The Role of Social Networks in Empowering Teacher Education/Training/Supervision

Hi Mr Khalil!
Sharing experiences ,collaborating,researching and updating one's knowledge are vital actions to cope with the new changes ,and overcome the overwhelming issues.Hence,The role of social networks in facilitating matters in the teacher's ongoing career can't be denied.
All the best,

Hello Mr Zakari,
No one can deny the fact that the Internet has altered the way we perceive the world and the notions of time and space altogether! Reality has been supplanted by virtual reality, geographical borders dissolved under the limitless horizons of communication and contact the Internet allows. In this context, the necessitiy to master the use of ICT and tame it has become urgent.
As teachers of English, social networks would inevitably bring us, virtually, close together so that we can share experiences, documents, suggestions for better teaching methodologies etc. I'm currently a member of Ed-links-Morocco. It's a potentially growing online community of Moroccan (and non-Moroccan) teachers. I'm also a member of Moroccan teachers' yahoo-group.
All the best, Khalil.

Dear Youssef and Ismail,

Thank you for your enlightening thoughts. I am just thinking of what social networks might teach us apart from knowledge about the teaching and learning of a given world language.

Dear all,

Social networks have been designed to build a "community of inquiry" where the private world crosses into the public world, forming an environment where knowledge construction takes place.

(Garrison & Anderson, 2003)

Dear Khalil,
I would like to comment on the implications of social networks from a cultural perspective. Besides facilitating language learning and enhancing collaboration among teachers and education practitioners, social networks, certainly, have cultural dimensions. I think they could be a vehicle for world peace and inter-cultural understanding through the promotion of cross-cultural dialogue. Social networks could be, in the words of Mary Louis Pratt, that "contact zone" which is the social spaces where cultures meet, clash and grapple with each other resulting not only in the construction of knowledge but also in the construction of new identities.

Hello Mr Zakari,
Thanks for sharing your post on the importance of social networks.I totally agree that networking is very essential for a teacher to grow.It enables teachers to easily learn from people throughout the world as they are globally connectet to people who share resources,ideas,advice,suggestions and techniques.It also helps them to stay engaged in education.Not only do social networks put an end to educational isolation,but they promote communication,cross-cultural understanding and peace as well.

Dear Yamina and Youssef,

Thank you for your valuable input and for highlighting the cultural dimension of social networks.

We are thankful to you Yamina for reminding us that social networks can also promote peace and mutual appreciation.

Dear Khalil,
I find your posts on the forum topic:"ICT in Teacher Training" very interesting.I love the idea of incorporating teachers into professional networks in order to raise their interest in using new technologies and to recharge them.I think that today it is not merely desirable,but essential for a teacher to join a professional network so as not to stagnate.I am a member of ed-Links-Morocco,and I must acknowledge that it is constantly helping me to develop.
Many thanks for raising very interesting topics and sharing your thoughts and insights.
Best regards

Hi All!
It would surely be interesting and useful if some leads/ links to such professional networks can be provided for use by those who are not very much into it.The opportunity to connect with others in the same field would be really beneficial and might show us new ways and strategies of doing things in our classrooms.

Hi Bindu!
If you click on the following link,you will be able to meet colleagues from all over the world,and have access to professional development resources.
http://ed-links-morocco.ning.com/

Dear Yamina,

Thank you for spreading the word. I am setting up a list of social networks for teachers of English to visit and/or sign up with. Thank you for being here.

Hi dear colleagues,
I am overwelmingly astonished to find this hot and critical give and take debate triggered by the issue of ICT.

As the saying goes "who dares to teach must never stop to learn" and learning in this context may take many aspects among which learning from each other's experiences through ICT that is becoming invisible and embedded in our daily practices, meaning it becomes normalized. As an example, pen, jeans, watches are all technologies which have become normalized to the extent that we hardly even recognize them as technologies.

