WEEK 8 - SOCIAL NETWORKS

What is a Social Network:?
According to the Wikipedia it is a social structure made up of individuals or organizations called "nodes"which are tied or connected by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship,kinship,common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.

How do they work? They function like an online community that share  common interest. Once you are accepted into these community you can begin to socialize which may include reading the profiles of other people who are members as well and it also offers the possibility of contacting them.

What are the Advantages of these Social Networks?
Among the benefits you can obtain by registering into one of these social networks is that you can make new friend, contact old ones and even search for some people you have long forgotten.It also offers the possibility of reaching out to some individuals from all around the world and learn about new cultures or new languages.

How do Social Networks benefit the EFL?
Since our students spend so much time on line it can be a great opportunity for them to meet native English speakers and can help them improve their English. It also offers unlimited opportunities to write in English.
Some EFL teachers are going further by using it for reading strategy lessons and writing practices. Social Networks additionally offer the alternative of getting inmediate feedback, or to ask questions and get answers quickly.You can ask questions and receive answers in near-real-time, if your students know the answer. Disscussion may be encouraged and sharing different points of view which will help in learning to look at things from different angles and be more tolerant of other people's opinions.

Although I have known Face book for some time, thanks to my students constantly referring to it, I never saw a real purpose on it, nevertheless I created an account but since I saw no real benefit, I soon forgot my users name. Then I started this course on ICTs and I had to renew my account and I must say that thanks to this I have learned all the benefits it has to offer as a social network in EFL. As a consequence of this I created a group in which I included all my masters group and I named it the “Takamajaka Group in EFL” There we share, as a private group, all sorts of information referring our Masters program, books, interesting articles, web sites and any kind of relevant information to our professional development.

I can’t deny that now, I enjoy the possibilities this social network has to offer in order to contact old friends and even family members long lost. It additional serves as a link to meet other people from other countries who are willing to share their professional experience and a most valuable opportunity to interact in English. So, from being an skeptic, in the use of the social networks I have become a constant user and participant in such a powerful tool.

Communities of Practice

Are groups of people who share the same interest, interact regularly and learn from and with each other (Wegner’s 2006) CoPs are everywhere: at home, at school, in our hobbies, in our lives (Wegner, 2006)

CoPs not only share interests in different areas, they also allow people to participate in communal activities and they could also enjoy through them the experience of getting together due to their interests, being able to create new wonderful things.

This is especially important and represents a great advantage for EFL teachers who are willing to share their experiences and benefit from other teachers knowledge.

As an EFL teacher I have already joined some of the most known communities of practice which I didn’t even knew existed before, let alone, known what they were good for. Thankfully, by being able to get surrounded with Digital literate people in my ICT course, at the Masters program at UPEL, I am slowly getting to know more. Now my next step will be to get more active and involved in. Some of the most known communities of practices related to the educational field are Avealmec, Ventesol, Ventesol, Venelt, Elnet, Wikieducator, Edtech, etc.

References:

http://en.wikipedia./org/wiki/social_network
http://www.whatissocialnetworking.com/

 

Social Networking in the EFL Classroom

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WEEK 7- VIDEOPOSTS

As I was reading different sources to make this post, somewhere in a farthest corner of my mind a memory was triggered. Then after some thinking I finally remembered what it was. When I was still studying at the University, in the very first semesters a group of my course mates and myself, were asked to participate as volunteers in a Thesis project about the use of Videos in the EFL class. The researcher asked us to commit for two  hours twice a week in order to be part of the research. During those sessions we were given some vocabulary words, and after discussing them, we would watch parts of a movie and we were asked to identify those words within the movie dialogues. I don’t remember exactly the details but one thing was sure, we had a wonderful time and we actually learned a lot.

This happened many years ago, when we didn’t even dreamed of using the technology available today and when the teaching of English as a foreign language was based on very traditional and outdated methods.

