January 30, 2008 at 8:28 am · Filed under Uncategorized and tagged: homework, skills, social media
What are the pedagogical implications of social media for ELT?
I think that social media is brilliant for languages, it has some useful elements for other educational uses, but language learning is about communication and that certainly happens a lot with social media.
Are you promoting open participatory skills in ELT? How?
Well, I’m doing my best. I have set up a moodle platform for a part-time CELTA course, they’re using that enthusiastically, networking and collaborating well online as well as offline. The Sessums article is interesting and the New Media Literacies site looks worth keeping tabs on. I’ll have to use that list as something to aim for in my teaching.
Can these social media help you? How?
Yes, they’re fun, hip, and in the meantime there is a tool for every need (or if not there will be one next week). At my institution there is no staffroom or regular time to meet other teachers, the teachers tend to get very isolated so this could help them to connect and share ideas. It might also be appropriate for some of the normal courses once the teachers find out how easy it is to use.
January 28, 2008 at 1:06 am · Filed under Uncategorized and tagged: homework
Feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the different social media things I’m trying out (and I already knew quite a few of them). Haven’t found time to read those scholarly journal articles yet (I must admit I got distracted on the Internet this evening after following links suggested in the “What is social media” booklet). Now it’s getting late here and I’ve got to get up with the kids and the larks tomorrow morning so I’m off to bed. I hope to catch up with my week 2 tasks tomorrow and not get too far behind.
January 21, 2008 at 1:24 am · Filed under smielt tasks and tagged: homework, LMS, social media
What have you noticed about the various platforms that you have opened accounts on? What do they have in common? How do they differ?
That question is too big for this time of night!
Are these environments different from LMS (like Blackboard, WebCT, Moodle and others)? How?
Yes these tools are very different to most LMSs. Moodle does go in this direction but I hear that the others are less open to communication and collaboration.
What does “social media” mean for you? Which social media have you used already and what are your feelings about it?
I use delicious a lot, but mostly for myself, I enjoy flickr but rarely post my own stuff., I rarely blog. Some of this stuff will certainly be useful to me, the mashup with Google Earth for instance. Some things are hard to predict. I can’t imagine becoming a twitterter but I bet kids like it. A lot of these things draw you in while you’re there (e.g. the 43 trio) but I have no inner need to return, I feel rather that I’ve wasted my time a bit.
I enjoy helping to create something useful and meaningful, like Wikipedia pages. On the other hand, now that Wikipedia has started taking itself too seriously, the fun is draining out of it. This might be a danger for other applications., too
January 19, 2008 at 12:22 am · Filed under smielt tasks and tagged: homework
After feeling a bit lost on the front page of the Smielt site, I went to the forums and wondered if that was what I was supposed to be doing. Where was everybody else?
Went back and had a closer look at the syllabus where I clicked on Week 1 and found the Week by week guide to what you’re supposed to do.
http://dekita.org/smielt/primer/syllabus/week-1-getting-acquainted
Done these so far:
- Profile set up in dekita
- Written something in social forum and in magical chairs
- Blog set up in WordPress
- Already have Netvibes account so hope that’ll do instead of pageflakes
- Already have dusty flickr account
- 43 places, people and things
- delicious (I couln’t live without this)
Still to do:
- Must still sign up for twitter or jaiku, community walk, voicethread and dotsub
- Must still add links to these things on the blogroll here
- Must write some blurb about me for this blog
- Must still do observation task
- Who knows, maybe I’ll even do some optional extras
If I have a stalker he’ll have a field day following my links with pictures and bio, looking at the neighbourhood I live in, my photos with audio files of personal memories and all my favourite links. I’m pretty transparent right now.
It’s late, I’m off to bed.