CIAO
Mahmoud SEEDIK

Dear Bindu Bajwa and all,

These are a few annotated teachers' networks and blogs. The list is by no means exhaustive. More links will be added soon.

http://ed-links-morocco.ning.com

http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/

http://www.futureofeducation.com

http://tech-in-sped.ning.com/

http://www.classroom20.com

http://mienglishteacher.ning.com/

http://www.edweek.org/tsb/articles/2009/10/01/01ning.h03.html

http://www.edweek.org/ew/events/chats/2009/11/12/index.html

http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/2848

http://www.englishcompanion.com

http://www.englishteacherlink.com/

Ophelia

I will be glad to have you join Ed-Links-Morocco (http://ed-links-morocco.ning.com), befriend members and see how a teacher's network can open up professional development horizons.

dear Bindu Bajwa

I will be glad to have you on board Ed-links-Morocco (http://ed-links-morocco.ning.com), a community of teachers, supervisors and researchers who are committed to serve English Language Education, Create, Communicate and Contribute.

Dear all,

Back to the "Community of inquiry"... Just came across an article that highlights the Social Presence in Online Courses and thought you might want to have a look at it:

http://www.edtechtalk.com/node/4727

Enjoy reading!

Hi Mr Khalil,
From the foregoing contributions it was made clear how crucial and significant social network is in empowering teachers' practices. In this contribution,I will show how Social networking can boost teacher's motivation and enthusiasm.
A myriad of teeachers are carrying out amazing educational projects at their schools and outside, some are writing short stories and poems, others are writing articles for famous newspapers, some are conducting researches and coming up with findings, others are active in the civic society, but this enthusiasm is likely to fade away if it is not watered from time to time with words of appreciation and recognition. Teachers get frustrated and totally dissapointed and likely to stagnate and fossilize if their piece of work/ output don't trigger even a sarcastic word. Recognition and praising of one's work is a push forward towards more hardwork and production.
Social networking permits any willing teacher to publish his/her creative ideas and works to the whole world and receive positive and negative comments that inject him/her with new blood that keep him enthusiastic and highly motivated to do his utmost in sharping his creativity and make his literary or scientifif work appeals to others.

Ciao
Mahmoud SEDDIK

Hi Mr Zakari,
Thanks for the article.It's ,really,informative,and the Chat Transcript is a fun.

Ismail,

Dear Khalil,

Thank you for the wonderful work you've done. It will certainly help many teachers to become more motivated and satisfied with their job.

Hi dear colleagues,
Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.Many thanks to you,Mr Zakari for sharing these useful links and for providing me with the opportunity to benefit from these fruitful discussions.I am really glad to be here.

Hi everybody,

Much technology-facilitated social networking is done in the form of person-to-person exchanges that can be classified as question and answer, point and counterpoint, announcement and support ...
Please do have a look at the following video that illustrates clearly the notion of social network

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a_KF7TYKVc

Dear all,

I am so glad the forum is bringing about much debate and cogitation. Thank you for your contributions... I am expecting more.

Thank you Ophelia for your encouraging words. That was Bindu Bajwa's idea initially.

Thank you Mahmoud for the link to the video.

Dear Ophelia and all

I've just bumped into a nice article labeled "Social Networking Tools for Teacher Education" which will bring too forums together, namely ICT in teacher education and the role of social networks in teacher education and supervision.

This is the direct link to the article:
http://www.westga.edu/~bmckenzi/word/social_networking.pdf

Enjoy!

Dear Khalil,
That was really generous .One now has a lot to start with .Will surely join up and keep in touch to seek help when needed:)

Dear all,
Personally,I think sustaining our professional development can only be achieved through joining social netwoks and being willing to tame the new technological tools.Social networks make teachers open to the great learning concept;collaboraion.Being a member of ed-links-Morocco helped me not only to see the value of collaboration but also to fight information and computer illiteracy.Joining professional networks is what we need to keep up with what is constantly changing around us.It is the best way to keep our professional interests alive for the benefit of our learners.I do believe in" TEAM:Together Everyone Acheives More"

Thank you dear khalil for the link to the interesing article.

Hi Yamina,

Could you, please, help keep records of the links to the resources that are being suggested/recommended by our colleagues.