While I was remembering all this I couldn’t avoid thinking how much ahead of his time that researcher was, and how proud of himself he should be feeling nowadays, knowing that he sure was on the right track.

According to many authors, Videos, are considered one of the most motivating tools that can be used differently in the EFL classroom, distant learning sites, self-study and evaluation situations, for they express and communicate ideas, feelings, and messages that otherwise will be difficult to express with words.

Among some of the advantages in the use of this resource are that they show our students real authentic life situations they provide excellent opportunities to create communicative activities, they can also be used to practice pronunciation, as they are a good source of authentic listening material, they are attractive and therefore help trigger the student’s imagination.

Stepleski (1987) states, “a rich and exciting source of video software for EFL/ESL classes is authentic material. Authentic video material, especially that which represents what goes on in a non ELT environment, designed for its entertaining value rather than language teaching is a rich and exciting source of video for instruction in ESL and EFL.”

Some ways of obtaining or borrowing videos is through the different possibilities the internet offers, being YOUTUBE one of the most popular. However, there is also the possibility of making your own custom made video by using the Windows Movie Maker program.

This last one offers the EFL teacher the choice of creating and adapting the movie to the student’s personal context and needs.

I have myself experienced the use of this program to create a project for my class and had a blast not only using it but being able to use my imagination and creativity in the process bein able to create my own contextualized video and then uploading it to the YOUTUBE channel I created. The idea of using it to teach in my class to my students is a very thrilling one and now I am looking forward to creating many more.

Reference:

http://203.72.145.166/ELT/files/38-1-3.pdfAllan

http://community.eflclassroom.com/profiles/blogs/using-video-the-coming

Watch this very funny and creative video and think of different ways of using it in your EFL class.

I know I have already though of many uses I would give to it in my class, and I can predict it will sure be a success.

My EFL Video

Interview to Maria Aurora Ovalles

This is an interview to Maria Aurora Ovalles, an EFL teacher, with a very special experience. Don't miss it, and send us your comments.

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Maite's Interview on EFL

These interview show the main reasons why I decided to become an EFL teacher, as well as my oppinion and point of view about EFL, so I invite all of you to listen it. Enjoy and your comments will be appreciated and welcome.

Maite

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WEEK 6 - PODCAST

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The new age of technology in which we live, makes it possible for many inventions and discoveries to develop, and one such discovery is Podcasting. Podcasts are files that can be downloaded directly from the internet or that can be accessed via streaming feeds like RSS feeds.

According to Wikipedia free encyclopedia, a podcast is a series of digital files, audio or video that are released and downloaded through web syndication.

Similarly the University of Texas Academics at the Community, Journalism & Research group in the USA are proposing a four-part definition of a podcast: A podcast is a digital audio or video file that is episodic; downloadable; program-driven, mainly with a host and/or theme; and convenient, usually via an automated feed with computer software.^[

By having an MP3 player, or a normal PC. Podcasts can be used.

They were invented so that anyone could create broadcasts or video broadcasts which may include comedy, politics, entertainment, educational projects etc. Podcasts can be used for so many important broadcasts now days and even teachers can send Podcasts to absent students so that they can catch up on any missed lessons.You may also find out any information or enjoy a certain comedian, by searching on the various Podcasts websites. Additionally you can search a wide range of downloads on the iTunes website as well as Podcast and Podalley.

Podcasts were created to be educational as well as for pure entertainment value and you can listen to them just like you would listen to music in the car, when going for a jog, or just while relaxing. You can get information on diet tips, healthy ways to exercise, current news, astrology news, independent comedy shows, radio plays, and much more. All that people need to do is subscribe to a Podcast feed.

The term Podcast was derived from the iPod and broadcast. The name was to show that television and radio shows can be broadcast over a portable device and downloaded whenever you like. A Podcast is created when an MP3 file is made and sent to a client or server which can be then converted into an XML format, then it is published through common internet servers and can be uploaded to different blogs sites for people to see.
In order to receive the Podcast feeds you need to have a type of software on your PC like iTunes for Apple Macintosh and iPodder for Windows XP and 2000.

