners pursue the learning of foreign language and culture during online text chat.

Abstract from publisher - The difficulty for teachers is in understanding how to integrate, use and maintain course blogs so that they are a strong and positive educational force in the classroom. At the core of using blogs is the development of blog management strategies. Based on the authors' use of blogs in undergraduate courses, the current paper outlines an approach to blog management.

Getting ready to use Twitter - here's a checklist to see if you're ready for the big tweet time!

Explanations and tips for using Facebook as a teacher

Vol 29, No. 3 (May 2012) - this is the URL for the "current issue" - you can see abstracts, get the whole PDF if you're a member, signed in.

A new offering from ACTFL for K-12 language teachers, starting fall 2012 - in collaboration with the University of Maryland University College.

Abstract: This case study is based on an investigation into the use that a group of language learners made of Livemocha.com, a Social Networking Site through which language exchange is enabled via social media applications. The learners created profiles in the website and proceeded to interact with speakers of their target languages, reporting back on their experiences over a 10-week period. As communication between language partners can take place through several different channels, and can be asynchronous or synchronous, written or spoken, it was considered that the preferences of learners with different personality types (as indicated by responses to a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator questionnaire) might be accommodated. Several studies have suggested that the anxiety that some language learners feel when communicating in L2, especially when speaking, is reduced in online environments. Under the premise that a reduction in anxiety may lead to an increased "willingness to communicate" (MacIntyre et al., 1998), the principal objective of this project was to examine the type and frequency of online interactions that the participants engaged in with other speakers of their target languages in the Livemocha language learning community.

Abstract: This paper sets the stage for the articles selected for the special issue "Language learning and social media: (r)evolution?". Starting with some definitions of mainstream terms like "social media", "web 2.0", "social web", "social networking sites (SNS)" and "web 2.0 language learning communities". The purpose is not to "reinvent the wheel" by suggesting new definitions, but to synthesize definitions of mainstream terms and juxtapose them to similar concepts from CALL literature. We then critically discuss three key features of web 2.0 technologies (user participation, openness and network effects). Despite the fact that these three features were present to some extent in technologies prior to social media, we examine whether they take on a radically different meaning in the social media era. Research insights are discussed in the last section of the paper.