It will be great if we can assemble a webliography on "The role of social networks in empowering teacher education/training/supervision" and share it with Ed-Links-Morocco members.

Thank you in advance.

Dear Khalil,

Here are some social networks .I hope they will be of some help to our colleagues:

http://teach-with-internet.ning.com/

http://digitallearningexperiences.ning.com/

http://ncte2008.ning.com/

http://www.lessonsplanned.com/

Thanks, Yamina.

Thank you Yamina for the suggested links to more professional networks. Thank you Bindu Bajwa for your continuous support.

Hi dear Khalil/all,
Here are some useful links.I hope you find them useful.
http://www.fatclass.com/
http://www.teacher9.com/
http://www.teachade.com/
http://www.jorum.ac.uk/
http://tech-in-ed.ning.com/
http://www.learncentral.org/
Regards,
Tarik Boussetta
Global Issues Forum co-moderator

Hi dear Tarik,
Thank you for the useful links.I congratulate you on the great job you're doing as a moderator.
Best wishes

Hi Khalil and everybody!

I'd like to add another link about a wonderful community of teachers who like sharing tools, ideas, projects and teach each other:

Every year they set up an online session called "Becoming a Webhead (BaW)", where participants learn how to use new tools and help each other.

These are the links for this group and this year's session:
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/baw10/
http://baw2010.pbworks.com/Getting_Started

As somebody may have heard, ning has decided to stop providing free network services, therefore some of the nings may not work anymore.

ATTILIO

Hi all,

Here are other links to some professional netwoks.I hope

they will be useful.

http://teachers20.ning.com/

http://globaleducation.ning.com/

http://iteachilearn.ning.com/

http://isenet.ning.com/

http://voicethread.ning.com/

http://edubloggerworld.ning.com/

Regards,

Yamina

Thanks galimber, Yamina, Tarik and all for your comments, suggestions and recommendations. Thanks for sharing all those valuable resources and connections with Ed-Links-Morocco.

Ed-Links-Morocco is keeping record of suggested platforms, networks, groups and blogs. Suggest more of all these, please.

Dear Khalil,
I am keeping record of the links to the suggested resources.The idea of sharing them with ed-links members is great.I find the topic"The Role of Social Networks in Empowering Teacher Education/Training/Suprvision"very interesting.I suggest you post it as a blog for ed-links members to discuss.I'm positive that our colleagues will engage in fruitful discussions.
Kind regards,
Yamina

Hi dear Khalil,
The following is a PDF document that I find useful :

http://cdwg.discoveryeducation.com/web2.0/Web2.0.pdf

Hey,

My name is Brad, and I work with Adobe. Have any of you checked out the Adobe Education Exchange? This is a great resources and network for teachers consisting of almost 2,000 members. Here the link http://edexchange.adobe.com/pages/home hope this helps!

Hi Brad,

Thanks for the link.What I am trying hard to learn is how to Generate lesson plans with Adobe Acrobat... Fascinating!
check: http://edexchange.adobe.com/posts/7625821cab

Salom dear Khalil Zakari and EVERYBODY!
I’ve created a Ning "uzbekespteachers" too,the related link is:
http://uzbekespteachers.ning.com/
Our Social Networking made very Successful use of ICT enabled technologies to Uzbek English teachers :
1.Encouraged collaboration in dealing with day-to-day issues that Uzbek English teachers face in their EFL context;
2.Shared data and experiences from which an Uzbek teacher's project can be developed;
3. Provided Uzbek English teachers with a REAL LOCAL VOICE..
But today our Ning is blocked..
We were 34 members there ,some from abroad , others- mostly from Uzbekistan.
Some Ning Events were successful fulfilled and therefore wiped away by Ning administration.
Dear Khalil Zakari,
I like your presentation very much!
Unfortunately , providing Social Network of Uzbek English teachers with a real local "voice" is not possible here anymore.. We cannot pay for platform/server hosting services and must migrate.
I would be very grateful if someone can recommend us :How to survive and Where to migrate?
Halima ,the moderator