As director of a large IEP, I'm interested in helping faculty in my program become familiar with technology that they can incorporate into their classes. As a teacher, and teacher trainer, my passions are materials development and continuing professional development. I've started to incorporate You Tube into seminars for new teachers.
I think that web 2.0 is a more integrated form of communicating information, where photos, video, and chats, blogs, podcasts, etc. can be combined on a webpage. Are Facebook and social networking part of web 2.0
Advantages of social networking:
reunions with old friends, meeting new people, lots of ways to bring curiosity, exploration and new learning into my life.
Disadvantages: lots of ways to waste time, perhaps add dangerous personal information to a public portal.
What's IEP and where are you located? Ditto on advantages and disadvantages.
ReplyDeleteDonna
An IEP is an intensive English program. Our students are adults (18-80), studying 18 hours/week. Most are on student visas. My program is in NYC.
ReplyDeleteNetworking is a skill that I am used to practicing in person. This is an interesting variation.
ReplyDeleteI have often found that the seemingly unrelated or glancing comment provides the most interesting yield.
So, I am all for seemingly aimless chatting.
I also agree with your list of advantages and disadvantages. Do you find that setting up such social networking activities is easy?
ReplyDeleteI agree with your advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantages that you listed cause me to be a lurker rather than a participator many times. Recently, the younger generation in my family decided to start a family relationship on facebook. They are spread all over the US and are using it to communicate. even though all the parents of the kids are not on facebook, there are several young adults (under 30's) and several in the education field. So far the youngest are posting. The 20-30's are reading and posting warnings to the youngest. And the older ones are getting to know our nieces and nephews better.
ReplyDeleteAliri-
ReplyDeleteMy students don't "afford" the community college. My programs are entirely grant supported. We write about 8 grants a year and charge $25.00 per year for tuition.
We have also endowed 6 scholarships per year to the community once students have graduated from our basic offerings.
It was pretty easy to set up a Facebook page. What's more difficult is knowing that anything that others write 'on your wall' is completely open to view. I think there has to be steady monitoring--haven't had problems yet personally. I've been thinking of setting up a class or program alumni Facebook or MySpace page,and have hesitated to do so, because it would be very hard to control membership. I'd like to explore a Wiki instead.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the advantages and disadvantages. I also think that youtube has incredible potential for all kinds of ESL learner/ teacher activities!
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