Week 3 Post: Social Networking and Adult Learning

A quick search for a list of social networking sites led me to a Wikipedia page with almost a hundred (I did not really count) items.  Of course, I had absolutely no idea there were that many out there.  What is even more impressive is that most of the networks focus on a particular lifestyle or interest.  For example, you have crunchyroll.com, a social network devoted to East Asian anime, manga, drama, and much more.  Then there is elftown.com, a web community for the Fantasy and Science-Fiction lover.  But it is not all fun and games.  For example, disaboom.com is designed to be of use to people with disabilities, and writeaprisoner.com helps inmates keep in touch with family and friends.  

            One social networking site that piqued my interest was www.italki.com.  Despite the inauspicious name, italki promises to help language learners develop their speaking skills.  You can search for teachers on the website’s database and choose one based on their profile, or you can make a selection based on recommendations from other users.  Once you have chosen a teacher, you can view her schedule to make an appointment.  How frequently you can take you lessons depends on you.  Students connect with teachers via Skype and the length of each lesson, or session, is determined by mutual agreement between learner and teacher.

            This is a very helpful website because it gives learners in monocultural societies a chance to practice speaking with native speakers of the language that they are learning.  In Turkey, if learners of English want to practice their speaking skills with a native speaker they usually go to their teacher, who may not always be available.  Other than that, they make do with pre-planned speaking lessons, or itinerant speaking activities throughout the school week, month, term, and so on.  If learners are lucky enough to have friends from abroad, that can helpful also.  In addition, it is not difficult for learners to hire a private tutor and simply ask for speaking practice.  However, if time is an issue and if students prefer not to suffer through Istanbul’s infamous traffic going to the lesson from work and then to their homes, Italki.com gives them a chance to control when and how they have their speaking lessons.

            While Italki.com is good for giving students practice in their speaking skills (they also say they can give writing feedback and grammar lessons) I think that having a social network site that can keep a class connected if also important.  To that end I would choose www.edmodo.com.  This social network is the Facebook and Twitter of education.  Richardson (2010) suggests we use it when sites like Twitter “are too Wild West,” (p. 88), and because it “does much of what Twitter does and more” (p.88).  With edmodo.com you can create classes, make announcements to them, send and receive homework, post links, and become an active part of your learners’s learning community.  Edmodo.com can be very helpful with adult learners because it extends the class atmosphere to the virtual environment, making it accessible at all time.  Think about a student with a question in mind.  She can log onto edmodo.com and access class notes or post a question to the teacher or the entire class.  Also, you might not get excuses such as “I did not get the assignment” because the assignment is right there in the virtual classroom for all to see and access.      

            I would use italki.com for speaking practice and edmodo.com for community building and active learning.  For speaking practice I would ask students to sign up with italki.com and find a teacher based on their preferences.  Once they have found a teacher, their assignment would be to have a conversation and report on that conversation the following day using visual aids.  For example, they can show us the teacher’s profile page.  This activity gives students a lot of chance to practice their speaking; first with their tutors, then during their oral reports.  What I really had in mind though, was for the students to record the conversation they have with their online tutors, with the latter’s consent, of course.  The recording can be audio only or video, whichever the student is more comfortable with.  The recording can then be submitted to the teacher, or played back to the entire class.  The latter is the preferred alternative because it allows the learner to get peer feedback from the class.  In fact, uploading the recording to the class Edmodo site is another good way to get peer feedback.  In this way I can cover a lot of ground simultaneously.  The online tutoring sessions give students speaking (and listening) practice, and giving feedback via Edmodo allows students to practice their writing skills in a friendly, comfortable, and informal way.     

References

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.