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Social networking
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Sun, 03/22/2009 - 05:49
Online social networking is a very popular concept used in recent years. It seems that we are not in fashion if we don't belong to an online social network. However, social networks are not just a matter of socializing, having fun, sharing interests or publishing what we are doing every five minutes. Organized social networks offer excellent opportunities for communication indeed, but also, enormous opportunities to access, produce, and share knowledge. For example, in the ELT field the benefits are inmense. Do you use any kind of online social network service like Facebook, Ning, Yahoo, etc. with your students? Which ones and how? What are the advantages and disadvantages? Are you allowed to use them at your teaching place? Do you know social networks for English teachers? Would you comment about them? If you have done any research on this matter or have any academic experience on social networks, please, share it with us.
Thanks,
Evelyn Izquierdo
Fri, 03/27/2009 - 06:41
#2
Dear Leigh,
Thank you very much for the links! I also belong to a CALL Association, it is called AVEALMEC (Asociación Venezolana para la Enseñanza y el Aprendizaje de Lenguas Mediados por el Computador). We are very young. Currently, we are creating and updating our networks, as soon as they are ready, we will invite you to join us. Teadira Pérez (in one of the messages below) is our president. She will be in Cardiff. You both may meet there and exchange info about our associations.
By the way, we just created a group in Facebook. :-))) You are cordially invited.
Warm regards,
Evelyn
Tue, 03/24/2009 - 18:08
#3
A new and free wordpress-based Social Network called BuddyPress (see the demo at http://testbp.org/) can be easily installed on your own website to give you a personal SN that you can use in any way you like.You can start a mini-SN for the students of your school (with a password-protected Teachers section:)), or have a huge network.
Another interesting SN platform that you can have installed on your own website is Dolphin - it's modular, and the modules you don't need can be easily switched off. Please see the demo at http://www.boonex.us/.
Best wishes,
Andrew
http://www.elegantelearning.com
Fri, 03/27/2009 - 06:34
#4
Thank you very much, Andrew. I'll try that new social network. It sounds interesting.
Evelyn
Wed, 03/25/2009 - 00:16
#5
Hi Evelyn:
I had an experience once with a social network tool: a Ning created by Graham Stanley in our last AVEALMEC annual conference: http://avealmec2007.ning.com/
We used this Ning for socializing and adding daily information about the event. This experience allowed us to understand how this social tool works.
We are planning to activate in order to publish information about our online events.
Regards,
Teadira
Fri, 03/27/2009 - 06:36
#6
Excellent idea, Teadira! I guess that means team work. :-))
Evelyn
Wed, 03/25/2009 - 02:17
#7
Hello,
We (Languagelab) have a presence on 15+ social networks, often these were created by our students. They are used as another way for the student community to interact with us and each other.
We see the social community as central to students learning experience and social networks play a big part in supporting this.
Fri, 03/27/2009 - 06:33
#8
Dear Shiv,
I guess your own students are in charge of keeping updated all those social networks. Or, do you also deliver messages and distribute information? How do link all information provided in the different nets?
Evelyn
Tue, 03/31/2009 - 11:06
#9
Hi Evelyn,
I would like to recommend the language community www.lingofriends.com for the purposes mentioned above.
Best,
/Peter
Thu, 04/02/2009 - 00:59
#10
Hi Peter!
I had heard about lingofriends, but I had never explored it before. It looks very interesting! Thank you very much!
Evelyn
Fri, 04/03/2009 - 21:02
#11
This is Paula, from Argentina. I would like to tell and to invite you all to join the social network for teachers I started at NING http://www.teach-with-internet.ning.com/ I must say I am very pleased with the work we have been doing there. I have met very interesting colleagues and we have been sharing a lot!
I have also started a social network for my college students http://www.college-students-nertwork.ning.com/ Fell free to join it and use it with your college or university groups if you please.
For middle and high school we are about to start using http://www.learn-with-internet.ning.com/ Contributions and feedback is always welcome!
thanks a lot
Paula
Sun, 04/05/2009 - 05:53
#12
Great news, Paula. Thank you very much. Since you are from Argentina, I wonder if you have been in contact with ARCALL, the Argentinian CALL Association. A colleague and friend of mine is the president. Her name is Jennifer Vershoor. http://arcall.pbwiki.com/FrontPage You can join efforts in order to recruit teachers and train them in the ICT area.
Hugs,
Evelyn
Mon, 04/06/2009 - 01:51
#13
Good to know about ARCALL! Thank you! I will contact them! Thanks for the information.
Paula
Sat, 04/04/2009 - 18:04
#14
A group of colleagues and I started a new social networking space for sharing and brainstorming ideas on using twitter and other micro-blogging technologies in education and teaching. It is still a growing community with members sharing ideas, research findings, reports and tweets!
http://tweet4education.ning.com/
Hope to see you there,
Ismail
Sun, 04/05/2009 - 06:03
#15
Ismael:
Thank you very much for sharing. You know, I was visited the Ning and found some friends there. That was absolutely great!
Cheers,
Evelyn
Mon, 04/06/2009 - 05:09
#16
Dear all,
Since we have been mentioning different social networks for language learning and teaching, I would like to invite you to the best community of practice I've ever known. I refer to Webheads in Action http://www.webheadsinaction.org/ It is not only a wonderful network for teachers but a family. If you want to learn about technology, don't miss a second and join the Webheads. Go to their Website and also join their Yahoo Group. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evonline2002_webheads/ Today, there are 790 members.
As soon as you join them, please send your intro message.
Hugs,
Evelyn
Best way to know what social networks can do for your students is to play with one or two yourself:
Mexico English Teachers' Alliance at http://metamexico.ning.com (I co-admin this one)
and
EFL Classroom 2.0 http://eflclassroom.ning.com
I have a couple others listed in my wiki but I could use more suggestions http://virtuallanguagelaboratory.wikispaces.com/TeacherSocialNetworking
I think I saw one once based in Facebook but since Im leery of that site, I never bookmarked it.