People realize that this is the perfect way to become well known and break into the industry of music, comedy, acting, and radio broadcasting.  Podcasts will continue to grow as more and more people realize the significance of free broadcasts to just about anything that they want to listen to or watch. The formats that are used are MP3, MP4, text and PDF, and you can use any portable handheld device or your PC to receive the various Podcasts that you subscribe to.

Teachers have been blessed by the technology and its new implications and uses. Prove of this are the podcasts, which ennable us to record different audios such as radio programs,music,TV shows etc.
We teachers are commonly faced with unreal class situations, where our students can seldom participate in authentic situations. Now thanks to 2.0 web tools such as podcasts, real authentic situations can be brought to the EFL class, and expose our learners to all kind of different outputs.Thanks to this 2.0 web tool, students will be able to listen to a radio program, audiobooks, or recorded conversations, where they will be offered a wide scope of extra listening out of the classroom.
Moreover, it will grant us teachers an excellent way to keep our students interested, motivated
and curious of what is there in stock.

References:

 

1. Article Source: http://www.abcarticledirectory.com/

2. "Podcast Production". President and Fellows of Harvard College. http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k1967&pageid=icb.page23750.

3. "Oxford University Press Podcast". http://www.oup.com/elt/catalogue/teachersites/oald7/wotm/wotm_archive/podcast?cc=global.

WEEK 5- WIKIS

A wiki is a web page that can be viewed and modified by anybody with a web browser and access to internet. This means that any visitor to the wiki change its content if they desire. Wikis permit asynchronous communication and group collaboration across the Internet. They also provide usesrs with author and editor privileges.Additionaly they allow to incorporate sounds, movies, and pictures, they may prove to be a simple tool to create multimedia presentations and simple digital stories. Wikis are being used for a wide collaborative activities.

The word Wiki is not an acronym but according to Ward Cunningham: a "Hawaiian word" used as an alternative substitute for quick, and to avoid naming it, the quick-web, it turned out to Wiki.

Wikis have found many scneries but one of the most popular ones are in the Education field. Because wikis are on the Internet, students can access and participate from any location and therefore engage in collaborative activities which otherwise, might not be possible without a classroom enviroment. Wiki's have the capacity of showing the students the evolution of thoughts processes as they interact with the site and its content. They have also been found to be extremly useful in expanding community involvement and interest in their subjects and activities.

What is a Wiki and how does it work?

Technically a Wiki is a combination of a CGI script and a collection of plain text files thet allows user  to create web pages inmediately. The only requirement is to have an Internet connection and a web browser. As you click on a wiki page you have two important buttons to keep in mind The Edit button and the Save button. All you have to do is click on the Edit button and modify what ever you need, then you have to be sure to click on the Save button so the information you have incorporated is incorporated into the text and it is sent to the wiki server and Voila! it is ready. Every time you  or anybody included in the group need to insert some new information in the page, all they have to do is repeat the proccess. This can be done as many times as it is required since wikis offer a powerful and yet flexible collaborative communication tool for developing content. Consequently  wikis grow and evolve as people add material to the site.. 

Finally it can be said that Wikis offer endless possibilities in  any field but specialy in the Education field, as  they represent a rainbow of posibilities which enhance the teaching and learning experience.

From my teaching point of view I have to say that I am thrilled by all the possible things that can be acomplished by the use of wikis in the educational field. The fact that they allow not only me but my students visit the page and contribute and collaborate in the the creation of any chosen project, just by clicking a button represent a great advantage . Additionaly they provide the alternative of engaging in an out the class activity, which is an additional motivating highlight.

References:

• http://www.wiki.org/wiki.cgi?WhatIsWiki
• http://www.educause.edu/elihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki
• http://rhazen.edublogs.org/files/2008/01/wikis_in_schools_futurelab.pdf
• http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/definition/wiki